Hip hop and points for losers: street football cup begins
Street Football French Cup
The street football French Cup kicked off this weekend at Bertrand Dauvin stadium in Paris. It brings together 16 teams from all four corners of France, all vying to be crowned French champions. The game has a different style to conventional football: hip hop music played throughout each short match, teams of five players, black cards instead of red and points for losers.
Radio Feature: Sports Insight
Andre Manoukian talks jazz and philosophy
Talking at the Paris Saint Germain Des Pres jazz festival
Andre Manoukian is the closest the French have to Simon Cowell. The composer and philosopher, who is a judge on the equivalent to Pop Idol, talked about music, life and why he likes Gilles Deleuze, at the Paris Saint-German-Des-Pres jazz festival, which kicked off last week.
Radio Feature: Culture in France
Chatting with Monsieur Chat at Paris graffiti show
Monsieur Chat at the Arteum
If you’ve ever spent time in Paris, are observant and like graffiti, then you won’t have failed to notice Monsieur Chat curled up on the sides of buildings and chimmey stacks across the French capital. The bright yellow smiling cat appears at a new exhibition in the city’s business district.
Thomas Vuille, alias Monsieur Chat, has been painting street art since he was 15 years old, amassing an incredible feline presence across Paris and other cities across the world. At one point Monsieur Chat purred at 80 different locations in Paris alone.
Mr Cat told RFI that around 20 per cent have been “deleted”, some propriétaires obviously not too happy about Vuille climbing across their rooftops to ink another acrylic cat. His new book M Chat provides a chronicle of his journey, illustrating Monsieur Chat’s pawprints around the planet.
Unlikely couples in Paris on Valentine’s Day
Musicians and Performers at the Carnaval de Paris
For this year’s Valentine’s Day, where else would you find improbable couples such as monks, nuns and prostitutes? At the Carnaval de Paris – a vibrant mix of musicians and performers who are entertaining Parisians on Sunday alongside giant statues and carnival floats.
Radio Report: Focus on France
260,500 euros for rusty old car found at bottom of lake
A rusty 1925 Bugatti Type 22 which spent years at the bottom of a Swiss lake sold for 260,500 euros in Paris today at the Retro Mobile classic car show at Porte de Versailles. Although not the most expensive vehicle in the Bonhams auction, it certainly had the most colourful past.
Radio Feature: Culture in France
Whole Train hits France
The graffiti film Whole Train premiered in Paris on Tuesday evening to rapturous applause. The film, produced by German director Florian Gaag, tells the story of four graffiti “writers” whose frustrated creativity and need for escapism thrusts them into an illegal battle for the subway trains of the city. It goes on release at cinemas across France on Wednesday.
A taste of Nordic filmmaking in Paris
Cinéma du Panthéon in Paris
With the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and the Swedish presidency of the European Union, Nordic countries have been at the top of the news agenda recently. But now a slice of Sweden, Norway and Denmark has come to Paris for Ciné Nordica – a five-day film festival at Cinéma du Panthéon celebrating Nordic filmmaking.
Radio Feature: Culture in France
Treaty referendum passes with large majority
Official results announced on Saturday afternoon showed 67.1 per cent of Irish voters in favour of the Lisbon Treaty, with 32.9 per cent opposed.
The swing in favour of the treaty, which was 20.5 per cent, became clear early in the day as results from constituencies came into the national count centre in Dublin.
Radio France Internationale – Lisbon Treaty 2009 – Irish Referendum
on Treaty 2009 – Irish referendum
Recession likely to decide Irish referendum
A Socialist Party poster opposing the treaty in Dublin
The economy is at the forefront of voters’ minds as they vote in the referendum on the controversial Lisbon treaty. Unemployment in Ireland is at almost 13 per cent or nearly 500,000 people. While Gross Domestic Product or growth, is down just over seven per cent on the same period last year.
Radio France Internationale – Lisbon Treaty 2009 – Irish Referendum
La fête de l’Humanité – A weekend of politics and rock’n’roll
A political debate taking place
Communist, socialist and left-wing organisations gathered in the working class suburb of Le Bourget this weekend for La fête de l’Humanité. Although political debate dominated the agenda – a programme of music, art and theatre pleased the crowds at one of France’s biggest cultural festivals.
custom-made radio 