Want to save the planet? Wear your jeans two days a week, wash them every fifth day, and let them dry by themselves. Or better still, don’t wash them at all. And don’t even think of ironing them. This is the conclusion of a report commissioned by France’s environment agency on the ecological impact of a pair of denims.
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/ 17 February 2006
History contends that the ashes of Saint Joan of Arc were gathered up from the pyre on which she was burned alive and tossed into the River Seine. Anxious to avoid creating a martyr, the English, who had ordered her death in 1431, wanted nothing left of the 19-year-old French heroine. According to legend, a devoted follower managed to find and conceal some of her remains.
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/ 28 February 2005
As a call to arms, few national hymns are as bloody as La Marseillaise. Originally entitled the War Song of the Army of the Rhine, it exhorts citizens of France to take up arms: ”Form in batallions, March, march! Let impure blood water our furrows!” Now, after a 10-year battle, French schoolchildren are to be made to learn the words after a vote by French MPs.
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/ 23 February 2005
French prosecutors are taking action against the youngest son of the Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi, who is alleged to have beaten a pregnant woman during a rampage in a Paris hotel. Motassim Bilal Gadaffi, known as Hannibal, will be summonsed for questioning about the alleged attack, during which he is also said to have scuffled with police and brandished a gun.