France

To a tamer motorist, the haze of exhaust fumes rising amid a chorus of klaxons on the junction of Rue de Varenne and Rue Bourgogne would denote impossible gridlock. But plumber Manu Mota always finds a way. ”There are plenty of places to park. It’s just that they are not legal,” announces the 57-year-old plumber.

Libya has ordered a -million (R73-million) telescope from France, a facility that will give it the finest astronomical views in North Africa, the French magazine Ciel et Espace (Sky and Space) reported on Tuesday. The telescope was ordered by Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi, who has a passionate interest in astronomy.

The French press said on Wednesday that the release of journalists Christian Chesnot and George Malbrunot after four months of captivity in Iraq is surrounded by mystery and murky politics. But the sense of joy and relief that swept the country on the news of the release was reflected in bold headlines — ”Free!” and ”At last!”.

A butcher from suburban Bordeaux in south-western France is the sole winner of Europe’s latest lottery jackpot and is to pocket the hefty sum of €26,2-million (about R200-million), French lottery officials said on Sunday. It was the second-highest EuroMillions jackpot in France following May’s record of €33,8-million.

Six people died on Friday when hurricane-strength winds lashed Paris and large areas of northern and eastern France, cutting power to hundreds of thousands of homes and disrupting air, rail and road traffic. Gusts of up to 130kph blew through the region, prompting the national weather service to issue its second-highest alert.

There is the Scarsdale diet … the Atkins diet … and now: the diet of pig whipworms. The parasite known as Trichuris suis has been given the okay in an unconventional experiment to tackle inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Twenty-nine people with a mild form of an IBD were asked to swallow 2 500 worm eggs every three weeks for six months.

Women who suspect that the lean, muscled divorcee they married lets himself go as soon the ring is on his finger have been given scientific backing. A study of nearly 40 000 American men aged between 40 and 75 found that men who remarry put on weight and exercise less.

Holiday on ice takes on new meaning when you’re high above the rooftops of Paris doing figure eights inside the Eiffel Tower. During the 115 years of the Eiffel Tower’s existence, it has added refreshment stands, trinket shops and fancy restaurants — but nothing quite matches the skating rink in the sky that opened to the public on Friday.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is still alive but ”in the hands of God”, the Palestinian representative in France, Leila Shahid, said on Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, Israel gave the go-ahead for Arafat’s eventual burial to take place at his headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, officials said.

The single life and how to make the most of going it alone — a way of life increasingly chosen by many, sociologists say — is celebrated at a three-day fair in Paris, France, this week. Holidays, hobbies, sports, outings, even how to get the best deals for your finances and phone bills as a ”singleton” are lined up for the show.

Authorities in Paris’s historic Pere Lachaise cemetery have sealed off one of its most-visited tombs to prevent the perpetration of lewd acts on the prostrate bronze form of a murdered 19th-century journalist. The funerary relic of Victor Noir has long been held as an aid to love or fertility by women.

American porn mogul Larry Flynt says he may decide to go into exile if United States President George Bush is re-elected. ”If Bush is re-elected — but I don’t want to even consider the thought for one second — I really have to think about living somewhere else,” Flynt said early on Monday in a strip club on the Champs Elysees in Paris.

Frail Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was admitted on Friday to a French military hospital near Paris for urgent treatment for what is said to be a potentially fatal blood disorder. It is the first time in three years that Arafat, symbol of the Palestinian struggle for statehood, has left his West Bank base, a sign of the gravity of his condition.

Chocolate makers from as far away as Japan and New York have converged on Paris, seeking to carve out a niche in the French market at a five-day industry binge that runs until Monday. Tokyo’s Madame Setsuko, Kyoto’s Ponto and the assorted ”chocolatiers New Yorkais” are rubbing shoulders with European industry giants.

The launch of France’s first gay television channel, Pink TV, on Monday has been touted as a big step for television and a new era for homosexuality in this largely Roman Catholic country. The channel is ”a giant leap for television, a small step in high heels”, presenter Eric Gueho says in a promotional clip.

More than 700 women have volunteered to lie in bed for 60 days to simulate some of the effects of weightlessness, the European Space Agency announced on Thursday. The female test subjects will lie in bed, with their heads slightly tilted downwards at six degrees below the horizontal, for 60 days.

About 1% of adults have absolutely no interest in sex, a surprisingly high figure that is not far from the estimated 3% of the population who are gay, according to a study reported in next Saturday’s <i>New Scientist</i>. Plucky activists have already started campaigning to promote awareness and acceptance of asexuality.

One of France’s best-known philosophers, Jacques Derrida, revered as the founder of the deconstructionist school, has died at the age of 74, his entourage said on Saturday. Derrida, who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, died in a Paris hospital on Friday night.

Belching and farting sheep and cattle, blamed by doomsters for driving the planet towards climate catastrophe, may have met their match. Eructations from farm animals account for a fifth of all global emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that is less plentiful but far more potent than the most notorious culprit, carbon dioxide.

The relatively low ranking of Paris on a survey of quality of life in cities around the world for expatriate workers triggered bemusement in a leading French financial newspaper on Tuesday. Les Echos expressed surprise that the French capital ranked 31 out of 215 cities graded in the annual survey.

A Canadian inventor has devised the world’s first computer to be controlled by the nose and eyelids, New Scientist reports. The gadget could be a boon for people with disabilities who cannot use the conventional mouse, it says. The nose-steered mouse is called a ”nouse”.

A controversy over lice that has had zoologists scratching their heads for almost 250 years has been resolved at last, a report in next Saturday’s New Scientist says. The squabble dates back to 1758, when Carl Linnaeus declared there was one species of human louse, which he boldly baptised Pediculus humanus.

Paris police have discovered an underground cinema — complete with projector, screen, seating and bar — which was set up in a disused quarry beneath the Trocadero in the capital’s plush 16th arrondissement, officials said on Tuesday. The chamber, situated about 20m below ground level, was fed by electricity stolen from power lines.