European countries cancelling the Covid debt

Billions of euros, a treaty and magic: understanding the debate on the cancellation of the "Covid debt Le Monde  Adrien Sénécat and  Agathe Dahyot     04 March 2021  https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2021/03/04/des-milliards-un-traite-et-de-la-magie-les-cles-du-debat-sur-l-annulation-de-la-dette-covid_6071914_4355770.html Some officials are calling for not paying off part of the EU's public debts. A proposal that opens a heated and sometimes complex debate. To deal with the crisis caused …

The Vichy Trial of 1942 at Riom

The Vichy Trial of 1942 at Riom In 1940 a great nation found itself at its lowest point in history.  Having failed to act with determination and consistency after the triumph of the Versailles Agreement concluding the First World War, France found itself divided and occupied.  The Nazis governed two-thirds of the country with Paris …

The Freemasons in France during the Occupation

The Freemasons in France during the German occupation. The Freemasons were banned by the Vichy Government from the start, on 19 August 1940.  The defeat had been complete and lightning fast; the government had fled from Paris, then from the Loire (where Churchill visited it) on to Bordeaux.  The choice was between armistice and capitulation.  Then the …

Obesity

This continues on the topic of obesity in connexion with Covid 19, relevant almost equally to France and the UK. Covid 19 has revealed social inequalities: the less well-off and black and ethnic minority people are more likely to suffer more severe forms of the disease and even die of it.  Because obesity affects these groups …

The 17th October 1961

The 17 October 1961 is the date of a set of demonstrations of Algerians in Paris, against the imposition of a curfew. Police reaction was extremely violent, many Algerians were killed and injured, 14 000 were arrested and taken to internment centres where more deaths and injuries occurred.   The state news next morning only made …

Teaching morality in schools in France

Teaching morality in schools in France. The government is reintroducing the teaching of morality in schools, after it was abolished post 1968. Schools will teach morality to children from the age of 5. The official programme is on the Ministry of Education website, and, strangely, the second document in a short list of supporting literature …

Review of ‘The Riom Trial’ By Lieutenant-Colonel Pierre Tissier

Review of ‘The Riom Trial’ By Lieutenant-Colonel Pierre Tissier Maître des Requêtes au Conseil d’Etat Author of “The Government of Vichy” George Harrap and Co. London 1942. In February 1942 Vichy gave the world a strange spectacle, that of a country discussing in public the reasons for its occupation by a foreign power. And the …

Froggy : American bases back in France ?

American bases back in France? The French Cabinet of ministers has agreed to put forward a bill concerning NATO. It would authorise an agreement that France is part of the ‘Protocol on the Statute of NATO military headquarters.’ It seems that passing this bill would enable NATO bases to be present once more on French …

Froggy : The NHS (Reinstatement) Bill

The NHS (Reinstatement) Bill The dismantling of the NHS in Britain has advanced at such a rate that a bill, put forward by Allyson Pollock and Peter Roderick, will be discussed in Parliament on 11 March to ‘Reinstate the NHS’. One example of the NHS disappearing into the private sector without anyone noticing is the …