Got vacation days saved up? Not as many as the French workers, that's for sure: at one hospital in Paris, workers have accumulated over 2 million days off!

Here's the story of how a law mandating 35-hour work week backfired:

French workers get comped vacation time added to their base five weeks of annual leave if they work longer than the mandated 35-hour work week and apparently even the French can't take all of that time off in a year. Nevertheless, "By law, they must take those days off by the end of this year, but that could mean closing hospitals for months."

Just to put 2 million days into perspective, that's 5,475 years of vacation time. There's no indication of how many employees are sharing that pool of vacation time, but if it were just one, they'd just be finishing a stint of paid time off that started in B.C. 3467, that is just around the time when the Sumerians invented writing and the Sahara started turning into a desert.

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Unfortunately for the man, there were yet more problems in store. Police also spotted that he had been siphoning off waste oil from his car into the sewer at the time.

Disposing of waste oil in this way is an offence in France, with serious cases risking up to two years in prison and a fine of €76,000 ($97,000).

The moral of the story: if you do something illegal, don’t get caught with your head in a sewer. Link -via Arbroath

You say catsup, I say ketchup ... but the French say it's simply banned. That's right, if you love ketchup in France, and you're in school, then you're out of luck.

In an effort to promote healthy eating (and to protect traditional French cuisine), the French government has (largely) banned ketchup from school and college cafeterias:

"France must be an example to the world in the quality of its food, starting with its children," said Bruno Le Maire, the agriculture and food minister.

Ronald Reagan's White House may have considered ketchup — made famous by Henry John "H J." Heinz, who produced the first bottle in 1876 — a vegetable. But Gallic gastronomes view it with the same disdain as American television series, English words and McDonald's restaurants: unwelcome cultural impostors.

Jacques Hazan, president of the Federation of School Pupils' and College Students' Parents Councils, told the Times of London that the new regulations are a "victory."

Kim Willsher of the Los Angeles Times reports: Link

Link Image via FKY

Béla is a street performer in France whose cats are the real stars of the show. His grandfather tamed tigers for the circus, and Béla carries on the tradition with house cats. And he is very protective of his cats when the occasion calls for it. This documentary by Paul Trillo has English subtitles when necessary. Link

The city of Lille, France had a beautiful municipal swimming pool. It was an Art Deco masterpiece built between 1927 and 1932 by the architect Albert Baert. But over the years, the support underneath the pool was weakened, and it was declared unsafe in 1985. Instead of abandoning the building, the city undertook an extensive renovation project, turning the facility into a museum called the La Piscine-Musée d’Art et d’Industrie André Diligent. The locals just call it La Piscine. See more pictures of this beautiful building at Kuriositas. Link

(Image credit: Flickr member graham chandler)

How a lady and her hat scandalized Paris.

In 1905, a painting shown in Paris shocked the public. Critics reviled it; religious and conservative moralists made speeches against it. The artist who painted it was vilified as a “wild beast” and a victimizer of women. But the painting could hardly be called pornographic. It wasn’t even a nude; it was only a portrait of a fully-clothed woman with a hat.

THE EXHIBIT

While a group of nontraditional painters prepared for a fall exhibit in Paris, their president, Monsieur Jourdain, urged them not to show Woman with a Hat. Jourdain considered himself a forward thinker who fought against the narrow-minded traditions of France’s powerful art establishment. But he also knew trouble when he saw it. He warned the group that this modernistic work, by a struggling artist named Henri Matisse, would ruin their exhibition.

THE WILD BEASTS

When Le Salon des Independents opened its doors and Parisians got their first look at Woman with a Hat, they either howled with laughter or gaped in horrified shock. The entire exhibition was derided. Matisse’s painting became the star clown in a three-ring joke. The verdict of the public, and most of the art critics, came in loud and clear. Woman with a Hat was outrageous “barbouillage et gribouillage” (smears and scribbles). It was called barbaric. It was an insult to women as well as to art. Matisse and the rest were nothing but fauves …wild beasts.

THE PAINTING

Woman with a Hat was a portrait of Matisse’s wife, Amelie, wearing an enormous, feathered hat. Critics thought the painting looked strangely unfinished and crude. What shocked them most were those odd, clashing colors that decorated the feathers of Madame Matisse’s hat and illuminated her face. Parisians might be sophisticated, but this painting confused and repelled them. Amelie Matisse was a respectable brunette, but in the portrait she sported brick red hair, an unnatural slash of dark green creasing her forehead, and mint green shading on the bridge of her nose. How could a man paint his wife in such a fashion? Rumors began to fly that all was not well in the marriage of Henri and Amelie.

THE PAINTER

For Henri Matisse, the scandal was just another dark episode in a painful struggle. Born in Bohain, a poor unlovely, industrial town in northern France, Henri was already a lawyer when he dismayed his working-class parents by deciding that art was his life’s true calling. Painting never came easily to Matisse; he studied constantly. When he failed to break into the prestigious mainstream of French art, his family labeled him an embarrassment with no talent. But Henri, as uncertain and depressed as he was, had bigger worries than rejection. By 1905, he was 35, a married man with three children -and he was broke.

He’d pinned his hoped on the 1905 exhibition. A hardworking perfectionist, Matisse believed that at last he was bringing something new and valuable to art -the joy of bright color. He painted Woman with a Hat to communicate his emotions and, he hoped, the soul of his subject. Matisse didn’t portray the true colors of nature because he was determined to paint the colors of his heart.

THE MODEL

Amelie Matisse was a rebel with a cause, and her cause was her hubby’s genius. Madame Matisse might not know art, but she knew Henri; whatever he did had to be great. Born in Toulouse in southwestern France, Amelie took Henri to he birthplace. When she showed her husband -a child of the cold, gray north- the hot colors of the south, she changed their lives, and the future of painting, forever.

Henri kept going back to the exhibit, fretting over the jeers and insults. But Amelie stayed at home. She never lost faith in Woman with a Hat. The world must change; she would not! And sure enough, slowly, the world changed.

THE BUYERS

Two American art lovers, Gertrude Stein and her brother, Leo, visited the exhibition again and again, mostly to see Woman with a Hat. They knew it was a complete break with tradition, but while others were horrified, they were impressed. A week before the exhibition closed, Leo offered to buy the painting for 200 francs. Henri could hardly wait to get rid of the unlucky canvas. His morale and his funds were very low. But Madame Matisse held out for 500 francs. The extra 200 francs would buy their daughter’s clothing for the winter. She told her husband to sit tight.

Amelie’s faith in the painting proved justified. Woman with a Hat became a turning point for Matisse. Leo Stein not only paid the 500, but he and Gertrude also promoted Henri Matisse among the people they knew (along with another artistic upstart named Pablo Picasso).

THE LEGACY

The artists of Le Salon des Independents eventually took on the term wild beast with pride, calling themselves the fauve movement. The fuss over Woman with a Hat made Matisse famous as well as notorious, and he became a leader of the French avant-garde. In time, the world became excited by Matisse’s revolutionary vision of art. Critic praised him as the creator of modern painting, the liberator of color. In fact, Matisse was so famous and so well loved, that some young artists found him too respectable, too bourgeois.

As for Madame Matisse, she later said that she was at her best in crisis, “when the house burns down.” It never surprised her that the world came around to her point of view. Years after her death, visitors at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art still cluster around her portrait, the delightful Woman with a Hat.

______________________________

The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History Again.

The book is a compendium of entertaining information chock-full of facts on a plethora of history topics. Uncle John’s first plunge into history was a smash hit – over half a million copies sold! And this sequel gives you more colorful characters, cultural milestones, historical hindsight, groundbreaking events, and scintillating sagas.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. Check out their website here: Bathroom Reader Institute

“It was making people gossip,” said one town hall employee. “Remarks were made, during weddings for example.”

Mayor Gerard Cordon persuaded councillors to approve 900 euros in this year’s budget to buy a replacement, a more conventional bust of Marianne modelled on the statuesque French model Laetitia Casta.

The artist who made the rejected bust, Catherine Lamacque, said she gave it outsized breasts deliberately, “to symbolise the generosity of the Republic.”

I suspect that had it been a full nude in the Academic tradition, no one would have noticed.

Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: AFP

Remember the story of the eccentric Frenchman Louis Mantin, who ordered that his opulent mansion and estate be turned into a museum 100 years after his death? National Geographic has a gallery of photographs from inside the mansion, showing the decor and some of Mantin’s possessions, like these battling frogs. Link -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Jérôme Mondière)

In the French village of Allouville-Bellefosse, an oak tree stands. No one knows for sure how old the tree is, but it is considered the oldest tree in France -botanists estimate 800 years. A fire hollowed out the tree in the late 1600s, yet it survived and sprouted leaves afterward. The people of  Allouville-Bellefosse considered it a miracle and built a chapel and a staircase inside! Read all about it and see more pictures at Kuriositas. Link

Mantin only had a few years to indulge his aesthetic fantasies. Knowing that his death was approaching, he made a will in which he made sure his treasured house would be saved.

“In the will, he says that he wants the people of Moulins in 100 years time to be able to see what was the life of a cultured gentleman of his day,” said assistant curator Maud Leyoudec.

“A bachelor with no children, he was obsessed with death and the passage of time. It was his way of becoming eternal.”

When the 100-year mark passed, the house remained abandoned and in no shape to open to the public. Isabelle de Chavagnac, a descendant of Mantin’s, threatened to exercise her right to inherit the mansion if it didn’t open as a museum. She didn’t really want the estate, but her actions forced the local government to allocate funds for renovation. The house then opened as a museum, as Mantin wished, in 2010. BBC News has a video tour of the home. Link -via Gizmodo

Seasoned visitors to the City of Light always factor in their travel plans the two most prevalent facts of life in France: vacations and strikes. Fortunately, school vacation periods are scheduled in advance with clockwork regularity. Strikes may be nearly as predictable. This preliminary study suggests a strong correlation between occurrences of the two.

(Image credit: Flickr user Trey Ratcliff)

The right to protest and demonstrate in France is a fundamental part of life, and not limited to the employed. In fact, foreign visitors in Paris in December 1997 might have witnessed a somewhat surreal event: hundreds of unemployed people on strike, demonstrating in the streets, demanding an end-of-the-year bonus.

But if there is one thing the strikers will not sacrifice, it is their hard earned (and constitutional right to) vacations. Witness the school teachers who went on strike in May of 2003, suspended the strike at the end of June for their summer break, and came back at the beginning of the next school year, in September, to resume the strike. Indeed, major issues had remained unresolved.

Needless to say, strikes are very unlikely in July and August (summer break), as at least three quarters of the workforce are away on vacation, and so is most of the government. At this time of the year, Paris is populated with tourists and the grumpy quarter of Parisians who got stuck at work while the others are chilling out on the Riviera or camping in Normandy. (This might be an explanation for the poor image of Parisians tourists tend to have, but that is a topic for another study).

In September vacationers come back in town, broke, to find out that the cost of living (public transportations, food, gas, etc.) has gone up while they were gone. Vacationers have to go back to work, days are getting shorter and the weather is worsening. Expect strikes from mid-September to beginning of October. Not too late in October, though, because that would interfere with the first school break (All Saints break, from end of October to beginning of November).

The next high occurrence period is mid-December, when the days are getting really short, the weather is downright miserable and people feel broke and start worrying about the holidays. Some privileged categories of indispensable workers regularly threaten to go on strike during the holidays, but generally the issues get resolved in time for everyone to enjoy the end-of-year festivities.

In January and February, the outdoors activity on everybody’s mind is winter sports. Two school vacations, the winter break (late February to mid-March), and the spring break (mid-April to early May), help Parisians survive until the return of warm weather. Everyone is relaxed from the last break, and the anticipation of the next. There is hardly any time left in between to get back to work, let alone sneak in a little strike or protest.

(Image credit: Flickr user malias)

May–June is quite a complex period, due to the number and distribution of holidays in May. May 1st is Labor Day and May 8th is the WWII armistice. In a good year both occur on Monday or Friday, providing two long weekends. On an excellent year, they occur on Tuesday or Thursday, and with the “ponts” (“free” non-working days granted to bridge one-day gaps between holidays and week-ends) that’s two four-day weekends. Ascension Day comes 39 days after Easter, and that is a Thursday in May. In an excellent year, that Thursday does not coincide with the other holidays, and that’s another light week (or very long weekend). In fact, in a really good year, an employee can get the whole month of May off by taking about 10 official vacation days. Of course, even in France, not everyone can do that at the same time, so about half the people are away, and the other half are stuck at work, a day or two per week, and not doing much anyways.

When June comes, the weather becomes really pleasant, the Roland-Garros Tennis tournament (French Open, end of May to beginning of June) signals that the end of the school year is close, the summer vacations are around the corner and everybody is eager to get outdoors. After the end of the French Open, expect major protests with demonstrations en masse. This is the favorite time of the year for students to take to the streets (as end-of-the year exams approach). The strikes and demonstrations will most likely stop on time for Parisians to travel to their favorite summer spot come July.

Note that on a bad year, the May holidays coincide with weekends. The French feel cheated: expect the pre-summer protests to start earlier (although demonstrations are unlikely during Roland-Garros).

(Image credit: Flickr user Les Hutchins)

So this is why April is clearly the best time to visit Paris: the weather might not be great yet, but the chance of major social disturbances is low, and the Parisians, either coming back from a vacation or about to go on a vacation, are likely in the best mood they’ll be in all year.

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This article is republished with permission from the May-June 2008 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!

Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.

Sacrebleu! France has just passed a rule stating that anyone insulting the French national flag could be fined €1,500:

France has introduced a rule to protect its national flag from insult after a photo of a man wiping his bottom with the tricolour caused outrage.

Under the rule, anyone caught trying to "destroy, damage or use the flag in a degrading manner" could face a fine of 1,500 euros (£1,250; $1,900).

The offending picture won a prize in a photo contest in the southern city of Nice in March. It was later published in a free national newspaper.

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YouTube link

This scene from the 1942 classic, “Casablanca,” is so patriotic and moving. Belt out La Marseillaise and raise a glass of champagne. Vive La France!

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This means that couples who insult each other repeatedly could now be charged and face up to three years in prison. [...]

The law defines mental violence as "repeated acts which could be constituted by words or other machinations, to degrade one’s quality of life and cause a change to one’s mental or physical state".

"We have introduced an important measure here, which recognises psychological violence, because it isn’t just blows (that hurt) but also words," Nadine Morano, the minister for family affairs, told the lower house of parliament.

Those found guilty of breaking the new law will face up to three years in jail and a 75,000 euro (£60,840) fine.

"The judge could (also) take into consideration letters, SMSs or repetitive messages, because one knows that psychological violence is made up of insults," Ms Morano said.

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See Monet vu du ciel (Monet seen from the sky), a video of Claude Monet’s masterpiece, La Cathédrale de Rouen, created by 1250 people holding up pieces of the Impressionist painting. The artwork begins about halfway through the video. Very cool!

Link – via Why Travel To France

In 1556, a man calling himself ‘Martin Guerre’ had returned to his home village after disappearing without a trace for several years. He lived with Guerre’s wife
and son for three years. But he was not Guerre.

On September 16, 1560, in the small French village of Artigat in the foothills of the Pyrenees, an unusually large crowd gathered to witness the execution of a young peasant. He was neither a murderer nor a thief, but a man who had tried to pull off an audacious confidence trick – and had very nearly succeeded.
A born actor, Arnaud had little difficulty in convincing the villagers that he was Martin. How did he fool Bertrande? How could a wife not know that the man she was living with was an impostor? Or did she know?

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by MrGhaz.

One of the most glorious sites in France is the Les Invalides, a complex of buildings featuring a hospital, museum, and mausoleum where the spirits of soldiers and the turbulent past of France make this site a memorable experience.

The Église St. Louis des Invalides was the grand initiative of Bruant and his successor Mansart. On display within the walls of this masterpiece are the many flags captured by the French army. Soon after, Louis XIV constructed the Eglise du Dome, built in the vision of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. A section was cleared from the north of the central building to the River Seine and the Pont Alexandre III. It was here that the most recognizable and influential leaders of the military were laid to rest, including Napoleon Bonaparte.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by lannaxe96.

“The hamster in the world of children is that little cuddly animal. Often, the adults who come here have wanted or did have hamsters when they were small,” said Mr Falquerho, who was dressed as a hamster.

The price for the room is currently 99 euros for a night, but the price will go up when Wifi and a TV screen are installed. Link -via Arbroath

Campaigning MP Valerie Boyer, of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party, said the wording should read:"Retouched photograph aimed at changing a person’s physical appearance".

Mrs Boyer, who has also written a government report on anorexia and obesity, added: "We want to combat the stereotypical image that all women are young and slim.

"These photos can lead people to believe in a reality that does not actually exist, and have a detrimental effect on adolescents. "Many young people, particularly girls, do not know the difference between the virtual and reality, and can develop complexes from a very young age.

"In some cases this leads to anorexia or bulimia and very serious health problems.

"It’s not just a question of public health, but also a way of protecting the consumer."

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– Thanks Tiffany!

Though largely lost on passing schoolchildren and tourists at the Morris Museum, these monkeys were once a scathing critique on French aristocracy. There is a monkey on a early sort of bicycle called a velocipede, a monkey harpist, a monkey violinist, two small monkey musicians, and an incredible monkey dandy under a large glass dome. All are dressed in fine silks with hair done up in the style of French Royalty. These automata were a post-French-revolution joke on the former rulers and current dandies of France. So popular was the theme of foolish aristocratic monkeys that it was common in French homes, and whole rooms were decorated around the theme.

Read more about the mechanical monkey fad at Curious Expeditions. Link

After World War II, the French could not afford the most sophisticated military equipment, and so improvised with what they had on hand. Hence their production of scooter-mounted 75mm recoilless rifles. Blogger James R. Rummel offers more information and photographs of this vehicle.

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Everland is a hotel with only one room including a bathroom, a king-size bed and a lounge.  What makes it so different is that – because it is also an art installation – this hotel travels! The Everland has been ‘parked’ in the most unsual places, like the roof-deck of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Leipzig, Germany.

Now the hotel is in Paris, high above the city, with a spectacular view on the Eiffel Tower from its place at the roof of Palais de Tokyo.

Considering how unique a night in this hotel is, the price is not so crazy: you can get the only room and the unique view for 333 Euros during the week, 444 Euros during the weekends.

Link – via uglydoggy

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by scbr.