The difficulty with a site dedicated to everything French is there is often little of interest to report. Oh, there are Jacqueries and strikes and bellyaching and scandals and boondoggles and the loopy politics, but these are such commonplaces that even the French, who have an immense capacity for self-fascination, yawn.
But France has some 1,500 odd years of history (depending on what is considered France) from which to cull something of greater interest than Catherine Deneuve's diaries. Hence the commencement of this irregular feature. It is the hope of management that the Pave community and not a few Frenchies will find it edifying.
Yesterday, April 19th, in French history:
1127 Birth of Saint Felix of Valois, a French hermit who, with Saint John of Malta, founded the Order of the Most Holy Trinity, also known as Trinitarians whose specific mission was to ransom captives from the Moors. French "secular" politicos continue the good saint's practice to this day.
1906 Pierre Curie, French physical chemist, co-winner of the Nobel prize (1903), is run over while crossing the rue Dauphine in Paris and killed.
1948 The Vietnamese resistance defeats the French army at Tam Vu, Can Tho Province.
2004 The wingless Concorde SST reaches top speed of 8 MPH. Both British Airways and Air France lost confidence in the now defunct Anglo-French white elephant after an Air France Concorde crash at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris in 2000.
Some days, no doubt, are better than others.
The French character IS eternal.
The Charles De Gaulle crash had nothing to do with the Concorde's retirement. The accident was caused by a debris on the tarmac, not an mechanical problem.
Blah blah blah, The dinosaur didn't die out because of natural selection. It tripped on a rock!
What papertiger is trying to say is that a well designed aircraft should not be destroyed by runway debris. I can't think of an Airbus or 747 that ever crashed for that reason.
The real reason it died was that it was just not profitable to operate.
Boeing figured that one out in 1969 and killed their SST project. France and The UK I'm sure decided the same thing at about the same time, but they were playing with tax payer's money so they did not care.
Viva La France
the commercial failure of Concorde is mainly due to 1973 and 1979. it remains a technological and political achievement.
Don’t worry about the Concorde, you frogs can always take the tunnel over (or I guess you would say “under”) to see what real people are like in Great Brittan. Maybe even go to a pub, have a nice glass of porter (instead of that CHEAP frog wine), get your ass kicked, again, by some English bloke, and hear what a real language sounds like. Besides, the tunnel needs your support!!
The hyperapoplectic M. Zoomerx, who posts faster than he reads and reads faster than he comprehends, answers a point not advanced. Though to say the crash had nothing to do with the eventual demise of the Concorde ignores the subtraction of 100 patrons from its teeny base of paying customers and the damper big bad news puts on any business.
PT, I am astonished to learn that all of dinosaur-dom fatally tripped concurrently on ill-placed rocks. Please, cite your fabulous sources.
De-programmer, what happened to the Concorde was fluky, not bad design.
Jimbo correctly gives the official cause of death.
M. Goldsoundz is correct that, as boondoggles go, the SST was a significant technological and political achievement, as is most anything actually accomplished in harness with the French. (I missed the significance of the elliptical clues 1973 and 1979.)
However, one questions the appropriateness of governments developing a luxury aircraft for a small coterie of wealthy jet-setters (return full price fare was £8,200, i.e., ~USD$14,500) but underwritten by Joe Paycheck.
No comments on St. Felix of Valois?
DGB
DB,
The Concorde was financially doomed before its first and last crash, I know that. By the way, the debris left on the tarmac was from an American Airlines plane. Coincidence? ;-)
andy,
France just kicked England's ass a month ago (6 nations rugby tounament - undefeated)!
M. Zoomerx,
I see you flirt with conspiracy, so best to get your facts straight:
The DC 10 registered N 13067, operated by Continental Airlines, had taken off five minutes before the Concorde to undertake Paris-Newark flight COA 55. Since this aircraft, seen briefly at Paris Charles de Gaulle on 30 August 2000, could be the aircraft which had lost the part, a technical investigator assisted by the Accredited Representative of the NTSB and by FAA specialists visited its base at Houston to examine it in the presence of representatives of the operator.
Note: only one aircraft, an Air France Boeing 747, had taken off between the DC 10 and the Concorde.
[Emphasis added.]
The Bureau Enquêtes-Accidents concluded that the metal strip was the wear strip from a CF6-50 engine fan reverser cowl of the Continental Airlines DC 10. However, the BEA found no sinister American boogeymen on the tarmac.
Turn off the night light, sleep tight.
DGB
1973: first oil shock, price of crude oil multiplicated by 5
1979: second oil shock, price of crude oil multiplicated by 3
unfortunatly, Concorde was quite a guzzling plane conceived while oil was cheap, and the oil shocks definitively made it unprofitable.
andy:
Concorde was never designed to join Paris and London.
M. Goldsoundz,
Indeed. Merci.
DGB
M.DGB:
What is your purpose on St.Felix of Valois? suggesting that the Moores 900 years ago were terrorists and that the French were dhimmis?
All right Damian, relax, Continental it was. Have a beer on me.
The Pleasure Party...Ooh la la! Put a burqa on her and she might win some votes.
Another date in French history:
21 April 1965 - French women are finally allowed the right to open a bank account by themselves and to work without their husband's permission.
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/felina/doc/femm/datesfemmes.htm
Enjoyed your post!
A fluke is an event so unlikely that it does not pay to guard against it. For instance, a fluke would have been to have a fuel tank pierced by a meteor. After such an event, no sane person would suggest fitting aircraft with meteor proof fuel tanks. But debris on the runway is a fact of life. That is why policing the runway is common practice. When human lives are at stake, as well as billions of dollars, very small risks must be taken very seriously. If a piece of runway debris that can reasonably be expected to occur can bring down a plane and kill its passengers, the plane cannot be said to be well-designed.
Aside from that, what helped kill the Concorde too were the inordinate number of maintenance hours required to keep it flying. Another sign of bad design.
M. Goldsoundz,
Ah, bravo, not much gets by you. I was really thinking of the particular relevance of S. Felix in light of contemporary French policies.
M. Zoomerx,
You might want to direct your solicitude closer to home. Thank you for standing me a drink, though. Now where do I send the chit for reimbursement?
DGB
Robert M.T. Hunter was born on April 21, 1801 he was a pro-slavery and a real southern man, he later quit the congress to join the south
april 22 first slave revolt 1526 why revolting? they were american!
Congress orders all US coins bear motto "In God We Trust" what a surprise!
All National League teams intergates, John Irwin Kennedy is 1st black on Phillies 1957 not so bad eh!
p.s. Damian don't be childish, don't tease my nickname
Adam, you have to admit that your previous nom de plume of Adam Smith was histerical, given your politics, but never mind. My question is this: Why is it so easy to find contemporary examples of French racism toward and segretation of Muslims, and yet you have to go back half a century for your examples?
Why is it so easy to find contemporary examples of French racism toward and segretation of Muslims?
mainly because immigrants from Maghreb came massively in the 60's and 70's. A century ago French racism was directed towards immigrants from Italy, and then from Poland.
yet you have to go back half a century for your examples
true, racism completely disappeared in the usa more than a century ago... didn't it?
Mmm baseball integrated in 1957. Eight years before French women were allowed to get a checking account. That is so weird. I can't even imagine the need of legislation to gaurantee someone (anyone) the ability to open a back account.
I was courious to see when, or if America ever denyed women openning bank accounts. Couldn't find anything directly about banks , but i did find Married women's property act of 1848.
From the article it appears women had property rights in colonial America ( I suppose to include bank accounts ) up until they married, In which case their rights and all worldly property would be transfered to their husband. The married women's property act returned women's property rights to them regardless of marital status.
true, racism completely disappeared in the usa more than a century ago... didn't it?
Show me where I said that.
On a side note, there was a French journalist on TV here the other day who was refreshingly honest. He said what the French posters here won't admit to. That pre-Iraq war, only the Iraqis had to suffer, and that was too bad for them, but other considerations were more important.
I read that to mean HUILE! Which was what France's motives were really about. And when the French complain that the US was fighting a war for OIIILLLL. They were really complaining that we were getting in the way of France's theft of the birthright of the Iraqi people.
What I find hillarious about that argument, is the same people oppose the war on the grounds of the "suffering of the Iraqi people". Defend that polliwogs.
Hey I like that last insult. 'polliwog'It references their puirile arguments, the old frog insult, and the WOG insult all in one word. There was a good minute's work.
Good post goldsounds. Indeed, listening to out friends here (and most pro-Bush posters in general), you really would get the impression that racism or discrimination has been completely stamped out of their society.
we didn't stamp it out. Thats a socialist concept - That your going to force people to live this way or that through the iron handed fist of government regulation.
We grew out of it. Racism is a tired political ploy, drug out by Democrats at election time. Generally it is overshadowed by the incumbent democrat's gross incompetence.
de-programmer,
France had other intersts than going to war, so what? Welcome to the real world, the US never rushed to "save our asses" in WW1 or WW2, did they?
Does it ever occur to you that France and Germany did not see a necessity in going to war and that Irak only represented a small fraction of their revenues (by the way, the US imported more oil from Irak than France)? It's hillarious how the WMD question has slowly faded into oblivion by the way.
Yes, WMD has gone away. Its been replaced by the Oil for Fraud program.
"US never rushed to "save our asses" in WW1 or WW2, did they?"
Yeah, and we never hear the end of it. Pacifists and isolationist held sway in the US in the early forties. Along with the belief that Europeans were an inherently bloothirsty people, viz 19th and 20th century, who were unfit for democracy.
So you are taking the same moral position that the US has been criticised by Europeans for the last half century for taking? Every time I go to the UK, I hear at least one crack about us Yanks being late for the war. How was our position before we got involved in the war any different than your position now?
Hitler was a European problem, not an American one? What did it matter if only Europeans were suffering?
" Irak only represented a small fraction of their revenues"
This would no longer have been true if France had won the day and kept Saddam in power. France would then have controlled 100 billion dollars worth of Iraqi oil. The contracts between Franch and Saddam exist and have been published. Even for the US, 100 billion dollars starts to add up to significant money.
"France had other intersts than going to war, so what? Welcome to the real world"
Your open defense of corruption is touching, by the way.
Now we are starting to see the real reason that France wanted the Oil for Food program and the sanctions continued, even after Saddam no longer controlled Iraq. They wanted one last draught of filthy lucre. France, Russia, Germany, and the UN.
Because you don't read about these contracts which were signed with Iraq, and which would have gone into effect had Saddam stayed in power, and the sanctions been lifted is very telling about how interested you are in truth. It seems like if they could be disproven, we would read the arguments in Le Monde, or Le Figaro, but we don't even see the charges acknowledged.
Your complete refusal to even consider the possibility that the charges against France and the UN might be true is a testiment to the efficiency of your goose-stepping press.
I hope that Paul Volcker will have enough power and international supports to make his inquiry.
it's true (and it angers me too!) that the "oil for food" corruption scandal has little cover in the French medias. but the charges are reported. as an exampe, you can look at this article which points out that 42 French people or firms appear on the list.
april 22 first slave revolt 1526 why revolting? they were american!
*Bzzzz!* Astoundingly poor guess, my captious Canuk!
A) There would be no America for 250 years
B) They belonged to Spanish explorers, and
C) They were revolting because they were slaves
No consolation prize, but thanks for playing!
andy,
Remember that the US media was claiming left and right that French WMD would be found in Irak. If the oil for food charges don't stick either, they'll find out Saddam was a big fan of Edith Piaf and blame the French again.
What ever works Zoomer ;)
You get the hang of posting links?
Thanks for asking, but I can't seem to make it work (the URL link doesn't highlight when pointed at)... What am I doing wrong?
Zoomer
Try typing an HTML sentence posting it here and use [] brackets instead of > greater then. then I can figure out what your doing wrong.
let me show you an example.
[a href="http://www.pavefrance.com/blog/"]pave[/a]
pave
see the web address has to be inside "quote marks"
there has to be a space between the [a href=
the trigger word will be ]between[ the brackets
and the final close atrib will be one whole [/a]
or you could google up HTML language and search an online explaination of the various tags and how to link , how to link half way down a page to a specific article, how to change fonts, and colors, how to make lists, bullet points, quotation box whatever
The Oil-For-Scam is a real scam, Francophoney. Just because your media doesn't report it doesn't mean it wasn't a scandal. Piss off and tell your government to stop sponsoring terrorism, Francophoney.
Papertiger,
On behalf of [a href= "http://www.poopdeck90210.com/ww2his/degaulle.htm" la France éternelle/[/a], thank you.
shit.
Papertiger,
Thank you.
On behalf of La France reconnaissante , please accept this wallpaper we hope you will be proud of.
Salutations distinguées.
Heh Right on Zoomer
Pro-Freedom,
It's hard to imagine how France would "sponsor" terrorism when we don't tolerate this kind of practice.
You're full of shit.
M. Zoomerx,
Before pronouncing on the plenitude of an opponent's excrement you best double-check your facts. Here's the story you linked to, Pro-stoning Imam Faces Expulsion. It refers to the case of M. Bouziane and the story was dated 4.20.2004. Your post is dated 04.27.2004.
However the Lyon administrative court suspended the expulsion order, then on review upheld the suspension. The linked story is dated 04.26.2004.
Is there nothing in the French press about this?
DGB
Anyone who labels France as a "sponsor" of terrorism is full of it, Mr. Bennett.
Regarding the Imam, I was just making a point, regardless of the Court's decision.
Zoomer
You have to wonder what a muslim would have to do to get expelled from France. Why don't you research French archives and find a few cases of terrorists being deported, and post them here? Then we can all gauge the merits of French criteria for sending trouble makers home.
I'm afraid we're in the same boat, Papertiger, we both live in free societies where even a few rotten apples have "rights".
Zoomerx:
Your photo of Charles de Gaulle is from Germany. Could you not find a nice little French photo?
Funny, because I just purchased a “political biography” of de Gaulle today at the booksellers. Used, for 50 cents. I couldn’t pass it up, at that price. I have another book by the same author, Alexander Werth, “The Last Days of Paris”. I’ll let you know how this one ends….
There's a French joke that goes like this:
De Gaulle comes out of the shower bare naked, at the same time his wife enters the bathroom. Caught by surprise, she screams "Oh my God!". De Gaulle answers: "Oh please Dear, just call me Charles".
After seeing that photo, I think I finally understand the French fixation with American obesity - they think we're depriving them. There are Americans running around with two and even three chins while there are Frenchmen like DeGaulle who don't even have one.
I also finally understand that I have to thank France for the inspiration of much of my childhood amusement. I spent countless hours with one of those things.
