Here is an example of that special French something the rest of the world is missing in its news -- the drifty free association of remembrance.

Cannibalism is committed in France. That reminds AFP of cannibalism in movies, cannibals in novels, and cannibalism elsewhere. Not much about the actual story, the recent cannibalism committed in France.

PRISON CANNIBAL ATTACK CHILLS FRANCE

PARIS January 7, 2007 (AFP) - A French self-confessed cannibal was in custody at the weekend after apparently eating bits of a fellow prison inmate in a gory case raising questions about psychiatric care in detention centres.

Immediately following this lede, AFP serves up two paragraphs of triggered memories as an entrée to its story.

It also brings back memories of Japanese Issey Sagawa, who 25 years ago killed his Dutch girlfriend in Paris, ate much of her body over three days and went on to become a celebrity at home.

Reminiscent of psychopath Hannibal Lecter in the 1981 film "The Silence of the Lambs" -- who was "having an old friend for dinner" -- the 35-year-old French prisoner may have fried parts of a cellmate's lungs and chest with onions before devouring them, investigators believe.

In a write-up of 741 words AFP expends fully 51% (378 words) on non-story reporting. This is not background, nor context, it is diversion from the story itself -- cannibalism in a French prison:

The prisoner -- named by the French daily Le Parisien as Nicolas Cocaigne -- has confessed to the attack and been charged with premeditated murder and "violating the integrity of a corpse".

... Samuel Lepastier, a psychiatrist at the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital in Paris, said Cocaigne probably suffered from major schizophrenia. He would have regressed to a state of early-childhood anguish and rage, exacerbated by prison conditions.

... "You can't always detect the mentally ill among the prison population," Lepastier told Le Parisien.

No. They cleverly camouflage themselves among the sociopaths, psychos, and malcontents, easily mistaken for the mentally sound.

But Cocaigne's lawyer, Fabien Picchiotino, said the prison authorities had ignored early warnings. "This drama could have been avoided if my client had been placed in psychiatric care, or if the recommendation of the investigating judge to place him in solitary confinement had been followed," he said.

Prison director Yves Bidet refused to say whether he had been warned that Cocaigne was dangerous.

From this point, the remaining 318 words are about other things, more important things than cannibalism in a French prison. Nowhere in the whole story is there a single word about a single chilled Frenchie as promised in the headline. Not one. A better headline might read:

CANNIBAL ATTACK PROVOKES AFP REMINISCE

PFFT (What is this?): The news as madeleine 3½ | Rayonnement français 0