‘Smell blindness,’ or anosmia, a common coronavirus symptom, isn’t a pleasant experience for anyone. But for an oenologist, it’s also a serious professional handicap.
country: France
Stay informed on France with Worldcrunch. In-depth coverage of French politics, economic trends, societal changes, and cultural events with expert translations. Highlights include Paris, Lyon, Marseille, French cinema, gastronomy, modern literature, and cultural events.
Young people no longer answer the phone if they haven’t been warned that the call is coming. Employees working remotely insist on organizing their schedules as they see fit. Women want to put an end to men dictating the tempo of their relationship.
Watching the nightly news on television was a recipe for unhappiness. It’s just one lesson from two years on the road in Europe, even though the depressing headlines will follow you through other channels.
As France and its overseas departments mark 200 years since Napoleon’s death, his role in spreading slavery to the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique is prompting more and more to reverse his heroic legacy.
Announced several years ago, 3D-printing in the building industry is becoming a reality with the first houses already going on sale in the United States. Start-ups and manufacturers predict this could be a revolution for the construction industry.
After the young Black American poet’s breakthrough at Biden’s inauguration, some say her work shouldn’t be translated by white non-women. One woman writer from Martinique says these critics are undermining the essence of translation.
Family members who lost a loved one in the early months of the pandemic, at the height of the restrictions, are now demanding a national day of mourning.
In this era of plenty (even in the midst of a pandemic), humanity faces a key question: How can we cope with excess without sinking into decline?
By closing bars and restaurants, we are not only depriving the sharing of meals but also the real exchange of ideas.
A French judge used a stand-in for the role of the groom, registering her ex-boyfriend’s name as her husband because she feared he would marry another woman.
The French have been under a strict curfew for months. Now they’re being ordered back into lockdown, but with little evidence that these Draconian measures even work.
Perhaps it was looking to make a statement about the carbon footprint of the food industry, or maybe it was hoping to hop up the Eiffel Tower some day. No one will ever know why (or how) the tiny Guadeloupean frog clung to a banana for 6,400 kilometers to land in Europe, but the odd […]
The usually hushed words of international diplomats is a reflection of our real-time communication age, but also of rising tensions on an unsettled geopolitical chessboard.
A pandemic and a maritime accident teach us the same lessons: humility, fragility and ultimately human ingenuity. Risk is impossible to predict, except that we know it always exists.
Close brushes with bulls are part of the culture of Arles, which maintains a strong tradition of bullfighting in local Roman ampitheaters and annual festivals with well-organized courses of the bulls through the streets of the southern French city. But on Tuesday, it was the bulls who chose the time and place to brush with […]
Ten years after the popular Syrian uprising against the Assad regime, we see the wider impact of both the moral and a strategic error committed by Western democracies to not intervene.
Since its founding in 1949, the iconic French weekly Paris Match has published countless photos of the rich and powerful — and every now and then, a paparazzi shot might cost them. This time, instead, it was a homeless man demanding the magazine pay serious VIP money for running a photograph of him without his […]
The official announcement came Thursday evening from European Union health officials, but it simply confirmed what we already knew: the AstraZeneca vaccine is safe. And most European countries will recommence distributing the jab, as the vaccination campaigns continue to be far slower than promised. For Guy Vallancien, a member of the French Academy of Medicine, […]
Can nature save capitalism? Biomimicry is thought-provoking because it provides many sources of inspiration to calibrate production models to nature, and thus continue to grow while respecting our environment.
Could the 2020s be an era of prosperity? The pandemic has paved the way for digital, biological, and ecological revolutions.
Three survivors of terrorism in France are now being targeted online for the compassion they have shown towards the children of Islamic militants. They are taking the power in their own hands and taking the social media giant to court.
Delays in vaccination, bureaucracy and a lack of solidarity between member states are putting new strains on the already fragile Union.
In France, at least, all those days and nights in lockdown didn’t result in an upswing of bouncing babies.
A growing number of women are speaking out against the pervasive harassment they experience in hospitality schools and apprenticeship situations.
Plastic pollution has contaminated our oceans to the point where a new ecological niche of anthropic origin has been coined: the ‘plastisphere’. The bacteria that proliferate there could lead to the next health crisis.
For decades, France did well in accommodating the religious needs of Muslims — on the condition they went back to their country of origin. Now, demands to express one’s faith are often labeled: separatism.
The world’s linguistic heritage is facing a crisis just as serious as that of biodiversity. A French project is trying to save what exists in the Pangloss collection, powered by new tools of Artificial Intelligence.
Talk about the use of documents proving immunity evokes a measure invented more than a century ago by French authorities.
Are the lives of the youth impacted by coronavirus restrictions worth less than the extended lives of the elderly? This is the debate we must have when faced with the prospect of another lockdown.
The pandemic is too big a crisis and too unpredictable to respect the normal trade rules governing pharmaceutical developments.
Parenting can be a tricky thing. Who can safely say they’ve never, in the heat of the moment, brandished over-the-top threats to try to get unruly offspring to comply? And who ever follows through? Well the scene earlier this week inside a family home in Limoges, France, was looking familiar, as reported by local radio […]
Yes, they are both French. Yes, those are their real names. No, they weren’t driving a Ford Gran Torino.
The almost aptly-named village of Barr, considered one of the wine capitals of eastern France, has been targeted by vandals who may have been making a political statement about pandemic lockdown measures. Last Saturday night, someone stole the final “R” from the main town sign, proudly standing on a roundabout near the famous Route des […]
A near fatal act of sabotage at a French opera house wound up in a courtroom last week, after a feud between stage hands offered an unsuspecting audience a moment of true drama six years ago. Let’s rewind back to January 28, 2015, at the Théâtre du Capitole, in the southern French city of Toulouse, […]
A New Year’s Eve ‘free party’ in Lieuron, France, became a state affair. While politicians are quick to condemn and punish the fête’s organizers and attendees, they offer no real solution.
The virtues that laid the groundwork for Western civilization’s many advances are being eclipsed, it would seem, by an internet-driven rush of irrationality.
A pillar of French culture, the Paris Opera is struggling to survive both the pandemic and criticism of its lack of diversity. Will such an important institution be able to withstand the changes of time?
Democrats who reach the White House do not necessarily play into the hands of Europeans. It is up to them to unify their voice to pass their agendas.
The customs border between the UK and the EU is back, with new rules and regulations, an influx of hastily trained agents, and a technology overhaul.
Before it even began, the pandemic was already on the radar of big risks — and yet we were unprepared. Will it be the same for cyber security and environmental threats?