French Rap as a Flash Point

– By Scott Sayare, for The International Herald Tribune –
PARIS — A gentlemanly patron of the arts, Frédéric Mitterrand, France’s culture minister, seems an unlikely champion of rap. But when the French artist Orelsan called publicly for his support at the height of a months-long free-speech polemic around the rapper’s song “Sale Pute” (Dirty Whore), [...]

Strasbourg Journal: Mayhem

– By Scott Sayare –
STRASBOURG, France — Anarchists rise before dawn.
They wore black, the skinny, pale 20-somethings, tattooed and pierced, in masks or balaclavas – the “Black Bloc,” they were called. They were German, French, British, Turkish, all rallied around the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-government cause. They carried red flags marked with the hammer and sickle, [...]

Paris Journal: What a day for a daydream, reprise

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — For six weeks, French mailmen, teachers, train conductors, factory workers and government employees have been rallying the troops, readying banners and stoking the flames of popular discontent here before taking to the streets today in a massive protest.
But on this warm and sunny Thursday morning, you might not have [...]

Paris Journal: Students in the streets

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS – The green trucks and cleaning crews were there well before it was over, waiting in the streets behind the crowd. At 6:15, just before dark, thousands of marchers were asking, “Is it finished?” between cigarette drags. By 6:30, a line of 50 riot police and plainclothes officers in orange arm bands had [...]

The Leftist press a “hostage” of its own ideals

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — The front page was finalized, facts checked and re-checked, last-minute revisions fired off, headlines inspected for the appropriate level of populist bite. The paper even went to print.
But Libération did not hit French newstands last Saturday, except around the eastern city of Lyon.
“With disbelief, the management of Libération has [...]

France: One step closer to genetically modified crops

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Corduroy in the streets: The professors’ protest

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — Roused by mounting popular foment and bristling at the government’s proposed education reforms, tens of thousands of French university professors and students, including as many as 50,000 in Paris, took to the streets across the country on Tuesday. Of France’s 83 public universities, only 15 were untouched by the [...]

Do the French like Sarko? It depends who’s asking.

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — At 8:15 this past Thursday evening, a full 20 percent of France was in front of a TV, hoping for reassurance in a time of fiscal and social uncertainty. But if President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 90-minute Q and A [...]

After losses on gay rights in US, accusations of a homophobic judicial system in France

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — After an American election cycle marked by heated debate on gay rights and which notably saw the passage of ballot measures banning gay marriage in three states and adoption by same-sex couples in another, a ruling by a French regional court has stirred the ire of LGBT groups and [...]

Crossing the border to talk about race

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — In France, contrast and contradiction abound. It is a country at once old and new, liberal and conservative, uninhibited and repressed, imbued with the spirit of Révolution and Résistance and yet clinging desperately to an outdated worldview, dreaming of the past. And as the nation of the Gauls undergoes an [...]