Laurel Zuckerman's Paris Weblog

Has Claude ALLEGRE lost his mind? Former minister attacks French ecologist icon

When Claude Allègre famously called France's Education Nationale a "mammoth", I applauded. Minister of Education at the time, he knew what he was talking about and wasn't afraid to speak his mind.

Of course, he flamed out quickly and thoroughly, and none of his proposed reforms came to pass, in part because he relished a fight more than results.

Why must we learn English at all? French protest

Time magazine recently published an article about the challenge of learning English in France. Students pay high fees to private schools for English lessons after failing to learn the language despite years of studying in public schools. (read Time article here)

French court rules no one responsible for explosion that killed 31, wounded 2500 and caused 2 bn euros of material damages ten days after 911

The dead factory worker wore five layers of underclothing (like a Muslim suicide bomber) and had ties to Islamist groups.

Yet France's highest officials declared the AZF chemical plant explosion in Toulouse to be an "accident" only three days after the catastrophe caused 31 deaths, 2500 injuries and 2 billion euros of property damages. Before the investigation got underway. Ten days after 911.

 For exploring the Islamist ties of a temporary worker of Tunisian origin killed in the explosion, Le Figaro and Valeurs Actuelles were charged with "diffamation.

Swine flu H1N1 cases double in France in one week, vaccination centers swamped

"Une grippette" (a harmless little flu), as the esteemed Professor Débré so memorably and so irresponsibly dismissed the H1N1 virus in July.

Not any more.

H1N1 swine flu killed 23, put 121 in ICU and sickened 730 000  in the last week alone in France, according to Le Figaro.

Vaccination centers, understaffed and poorly organized, are overwhelmed with two to four hour waits and  inexplicable closings.

The Minister of Health calls undervaccinated medical personal, especially nurses and support staff,  "the principle source of hospital infections during flu epidemics".  (See The reasons behind France's Swine flu fiasco*.)

France has decided to switch to one vaccination instead of two for people over nine.

Respiratory infections are at record highs, and the seasonal flu season has not yet officially begun.

The spread of conspiracy theories, however, may now finally be on the decline.

* "la ministre de la Santé, en soulignant que «le personnel soignant non vacciné est, selon plusieurs études, la source principale des contaminations nosocomiales durant les épidémies de grippe».

How to lose weight like a French woman !

FLASH: MAJOR FRENCH WOMAN TRICK FOR LOSING WEIGHT JUST DISCOVERED!  (hint: it gives you cancer and ages your skin. Click here for more on cigarettes.)

Mireille Guiliano's best seller French Women Don't Get Fat hit a raw (and plump) American nerve. Lucky French women! What's their secret?

Some insist that speaking French correctly is so hard that it burns extra calories. Others believe in the magic of red wine. And, of course, French women smoke, but it would be irresponsible to mention that, so better not.

Guiliano herself published a French Women's Manifesto which claims that French women eat three meals a day (basically true), that they care about looks, both their own and their food's (true) and that they don't diet (absolutely false). She also maintains that French women "are individuals and don't follow mass movement". (The guys in Mad Men couldn't have put it better.) .

But what if you are not a French woman? What then?

FIVE WEIGHTLOSS STRATEGIES BY VERITABLE EXPERTS

1. The first, of course, is to become a French woman, not from the north, (where sadly they're as fat as Americans) but from Paris, where nervous ladies with the racy look of greyhounds, rush about on cruelly elegant high heels -- from kids to husband to work to garage (to get the car fixed) to grocery store, to psychiatrist to herbalist to lover to garage (to pick up the car) to kids and husband and dishes and laundry and sleeping pills and -- merde!, time to get up again! (Diet may not be the sole explanation for their svelte looks.)

2 . Change just one thing! Peter Bregman, blogging on Harvard Business Review's site, reveals that all diets have one thing in common: reduction of calorie intake. His solution: go simple. Figure out which single action will have the most impact and do that, just that. In his case, he cut out sugar. And lost 18 pounds. (see To Change Effectively, Change just one Thing)

3. Get really sick. Flu, malaria, dysentery--options are many! For that pale, Kate Moss look, nothing beats disease.

4. Give your food to your spouse. Or, lacking that, your dog. As they say, one woman's loss is another man's gain!

5. Eat only vegetables for dinner. No-one actually likes vegetables, though even the president of the United States cannot admit this (except for broccoli)

 Zucchini, cabbage, cauliflower, beets, green beans, carrots--I've cooked them all with love and my family still acts like it's doing me a favor to choke them down. Don't fight it! use it! From now on, dinner is Herbevore Delight.

The reasons behind France's Swine Flu Vaccine Fiasco

As H1N1 vaccination programs ramp up around the world, France faces an unusual challenge: there's plenty of vaccine but French people--and in particular French medical staff--are refusing vaccination.

This is due partly to the specific  fear that the vaccines might not be entirely safe, partly to a generalized distrust of French health officials due to previous scandals, and partly to a Gallic weakness for conspiracy theories.

1. If the vaccines are safe, why are doctors refusing to get vaccinated?

Fear focuses on additives to the vaccine.

While in the USA, the decision was taken NOT to use additives to boost immune response, in France, the government purchased 94 million doses of vaccines, most with additives then refused to communicate clearly and honestly about the exact nature of contracts worth nearly one billion euros.

The government's muddled message: some of  additives were well-known; while some had been tested less. Patients may neither choose their vaccine nor even obtain information about what it contains. Trust us.

As a result, French medical personal has refused vaccination. And normal citizens are not reassured.

Clearly French doctors and medical staff do not trust the government not to poison them. Why?

Health scandals in the not-so distant past are partly to blame. These include: contaminated blood, contaminated growth hormone, the decision to protect the nuclear industry instead of citizens during Chenobyl, and the disastrous response to the heat wave of 2003.

AIDS: Thousands of entirely avoidable deaths were caused by French officials' attempt to promote the French HIV-screening industry: blood supplies continued to be contaminated by HIV AFTER American screening technology became available because health officials wanted a French solution. See Time article.

GROWTH HORMONE : 117 gratuitous deaths, mostly of children, from Creuztfeldt-Jacob disease due to use of contaminated tissue in the lucrative manufacture of growth hormone. Half of the deathtoll worldwide was in France.

CHENOBYL LIES : To protect the nuclear industry the French goverment claimed that the radioactive cloud from Chenobyl had miraculously avoided France. The evening news showed entirely false maps and French government officials blatantly lied that there were no health concerns. No precautions of any kind were taken to reduce the public's exposure.

HEATWAVE: The stunningly inept response to the heat wave of 2003 which caused 15,000 more deaths than usual in France. Procedures have changed and one air-conditioned room is now required in institutions housing the elderly; however  the most visible result in my town was the disappearance of death notices from municipal publications. (Previously published automatically as public information, this information is now considered privileged: a family member must make a request.)

The idea of collusion finds fertile soil in France, which loves conspiracy theories. A (disgusting) book claiming that 9/11 was all an American-fabricated conspiracy and that no plane ever hit the Pentagon was a mega-best-seller in France. (A polytechnicien colleague of mine praised it for revealing the truth.)

The idea that French health officials would deliberately expose the people to a dangerous vaccine in order to boost pharmaceutical companies' profits is widespread, especially among the educated classes.

The result:  tens of millions of doses of vaccine are available in France but people are afraid to get vaccinated.

Funny observation: in hospitals and doctors' offices, magazines have been removed from waiting rooms as disease vectors. But unvaccinated French doctors continue to shake hands with all their patients, including (like me) the coughing ones.

Click here for Center for Disease Control Update on H1N1