1/. Rugby is mostly played in the south of france because of the Vichy government of 40-45. The Germans stamped on the game up North, and the game flourished in the South, Heil Francais...

2/. Like last nights vindaloo

3/. No. France does not actually work.



Terrace 'B' next to Mav, Shaddo, AB, Jeremy and Spud.

France is like an existential parody of it itself. It works yet it doesn't work, it shouldn't exist but just to spite the "busy fools" in blighty it REALLY REALLY does and because of rugby at least half this board are francophiles. Vive la France


There are some things money can't buy!

1 (Beef - I'm not sure if it's deliberate or not, but your answer is a remarkably accurate precis of a diatribe written by an RL fan in one of those tedious League v Union threads on the Sale board a couple of years ago).
There are three main theories as to why RL (it is known officially as Rugby a Treize in France, or Rugby pour Femme in the south) is more popular in the north. Some say it first gained a foothold in the Marais region of Normandy - a desolate marshland whose population is found either in lonely farmsteads or tiny, isolated hamlets. It is thought the game became popular as the locals could count the number of players on a team with the fingers of both hands.

Etymologists at the Academie Francaise (those fatherless sons of bordello keepers who ensure Plastique Bertrand and Johnny Halliday are played endlessly on French radio stations) claim it is because the English word Union is a contraction of Un Ion, which is a phrase in the Agenais dialect for 'another bottle of red, and we may as well have a couple of large marques to go with it - marque being a distillate of wine dregs*).

It is most likely, however, that the 15-man game gained popularity in the south thanks to English ex-public school boys spending their City bonuses on a lovely converted farmhouse in the Gironde (ie a tumble-down pig sty worth FF35) and bribing the local farmers to join in 'a bit of a Boxing Day livener'. This also explains the now traditional Southern French pastimes of cricket, bu@@ery and double-parking massively expensive 4x4s outside schools (most farmers in the Gironde now own a fleet of massively expensive 4x4s, thanks to having sold their tumble-down pig sties for upwards of £650,000).

2 Yes and no. The question implies that Ms Bruni will dump M Sarkozy when he ceases to be president, because he is no longer president. Anyone with the slightest grasp of French politics and the acquisition of wealth will know that the French Presidency is only the first step on the ladder, the second being the Mayorship of Paris (qv Mitterand F, 'How To Rob The French Taxpayer and Get Away with It). There will, inevitably, be a place at the UN, chairmanship of SNCF, Air France and Airbus. So, if it's power and money that has attracted Ms Bruni, then Le Prez has nothing to worry about.
Rumours of corruption, of course, tend to detract from the main achievement of past French Presidents, which has been the accumulation of mistresses. To be frank, if your funeral doesn't bring at least one hitherto unknown offspring to the attention of the press, you haven't been doing your job properly. As Sarkozy has been an adult French male - let alone a French male politician - for more than 45 minutes he will have already established a number of mistresses (rather charmingly known colloquially as a cinq a sept, thanks to the two hours spent between 5pm and 7pm with one's concubine, while 'working late'*). Most French politicians marry French women, as they are well accustomed to the idea of their men having un peut a la cote (try telling that to my wife's lawyer) so Sarkozy's taken a bit of a gamble by marrying a foreigner. Oh, hang on, she's Italian. Forget that last bit. And the bit about corruption.
The only real threat to M Sarkozy's marriage is that he gets re-elected and is actually as clean as he claims to be.

3 It's called the Common Agricultural Policy. Those people unfortunate enough to work in industries essential to servicing the needs of French farmers (Pastis production, tax evasion specialists, manufacturers of massively expensive 4x4s) actually have to go out and earn a crust. Everyone else can pretty much do as they like. Millions of taxpayers across the EU wonder how the French managed to do so well out of the CAP, while farmers in the other member states are taking off their socks and reaching for the 12-bore. Thanks to 17 years of intimate study of the French I can reveal the secret. The principles of the CAP were set out at the Stresa conference of 1958 - it is no coincidence that in the foyer of the conference hall was a stand sponsored by the Syndicat d'Initiative d'Agricole Francais. Prominent upon this stand were the liberal free samples of wine, Calvados, Cognac and Pastis. Somehow, late in the afternoon, the French managed to sneak in a couple of amendments and sub-clauses that were remarkably favourable to their native tillers of the soil. The tractor driver (probably not a French farmer but a Slovakian sub-contractor) in his ten-minute drive up and down a lane was carrying out France's monthly CAP obligation in order to qualify for their E12.5bn* annual payout. If you get the I-Spy Book Of Holidays in France, he's worth 300,000 points, which will make Mrs OP Big Chief I-Spy.


*These are actually true

Something else also true. When it was found that Mitterand had a long term mistress his popularity shot up in the polls.
Not only will Mr Sarkozy have to keep the lovely Ms Bruni in tow but theres a chance he might have to find half a dozen bits on the side to stay in power.
He's not known as the 'American in Paris' for nothing.

And something else also true. They do play rugby in the north, just look at the Fed leagues, its just they are not very good at it.

Elodie came to live with me in the UK in '93, when all the Tory 'sleaze' and BSE were filling the papers and the TV news bulletins.
Her comment on the sleaze (senior ministers being caught having affairs) was along the lines of 'why all the fuss?'
On BSE it was: 'where are the farmers? why aren't they driving herds of cattle up the Mall?'
Vive la difference, eh?

Will Carla Bruni dump Nicholas Sarkosy once he ceases to be President?

Carla Bruni will slowly subsume Nicholas Sarkosy until he is but a mere shell of his former self. She will then ouse from her crysalis like an over-ripe camembert left out in the sun and wreak a terrible reign over the french for a thousand years.

Faites attention ce que vous souhaitez, vous pourrait le recevoir

Just back from my place in Burgundy and can tell you Rugby is second only to cycling down there but it is the road stuff not velodrome which they believe is for girls.

Don't see their girls doing very well in the velodrome at the minute. ;-)

That's afair point but there is the cooking and washing up to do you know!