Stories du Moment
Slashing public holidays, Duplomb law backlash, Seine swims, and an ode to a newsman (+ other recommended reading and listening!)
Every time I start these newsy missives, I intend to keep them succinct. Then I get going… This time, the topic of the moment is political, but I hope you won’t stop there if you’re here for the lighter updates. If you’re new here, this series covers the good, the bad, and the works-in-progress. I’ll be back next week with another Leaving America conversation, but in the meantime, I hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription to access the archives, extra material each month, and event updates before they go out to anyone else. Take 15% off an annual subscription until Aug 1!
POLITICAL UNCERTAINTY: A SUMMER TREND
We’ve got a new piñata in politics this summer in the form of French Prime Minister François Bayrou. An ineffectual centrist and uncharismatic flip-flopping figure, Bayrou has had a long career, particularly as a party leader, but is best known for his recurring and previously failed attempts to break into the government's upper echelon. In 2017, Bayrou became justice minister in Macron’s first government but was forced to resign within a month due to an EU funds misuse investigation involving MoDem (Le Mouvement démocrate), the party he created after the 2007 Presidential election. He may have been acquitted later, but as you can imagine, the optics weren’t great.
All along the way, he has struggled to excite, inspire, and challenge the status quo. He talks endlessly about “balance,” “moderation,” and “national unity,” but these words ring hollow in today’s fractured landscape. He is often maligned for being out of step with the urgency of political currents, which feels especially true now.
Since taking office in 2025, Bayrou has failed to project any real authority. He leads a minority government and relies on procedural tricks and backroom deals to pass even basic legislation. But his latest grand idea to tackle the debt (hovering at 5.4% of GDP) might see him censured for real: cutting two public holidays and freezing certain social benefits. As
wrote last week, “pensions are considered the third rail of French politics; holidays are Chernobyl.”How about effectively taxing corporations and billionaires? It's impossible, they say, followed by the oft-repeated refrain, “if we tax them, they’ll leave the country”. They said it once again as recently as last week. But that tactic is pure bluff, and this mass exodus they speak of is essentially myth, overblown for political cover. In France, less than 0.25% of the rich flee for tax reasons. Barring that option, what about a real audit of the hundreds of billions in public subsidies, tax breaks, and exemptions handed out to corporations and organizations annually? Crickets.
As if that weren’t the only thing going on… On July 8, the French legislature passed a disastrous bill, the loi Duplomb, that was sold by allies and farming lobbyists as a relief for French agriculture. Contested by both the scientific and medical communities, the bill relaxes red tape on large livestock buildings and water reservoirs, weakens environmental oversight, and permits the reintroduction of neonicotinoid pesticides like acetamiprid and flupyradifurone, which had been banned since before COVID due to their adverse effects on bees and potential human toxicity. Among the arguments from sugar beet and nut farmers, especially, is that these pesticides are permitted in other E.U. countries, and they have no other alternative than to use these chemicals. Untrue: the Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire, a French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety, has already been consulted twice on the matter and both times issued the same conclusions about the existence of effective, operational alternative solutions.
Expectedly, the backlash to the bill's passing was swift, with a student-initiated petition garnering more than 1.7 million signatures in less than two weeks, urging the government to reconsider the bill. That number is “well beyond the 500,000 signatures that enable parliament to bring the petition to debate, and by far the most signatures since the introduction of the official petition site in 2019,” wrote Alexander Hurst in The Guardian. Legally speaking, the petition is unlikely to do much to stop this, even if there is a debate at the end of summer. And it looks like Macron intends to forge ahead.
Watching the administration retreat from its environmental leadership potential doesn't get easier.
READ ALL ABOUT IT!
From Pakistan to Paris: Ali Akbar has been selling newspapers on the left bank every day, rain or shine, for 50 years. This piece is such a lovely tribute to a man I recall meeting on my very first summer in Paris. President Macron may have awarded him the Legion of Honor, but that doesn’t free him from a common immigrant experience, as he told Roger Cohen:
He is deeply grateful to France, which he calls a land of asylum, not least for the education it gave his children. But he believes that as a brown-skinned foreigner he “will never be completely accepted,” as he put it in his book, “I Make People Laugh, the World Makes Me Cry.”
CARE TO TAKE A DIP IN THE SEINE?
Would you? It’s not for me, but I delight in the excitement of others who have taken and keep taking the plunge. I spoke to a few urban swimming fans for this Condé Nast Traveler report, which also provides the practical information you need to know if you plan to dive in, but if you want other takes, check out this one and this one.
A CHAT WITH A PARIS INSIDER
This was a delight. It runs longer than my usual podcast episodes, but I hope you’ll listen while you’re on the beach (are you on a beach?!), on a long train ride, cooking at home, or looking to escape to Paris from your armchair. Food and travel writer, event producer extraordinaire, and general man about town, André Michel joins me to talk about why Paris has never been more dynamic, what’s exciting him in food and culture, and what to order right now at Jacques Genin. Click above to listen or subscribe to The New Paris Podcast on Spotify.
RELATED READING
OTHER READS & NEWS
No you didn’t imagine it, the French cool-kid sneaker brand really is everywhere. How locals are wearing their Salomons in Paris. (Brut)
Related: I included a bit of background on them here.On the role of ethnography in French cinema in the 1960s: my friend (and previous podcast guest) Laure Astourian’s book The Ethnographic Optic examines its place in several New Wave fictions and cinéma vérité documentaries during the final years of the French colonial empire. (Open Access Indiana University Press)
French Booksellers take a stand against the influence of a conservative billionaire (The Guardian)
This very topic came up at a private book event I did earlier in the month in Paris.Pregnancy shouldn’t be so dangerous (The Nation)
In France, in America, anywhere.Secondhand luxury fashion is booming, but so are the counterfeits. (Bloomberg)
I reported this one for months and have loads of insights from various industry voices that ended up slashed from the final story (😢), which I’ll probably share separately. What I find most fascinating is how much the narrative has shifted from a general understanding that counterfeits are bad and dangerous (not just to designer houses’ IP but to our health and safety) to an excited embrace of fakes in response to ‘greedflation’. My next podcast episode will be a conversation with Vestiaire Collective’s co-founder, Fanny Moizant, so stay tuned for more on this.An ode to lunch! (The New Yorker)
”Lunch is the Thanksgiving of meals, neither underwhelming nor extra luxurious, adapting easily to various contingencies and configurations. It is what you make of it, whether you’re lingering over mignardises at Le Grand Véfour or scarfing down last night’s beans.”The joys of Perros-Guirec & Les Bassans in Brittany (me for Afar)
Will I, one day, take climate refuge in these parts? It’s possible. Did I mention I saw dolphins?
NOW OPEN
A left bank outpost of Slow Galerie (6th arrondissement)
The first La Romaine Editions boutique (7th arrondissement)
A third boutique for La Trésorerie, this time on the left bank (7th arrondissement)
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Love these round ups!
I swam in the Seine at the Bercy site a couple weeks ago and it was glorious! Could see little fish in the water as I stepped in, which seemed like a good sign. So far, no weird rashes or mysterious diseases have appeared, haha. For those who are willing to take a dip, I think it can be a lovely source of connection to the city :)