France

Joint Declaration by Canada and France (No. 341 – October 20, 2010 – 1:15 p.m. ET) The Honourable Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, and Bernard Kouchner (pictured), Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of France, made the following statement today concerning Canadian-Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, who is detained in Iran. Mr. Derakhshan is a Canadian citizen and his companion is a French national. “We are jointly requesting that the Iranian authorities release Canadian-Iranian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, who…

Dear Friends, I’ve been informed that my radio piece on the rise of the Pirate Party in Europe (including France, Switzerland, and yes, Estonia) is airing today. It will be available on any of these stations (and their Internet streams): NYC – 3 pm Eastern – WNYC – 820 AM – www.wnyc.org Washington, DC – 8 pm Eastern – WAMU – 88.5 FM – www.wamu.org Los Angeles – 12 pm Pacific – KPCC – 89.3 FM – www.kpcc.opg Boston –…

The highlight of my weekend was a visit to the Verrollet goat farm in Preslette, a tiny village in Haute-Savoie (Eastern France, near the Swiss border). Turns out fresh goat milk is pretty flippin’ awesome — and not as creamy as I expected. Thanks to Lucy for inviting us along, and taking awesome photos, like this one:

With Obama in the White House, France is hoping to have a much better relationship — at least culturally and culinarily — with the US. However, shortly before leaving office, the Bush Administration approved a 100 percent import duty on a bunch of EU items. France is upset because one of its main cheeses, roquefort, is being hit with a 300 percent tariff. Many read this as one of the Bush Administration’s flipping the bird against France, who still have…

Dear Friends, My piece on the American release of Alan’s War aired on The World on December 22. I apologize for the late notice — this got caught up in my vacation backlog. Audio is here. Happy New Year to all!

While walking around the European Parliament building last week, I invented a new gang sign. EU in da house, y’allz! We spent a great three days putzing around the Marché de Noël in Strasbourg. We’re now in Paris until Sunday, then Lyon for a night. Then Nate comes and we’ll all head to Lucy’s châlet in Pontcharra for two nights, then back to Lyon for New Year’s and then my birthday on the 2nd. I start teaching again on the…

It’s a quiet, early Sunday morning in Lyon. I probably should head down to the baker, buy a couple of perfectly balanced crust and crumb baguettes and get my day started. I looked outside my window and all I see is fog. I didn’t even know fog existed this far inland. I take in a pasty white ambling mass of fuzziness and cold just hovering above and beyond the houses a short distance from my window. I can’t see towards…

Written: November 3 2008 As I type this, we’re on the slow train back to Lyon. We opted to take an earlier, but slower train, instead of braving the rain here in Marseille. It’s been raining on and off here for the last couple days, as was the same in Corsica. But overall, we had a great first vacation — after having only worked a couple of weeks! (God bless the French!) And we’re very much looking forward to getting…

It’s the All Saint’s Day holiday week this week in French public schools — we get a week and a half off from teaching — and so Becky and I are on a working vacation in Corsica working on this pig and chestnut farm (last post on that page) in Lustina, Corsica (about one hour’s drive south of Bastia). So far we’ve met Jean-Mathieu, the 3rd generation Corsican charcutier (he speaks the language, too), his friendly Colombian buddy Felipe (who’s…