Wait until you see what's under it!
"French women bid topless sunbathing ‘adieu’" by Thomas Adamson | Associated Press September 10, 2014
PARIS — France’s summer is fast becoming a memory, and so is one of its iconic beach sights: topless women.
As few as 2 percent of French women under age 35 now say they want to bare their breasts on the beach, according to an Elle magazine poll this summer. It’s a far cry from the once-ubiquitous scenes of semi-nudity on the French Riviera, epitomized by 1960s blond bombshell Brigitte Bardot.
‘‘It’s seen as vulgar. People are more prudish these days,’’ explains 60-year old Muriel Trazie, sunning herself on Paris Plages, the French capital’s summer beach.
Sandra Riahi, 22, in a bikini, chimed in: ‘‘I’ve never done it. I’d be too embarrassed.’’
In the 1960s, it took a country like France to make feminism sexy — and women did it by going topless on the beach. As some feminists put it: Men don’t have to wear bikini tops, so why should we?
The frisson of fun only increased when toplessness was denounced by the Vatican and condemned by the Spanish church.
When France stood up to a conservative backlash and refused to ban topless bathing in the 1970s, wearing the ‘‘monokini’’ — the bikini bottom without the top — became a symbol of Gallic pride.
But times change, and so do bathing suits.
Some link the demise of ‘‘le topless’’ to a simple change in French fashion styles — with a recent trend for full swimsuits.
Scholars point to the aging of Generation X in France and a step back to traditional values among the more conservative Millennial Generation.
And there’s now an official push to restrict topless sunbathing.
In Paris, an official sign shows a faceless bikini-clad beauty posing on a pedestal. ‘‘In parks and gardens, we don’t forget to wear the TOP and the bottom,’’ says the sign.
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"French arrest terrorist recruiter suspect" Associated Press September 12, 2014
PARIS — French authorities have arrested a man suspected of being one of the top recruiters of young jihadis for the civil war in Syria, the Interior Ministry said Thursday, describing him as ‘‘a particularly dangerous individual.’’
Mourad Fares, 30, was arrested Wednesday night at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport, nearly a month after he was detained in Turkey — a transit country for fighters wanting to enter Syria.
Fares, from Thonon-les-Bains in the foothills of the Alps, went to Syria in July 2013, a ministry statement said. It said he had links to the predecessor of the Islamic State group, the most brutal among myriad jihadi organizations, then to the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
French intelligence agencies have long suspected Fares was among those luring young French people to jihad in Syria. The ministry said his role was considered crucial in cases in Toulouse and Strasbourg.
Two Toulouse teenagers, aged 15 and 16, were arrested upon their return in January — one fetched by his father from the Syrian-Turkish border. Six youths from Strasbourg were arrested after returning home in May, part of a group of 14 reported to have left to join the jihad. The number of minors heading to Syria from France raised alarm bells with authorities early this year.
France, which has Western Europe’s largest Muslim population at 5 million, has been particularly vulnerable to the growing phenomenon of citizens turning to jihad.
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I'm sorry that I've collapsed with the coverage, but remember back when veiled women were being beaten up in France as the cause of all ills?
"France Won’t Meet Budget Deficit Target Until 2017, Government Warns" New York Times Syndicate September 11, 2014
PARIS — France’s economic recovery will be much more fragile this year than originally thought, and the government will not be able to meet targets for reducing the deficit for at least another two years amid sputtering growth, the French Finance Ministry said Wednesday.
The news had added significance with the nomination of Pierre Moscovici, a former French finance minister, to a top economics oversight role in the European Commission. Moscovici is seen as representing a departure from the strict deficit-reduction discipline that the European Commission has advocated — and that France has blamed for stifling growth.
The French economy will expand at a tepid 0.4 percent pace in 2014, well below the 1.7 percent rate the government forecast earlier this year, said Michel Sapin, the new finance minister. The public deficit, he added, will remain at around 4.4 percent of gross domestic product, up from 4.2 percent last year. That is well above the 3.8 percent target that the government had beentargeting in an effort to gradually bring France’s finances into line with the euro monetary union’s fiscal rules.
The forecast came as France stepped up a campaign to push against austerity policies that the government says have delayed a recovery from Europe’s long-running debt crisis — not only in France but across the 18-member euro monetary union.
Sapin amplified that message Wednesday, saying France would “not take measures that would exacerbate the slowdown in growth that we already know.’’
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Targets that will be met? The expansion of French forces in Africa and the Middle East to fight terror!
The bathing suit provided by the Bo$ton Globe doesn't cover much at all.
