royale with cheese
The French arm of
McDonald's may no longer be the target of local farmers and gastronomes who attacked it in decades past. But next month, the chain will ask the French if they'd like
frites with their Mona Lisa, as it prepares to open a branch at what could be called Ground Zero of French culture: the Louvre. As one art historian said, the move represents "the pinnacle of exhausting consumerism, deficient gastronomy and very unpleasant odours in the context of a museum."
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transportation
Jean-Jacques Dulugat learned yesterday why you should never let an unlicensed cabbie give you a lift from the airport. Police tried to stop Dulugat and his family as they got into a van driven by a pair of known solicitors, but the duo took off and led cops on a high-speed chase through Brooklyn...
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ebay
That headline is the good news. The bad news is the $61 million in damages ordered by a French court isn't meant for regular shoppers who have been defrauded when shopping on eBay. Instead, it's been awarded to LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the French luxury goods company behind Louis Vuitton purses (among other fancy things, as you can see from their name). LVMH argued that
"90 percent of the Louis Vuitton bags and Dior perfumes sold on eBay are fakes," and that eBay profited off the sales without doing enough to stop them. EBay can appeal the decision, or simply click the "Pay It Now!" button.
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incompetence
The French bank Societe Generale has announced that a trader "concealed massive trading positions built up over 2007 and 2008 through 'a scheme of elaborate fictitious transactions,'" which ended up
losing the bank 7.1 billion dollars. That's as much damage by a single employee as the subprime-related losses the bank reported in the past two months. Oops.
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advertising
Marketers in France are planning
to beam location-specific ads to your phone via Bluetooth, the common short-range wireless transfer technology that's now included in nearly every new cellphone, reports Reuters. Currently under consideration is just what sort of ad would be compelling enough to tempt consumers to opt in on such messages, since there's no way advertisers can force you to accept
Bluetooth communications.
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piracy
In the U.S., teens
blithely record movie clips; in
France, they produce "near professional" translations. A 16-year-old French kid
translated the final Harry Potter book and posted it online within days of its late July release, and now could face a heavy fine as well as charges for violating intellectual property rights. Police are also questioning other minors who may have helped.
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french fries
House of Representative Republicans will just have to choke down the greasy taste of semantic defeat: the ludicrous 'Freedom Fries' debacle is over.
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europe
At what price chastity? Unable to use the traditional 'A spring came loose in my bicycle seat' excuse to explain away a broken hymen, an industry of plastic surgeons specializing in virginity restoration is growing in Europe, pandering largely to Muslim women about to get married.
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france
A bunch of French
Burger King fans are sick of shouting "O
est le boeuf?" unanswered into the void. And like crazies everywhere, they're organizing on the Internet via petition.
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apple
Liberte,
Egalite,
no DRM? The French are voting on legislation that would restrict iTunes and its ilk from from limiting upon which devices the music can be played or how the songs can be shared. [Photo from recent student demonstrations outside the Sorbonne, just imagine the mattress represents a giant iPod and we're good to go.]
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shopping
The French finally have the right idea about something. Shying away from the stuffy pretension the lugubrious Frogs have usually employed to advertise their food stuffs, one sassy mademoiselle is promoting cheese in the way God intended: by photographing various semi-clad French wenches holding plates of camembert in their bras and panties. Can we — the loyal consumers of numerous baguette-spreadable cheeses — do anything less than offer this visionary a tripod salute?
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Consumerist
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shopping
