39Vaugirard

I guess we all needed to be able to turn the hotel amp up to 11, which is essentially what adding “palais” to the old star distinction means. Of all the new “palais,” we’ve only stayed at the Hyatt Vendome, which is certainly a wonderful hotel, but is it a palace? Like any expensive hotel the world over, it has it’s over-priced closet rooms that overlook an airshaft, as well its million dollar a night arena-size apartments.

PARIS (Reuters) – France granted a few top hotels the right to call themselves a “palace” on Thursday, a label which distinguishes them from rivals and is designed to boost the country’s profile as a luxury destination.

The eight winners of the accolade include Paris hotels Meurice and Plaza-Athenee, both owned by the Sultan of Brunei, as well as the Bristol hotel, owned by Germany’s Oetker family.

and 39 rue de Vaugirard…

“We expect significant commercial and notoriety boosts from this accolade,” Didier Le Calvez, head of the Bristol told Reuters.

“Perhaps other countries, such as the U.S. and the UK, might now think of giving the same label, countries which have the same hotel heritage as France….The palace label means winning a prestigious decoration which is valid for five years.”

Criteria to obtain the palace label include the hotel’s location, historical significance, room comfort, personalized service, multilingual staff, health and spa facilities.

The Ritz hotel in Paris, the Four Seasons George V, and the Negresco hotel in Nice all failed the exam to get the label.

The Park Hyatt Paris Vendome, owned by the Hyatt family, also got the right put the palace plaque on its front door along with the Grand Hotel du Cap Ferrat in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.

Other winners include LVMH’s Cheval Blanc and Les Airelles, owned by Stephane Courbit, former chairman of media company Endemol — two neighboring hotels nestled between trees right on the slopes of luxury French ski resort Courchevel.

L’Hotel du Palais in Biarritz, on the French Atlantic coast, also won the right to call itself a palace.

[From France doles out new "palace" label to top hotels - baltimoresun.com]

Those French, so logical and practical, yet so infuriating to the American sensibility of freedom and waste. Ten years after the Hummer was introduced as the ultimate extension of small apartment masquerading as automobile, this seems like a sensible step, especially in cities where there are no mountains to climb or icy roads to navigate. Bulky, gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles (SUVs) could be banned from the chic but traffic-clogged streets of Paris within 18 months following a resolution passed by the city council.

Denis Baupin, a leading Green party councilor who tabled the resolution, says the designer jeeps are “not suited to towns” and he could not understand why people drove the fashionable “off-roaders.”

“They’re polluters, they’re space-occupiers, they’re dangerous for pedestrians and other road users. They’re a caricature of a car.”

[From Paris bid to ban designer jeeps - CNN]

I would not shed one crocodile tear if San Francisco, the most French of American cities, decided to also do away with SUVs. Our Supervisors are at war, instead, on all cars with a mission to slowly eliminate all parking and give over extra lanes to bicycles. Unfortunately, their brains apparently run on only one track since they don’t ever seem to ponder the mass transit needs to replace cars in a city with many unscalable hills

Well, no more heaters that allow folks to sit outside and smoke. Paris is moving to ban outdoor heaters at sidewalk cafés.

I’ve heard more and more that these propane heaters are the single worst thing many homes have in the way of polluting devices. Still, I guess like wood-burning fireplaces, it’s sad to see them go.

France long held out against the smoking bans being enacted worldwide in public places, but finally caved in three years ago. But while the inside of Left Bank cafés has been less foggy, the café-clope (coffee and cigarette) culture of the city has continued to thrive by simply spilling into the streets, thanks to the gas heater.

Paris move to ban outdoor heaters at cafés in fresh blow to smokersThe devices have blossomed in the capital since 2008, bringing ever-greater numbers of Parisians outdoors. But now the Socialist and Green-run town hall has declared war on the heaters, calling them an ecological disaster.

I love the line from socialist deputy mayor for trade: “Warming the little birds in winter is not very useful,” said Lyne Cohen-Solal, the Socialist deputy mayor in charge of trade.

Paris has been deserted until today, the last day before school officially starts. In other years, we noticed an increasing activity each day leading up to school day. This year though, things are different. Several hypotheses:
1. Many people without kids still have this week off and are Still lazing on the beach somewhere.
2. Those with kids did indeed come back, but are laying low, depressed about the end of the summer. They are sleeping in and only coming out after lunch.

What’s the story? Does anyone know?

Are these the current postage rates in France?

Standard first-class letters (20g or less) and postcards within France cost €0.56; to continental European countries (from Scandinavia to Portugal), Baltic states, Greece, and the British Isles €0.70; to other European or Eurasian countries (Iceland, Russia, etc.), Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania (Australia, New Zealand) €0.85.

The movement to more aggressively change admissions standards and affirmative action strikes at the very heart of what France is and will be. We in the United States, despite our seemingly endless racial issues and divides, are far more used to the pulls and pushes of the new global economy. Sure, we are all scared of losing what we thought we had in some lost golden time we remember, but we do have 50 plus years of addressing hidden inequities. That’s not to say that we have solved them, by any stretch of the imagination, but we have tried numerous approaches and most of us know as Americans that our history has and likely always will be in a diverse population.

At the same time, this evolution is fraught with with the same pulls of meritocracy versus affirmative action, “standards” versus opportunity. And this is felt the most strongly at the Grandes Ecoles in France, where accepted students are almost guaranteed a life of success, even more so than one would expect from a degree from Harvard or Yale. For years, students at these schools were social and economic class-selected because entrance exams were not only intentionally culturally biased, but because some kids just didn’t get the early education that would allow them to even be considered.

Very early on, in middle school, kids are selected for tracks. If at that time, you’re not considered to have the potential to eventually take the BAC, you are on a very different track. While in graduate school in Paris in the ’80s, at the decidedly not “Grande Ecole” Paris X Nanterre, I tutored kids like this at the Lycée Matignon. Many of the very bright kids there had been designated as “losers” in the game of meritocratic selection. This private school. for kids whose families could afford it, made up for bad choices and slow starts, and the kids were all destined for bigger careers than as butchers or assembly line workers.

In the debate recounted in today’s New York Times, we see the familiar tension over whether affirmative action will affect standards, or enrich the future of France by finally bringing non-White Frenchmen and women into the highest ranks of French education.

I say good luck to them on this aggressive move and how they address standards and cultural differences. They are in for a rough road though, I fear. France is so monolithic a culture, so codified, that it will be even harder for them to determine what is and is not important for intellectual success. For a very good lens on the current challenges of integration in France, make sure to see Entre les Murs, or “La Classe”” in the American release.

PARIS — France is embarking on a grand experiment — how to diversify the overwhelmingly white “grandes écoles,” the elite universities that have produced French leaders in every walk of life.France is prodding schools like Sciences Po in Paris to set a goal of increasing the percentage of scholarship students to 30 percent.

Because entrance to the best grandes écoles effectively guarantees top jobs for life, the government is prodding the schools to set a goal of increasing the percentage of scholarship students to 30 percent — more than three times the current ratio at the most selective schools. But the effort is being met with concerns from the grandes écoles, who fear it could dilute standards, and is stirring anger among the French at large, who fear it runs counter to a French ideal of a meritocracy blind to race, religion and ethnicity.

France imagines itself a country of “republican virtue,” a meritocracy run by a well-trained elite that emerges from a fiercely competitive educational system. At its apex are the grandes écoles, about 220 schools of varying specialties. And at the very top of this pyramid are a handful of famous institutions that accept a few thousand students a year among them, all of whom pass extremely competitive examinations to enter.

[From Top Schools in France Pushed to Open Meritocracy - NYTimes.com]

Wow! This is like post-war inflation, just when the European economy can least afford it. When I see 10-!%% increases in gas and electric, i wonder how this will get passed on to the consumer. Already, these charges looked more like the utilities bill of a 6000 square foot house in the United States.

Pre-buying stamps in Europe is always a good investment.

POSTAGE

Buy your stamps today at a bargain — the ones with no monetary amount printed on them, because tomorrow, the postal rates go up (information thanks to Eric Tolbert):

Letters within France increase from 56 centimes to 58.

Letters/postcards to US increase from 85 centimes to 87.

Letters to other European countries increase to 75 centimes.

Pre-stamped envelopes (prêt-a-poster) will be good for whatever rates are in effect when they are used…so stock up on these today, too.

GAS

“Residential gas goes up 4.7% in July following a 10% increase in April. If gas is used only for cooking, the July increase will be just 2.1%. In 2008 GDF cut-off 10,000 customers for non-payment but expects to cut-off 300,000 this year because of the increases.” (Information thanks to Eric Tolbert.)

ELECTRICITY

EDF has received regulatory permission to increase electricity prices this year by 11.4% followed by a 3.5% increase in 2011. There is hope for the future in that EDF is going to increase investment in nuclear energy from 500 million euros per year to 2 billion euros per year.” (Information thanks to Eric Tolbert.)

From Adrian Leed’s very good blog and newsletter Parier Paris.

The auction rooms at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris date to 1852. They’ve been modernized since then, but the general atmosphere probably hasn’t changed much. On any day of the week, a throng of characters straight out of a Maupassant novel can be found bidding for dusty treasures straight out of the proverbial Old Curiosity Shop. Annually, about 800,000 lots pass through the 16 rooms, over the course of more than 3,000 auctions.

On a typical day, half the rooms are set up for viewing, and half are given over to sales. Regular offerings include jewelry, contemporary and classical paintings, antiquities and furniture of every description.

Located in the warren of narrow streets and covered passageways north of the Grands Boulevards and south of Montmartre, the Hôtel Drouot is a hub of lively galleries, restaurants and bistros, where dealers and collectors wheel and deal over glasses of wine.

The schedule of sales can be viewed online (drouot.com) or in La Gazette Drouot, a weekly magazine. One event to note: on June 9, selected works from the estate of Jacques Prévert, the French songwriter, screenwriter, author and poet, will be on auction.

Hôtel Drouot (6, rue Drouot; Ninth Arrondissement; 33-1-48-00-20-20) is open Monday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Do It Yourself Culture… by Michael Kimmelman

An interesting rumination on defending the language, in defense of values..

Pardon My French by Michael Kimmelman of NY Times.