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9.02.2019

Today was a little windy (about 20 mph and the gusts were nearly 30 mph) and we weren't dressed nearly warm enough with temps in the low 40s as John and I went to lunch and wandered around downtown. Some banks, real estate offices and a few other businesses had their windows boarded with plywood sheets (and the plywood was then graffettied). The area looked like it was under hurricane preparations, but the boardings were to prevent damage from protesters. There has been property damage in other areas of France during recent Gilets jaunes protest.

We are still keeping tabs on the Gilets jaunes activities in Rennes which are happening every Saturday. The protests impact our transportation availability and sometimes the nearby areas are unsafe during the protests. Here's a link to a video of the yellow vests protesters in Rennes. Scroll down to see videos from other French cities.

Basilique Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Nouvelle de Rennes on a very foggy morning. Just a year ago this was the scene of an archaeological excavation prior to renovation. We went through the fog to get to
the Saturday market.
The Portes Mordelaises (City Gates) area was blocked off as the historic quarter
undergoes renovation.





13.02.2019

Even when toilet seats look like the run-of-the-mill, simple functionality toilet seats I used in America, in France they have varied and perplexing (to me) hardware. I suspect my Frenchie and long time expats friends find the frenchie's toilet attachment hardware to be conventional. So, at first, did I - from just appearances. I still don't understand why their hardware is different - why the need for the extra range of motion. I often don't know if the differences here are due to a higher end product or a cultural difference. We found a solution and immobilized the extra axis of motion. I didn't even need to use duct tape or superglue! Have you seen the fix anything flowchart ? In my version of the flowchart I replaced duct tape with superglue.

Our toilet seat had plastic hardware which wasn't working well so we bought some metal nuts, bolts and washers at Castorama, a local very large hardware store which is similar to Lowes or Home Depot in the states. This wasn't our first visit to Castorama but it was still a bit of a kid in a candy store type of experience. John took a few pics. The variety and range of the product lines there was a welcome change to the tiny little French shops we usually use.

Castorama is a huge warehouse do-it-yourself store like Home Depot. It was fun to see something other that the tiny little French shops that we were used to. The workers at Castorama readily helped us
find the correct size hardware.





19.02.2019

The latest Bexit news is if the UK wants a Brexit extension they need just ask. EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker told German newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung that any decision to extend is entirely with the UK and "no one in Europe would oppose it". The country leaves automatically two years after article 50 was triggered, at midnight French time on March 29, unless the UK formally asks for an extension and the other 27 states agree.





23.02.2019

On 19 February the prefecture of Ille-et-Vilaine banned any event in the city center of Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) in an attempt to diffuse the disruptions of the protests planned for Saturday, February 23, 2019. The yellow vests marched anyway and the conflicts between police and protesters escalated over previous weekends in Rennes.

I borrowed some photos from our friend Alley Valkyrie's Facebook collection and also her comment, "That time you really just wanted to go home and instead all the roads are blocked and bottles and gas canisters are flying..." Although the sizes of the protesting groups are much smaller than they were before the New Year, the confrontations with police have increased. In addition to tear gas the police use rubber bullets and often hit protesters in the head. The European Human Rights Commission has called for an end to the use of lanceurs de balles de défense (LBD) [rubber bullet guns] as soon as possible in France.

France is one of only a few European nations to use LBDs, which fire 40 millimetre rubber bullets that are considered to be non-lethal. Their use has come under scrutiny in recent months due to the Gilets jaunes protests, which have prompted law enforcement to deploy LBDs against protesters that they consider to be violent. The human rights commissioner published a report on the issue this week, entitled "Memorandum on the maintenance of order and freedom of assembly in the context of the 'Gilets jaunes' movement". The report has no binding judicial power, but was produced as "relations between the police and the population are at risk of severe and long-term damage during this violent time", the commission said. It was also created in part after a meeting with Laurent Nuñez, secretary of state for the French interior minister, in Paris.

To me the yellow vest conflicts are interesting because of the contrast with how protests are handled in the states. The protests here have been sustained over a very long time. In general the police responses here have been milder than those in the states. For example the use of rubber bullets in the states is generally considered a humane response (as opposed to the use of "real" bullets in the states). Here, using rubber bullets is a significant concern.

That time you really just wanted to go home... ... and instead all the roads are blocked and bottles and gas canisters are flying.





27.02.2019

Here's some recent good news about France and the world at large: in a new report, "the World Bank examined 35 indicators of legal equality between men and women in 187 countries, covering everything from property ownership and inheritance laws to job protections and pension policies, along with rules governing marriage, movement and travel, pay, and personal safety. The good news is that, as a globe, we are making progress. A decade ago, not a single nation met all the criteria laid out by the World Bank when measuring equality. Now, in 2019, six economies - Belgium, Denmark, France [Yay France!], Latvia, Luxembourg, and Sweden - scored 100 on the index, meaning that women have equal rights with men in all of the 35 measured areas."





28.02.2019

BTW, if you are thinking about visiting France, 2019 is a good year. We'll be visiting some of these events this year including the year-round Leonardo da Vinci festival in Val de Loire (where he lived), Le Mer XXL Fair in Nantes and the King Tut exhibit in Paris. Neither of us can say King Tut without thinking of Steve Martin (and giggling). Sometimes we break out into song: "King Tut". Modern Saturday Night Live is very good (in years past, not so much) but classic SNL holds such fond memories for me. I'll be humming the boy king song in Paris later this year (with a big smile). King Tut!

I must ask again - how cool is it that a trip to Paris is a local excursion? It's 350 km but only 1 hour 10 minutes from our home (the trains here are fast!) Conventional TGV services operate up to 320 km/h (200 mph). A TGV test train set the world record for the fastest wheeled train, reaching 574.8 km/h (357.2 mph) on 3 April 2007.