National Front expects huge protest vote | Focus on Europe

2017-05-09T12:32:14+00:00

France’s far-right National Front believes Donald Trump’s victory has boosted its own chances of success at the polls. Like Trump, party leader Marine Le Pen is hoping to gain from disenchanted working and middle class voters to secure the presidency.

France | Celebrity Vineyards | European Journal

2017-05-12T12:24:39+00:00

More and more celebrities are turning a dream into reality and buying their own vineyards, where they plant their own vines, press their own grapes and sit back and enjoy the results. A vineyard is the ideal place to escape the limelight – and it’s also good PR.For French film stars such as Gerard Depardieu, Christopher Lambert and Jean-Louis Trintignant, a vineyard is an essential status symbol. Pierre Richard, who starred in the »big blond »comedies in the 1970s, even joins in the grape harvest at his estate near Narbonne, which produces around 12,000 bottles of rosé a year. But the vintners’neighbours are less than thrilled at having so many celebrities in their midst – they say demand for vineyards is pushing up prices.

Scotland: The sheep of North Ronaldsay Island

2017-05-12T12:27:22+00:00

The natives of North Ronaldsay were always a bit unusual. Until the 19th century they still spoke a dialect of Old Norse, a language that had already died out on the neighboring islands.
About 600 people once lived on North Ronaldsay. Nowadays the number of inhabitants is tiny. Life on the northernmost of the Orkney Islands was just too harsh on the human population. The native breed of sheep, however, which feed mainly on marine algae, could now become a lucrative source of income. But new farmers are having a hard time finding land while native residents are loath to give up their property.

France | The forgotten people of Tonkin | European Journal

2017-05-09T11:02:27+00:00

A chapter of colonial history is slowly drawing to a close in Sainte-Livrade-sur-Lot, where the last of the French citizens repatriated during the Indochina War still live.The first of the repatriated citizens originally from Vietnam arrived in the town of Sainte-Livrade-sur-Lot in southwestern France in April 1956. Some were former parachutists; others were the widows of French officers, and their children. Today they are between 80 and 90 years old. For a long time, they lived in dilapidated barracks without indoor plumbing. Only in recent years has an effort been made to build new housing. But the residents of the makeshift repatriate camp never complained publically about their deplorable living conditions in France.