Le Grand Pari(s)
I have a folder of favorite blogs in French and English. Unfortunately, there are so many that most go unread for days and even weeks at a time. Today, I happened to see one in the long list that I didn't even remember: franco american. In fact, it is a blog written by a French journalist named Clementine Gallot who lives in New York. She writes in French and English and has some great photos taken in New Orleans by a photo journalist she was working with.
And I noticed that back in January she mentioned that a French version of slate.com was in the process of going online. So I checked it out. Jean-Marie Colombani, who used to be the head of the Le Monde group, has started this venture with a dozen journalists.
In fact, many of the articles are translated into French from the English-language version of slate. This content doesn't interest me too much. The section on France, naturally, contains many articles in VF. For example, I just found out about a grand project to modernize Paris, which includes incorporating a few banlieues limitrophes, like Aubervilliers, Seine-Saint-Denis... 91, 92, 93, 94, if you see what I mean. I don't know if this is because Paris is encroaching on these burbs or because they are encroaching on Paris. But it seems like a strange project. Ten teams of architects are working with Le Président to imagine this enlargement of the French capital. What will this change for the people who live in 91, 92, 93 and 94? I can't get my mind around what this means. There is such a strong demarcation between the city of Paris and its grande banlieu, and it isn't just physical.
More later. I am trying to find more details and they are lacking. I want to know who the architects are: Nouvel? Portzamparc? Non-Frenchies? Rem Koolhaus? I.M. Pei, who did les Pyramides du Louvre? A friend of mine was sent over from New York to work on that project. She told me that Pei's employees called him "I no pay". The privilege of working for the man from Shanghai was supposed to be enough to compensate for the humiliation of having to live with your parents.
