Word: gallic
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...election of President FranÇois Mitterrand last month and the subsequent success of the Socialists in National Assembly contests proved once again what students of Gallic culture have known all along: In France, politics is both passionate and unpredictable. Observes Paris Correspondent William Blaylock: "French politics plops across the ideological platter like a dropped soufflé. Candidates seem to have no shared opinions, no established rules of fair play. Nor do they seem to want any." Correspondent Sandra Burton interviewed government officials and French sociologists to assess the impact of the new administration and was struck by the blas...
Indifference is an impressive but somewhat risky ploy. Rarely do public figures command the easy Gallic disdain of French President Valéry Discard d'Estaing. When Le Canard Enchaîné reported that Giscard had accepted $250,000 worth of diamonds as gifts from the Central African Republic's butcherous Emperor Bokassa, Giscard's reaction was roughly, "So what?" Of course, the French have a tradition of Non, je ne regrette rien. Across the channel, the Duke of Wellington once displayed something of that spirit when an old mistress (a Frenchwoman) threatened to publish...
...advisers are counting on French apprehensions, rather than gratitude or affection to win Giscard another seven years in the Elysée. "Where Mitterrand represents adventure," says one aide, "Giscard stands for security. He may be cold, but he's a pilot." That reasoning is an appeal to Gallic logic at a time when many voters seem tempted to exercise their equally French passions...
...news from the Coast was usually good. People were dancing out there. And singing. And repenting. During the war, though, a whole new style of movie started skulking out of the Coast. The French labelled it film noir, but coining the phrase was about as close as Gallic sensibilities could ever get to it. No Frenchman could truly understand a city like L.A., and that, metaphorically at least, was what film noir was all about. The term was used to describe a slew of films, the likes of Double Indemnity or The Killers. which were stepchildren of earlier gangster movies...
...show. Hockney, noted for his sophisticated, figurative paintings, has done successful productions of The Rake's Progress and The Magic Flute at the Glyndebourne Festival. Here he triumphs when he concentrates on conjuring up a vivid, magical spectacle. When he reaches for social comment, he fails. These diaphanous Gallic conceits cannot be made into Oh! What a Lovely...