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Why does France’s new Socialist President strike fear into the hearts of the elites?
05.07.2012
11:04 am
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Hearty congratulations to the entire country of France for having the good sense to elect a Socialist president, François Hollande, and for kicking that pompous dickhead Sarkozy to the curb.

It’s not like the “Socialist” part—or even President-Elect François Hollande himself for that matter—got much play in the initial reports in the American media, although “Farewell Monsieur President!” and “Goodbye Sarkozy!” headlines were in abundance (I’d have gone with something like “France tells ‘President of the rich’ to piss off, elects Socialist”). Hollande will be the country’s first Socialist leader since François Mitterrand (the Republic’s longest-serving president) left office in 1995. It was Hollande’s ex-wife, Socialist politician Ségolène Royal, who was defeated by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007.

MSNBC, not mentioning Hollande in the headline, and under a picture of a dejected looking Sarkozy, natch, called the President-Elect “unassumming.” When reporters did get around to mentioning Hollande by name, it was normally to mention that he was a “socialist lite” or a “moderate.”

By American political standards? That’s a pretty meaningless and worthless comparison, if you ask me.

To take the President-Elect at his own word, his win represents “a new departure for Europe and hope for the world” because “Europe is watching us, austerity can no longer be the only option.” I personally like the way that sounds, but Lynn Parramore, writing at AlterNet fears that Hollande will end up being a “marshmallow” who talks big and then lets monied interests walk all over him (where have we seen that happen before?). She also describes him as “more like an American centrist Democrat than a Bush-style right-winger,” but I’d take that with a grain of salt (see below).

Nabila Ramdani bucked the trend writing in The Independent, calling Hollande a “fiercely left-wing leader” who would “strike fear into the hearts of France’s rich” and who should not be written-off before he even takes office on May 17th.

The 57-year-old Socialist has openly admitted that he “does not like the rich” and declared that “my real enemy is the world of finance”. This means taxing the wealthy by up to 75 per cent, curtailing the activities of Paris as a centre for financial dealing, and ploughing millions into creating more civil service jobs.

Add an explicit threat to renegotiate the euro pact to replace austerity with “growth-creating” spending, and you have one of the most vehemently left-wing programmes in recent history.

BUT… There’s always a “but” isn’t there? France is broke and mired deeply in debt. Servicing the country’s outstanding debt is the second item of the government’s yearly budget, right below healthcare:

Caution is justified, though one thing Mr Hollande will not repeat is the disastrous tax-and-spend policies introduced by France’s last Socialist President, François Mitterrand, in 1981. He was soon forced into a humiliating U-turn, and into sharing power with the right as the Communists quit his cabinet in protest.

In contrast, Mr Hollande will focus on solving the euro crisis and reversing a Gallic economic decline widely blamed on a failed capitalist system, and particularly a rotten banking sector.

A summary of Holland’s policies and proposals, according to Wikipedia, demonstrates just how very little a President Hollande would have in common with “an American centrist Democrat” (no matter what Sean Hannity might think!)

Foreign policy: supports the withdrawal of French troops present in Afghanistan by the end of 2012.

European politics: aims to conclude a new contract of Franco-German partnership and he advocates the adoption of a Directive on the protection of public services. Proposes closer Franco-German partnership: “an acceleration of the establishment of a Franco-German civic service, the creation of a Franco-German research office, the creation of a Franco-German industrial fund to finance common competitiveness clusters (transport, energy or environment) and the establishment of a common military headquarters.”

Financial system: backs the creation of a European rating agency and the separation of lending and investment in banks.

Energy: endorses reducing the share of nuclear power in electricity generation from 75 to 50% in favor of renewable energy sources.

Taxation: supports the merger of income tax and the General Social Contribution (CSG), the creation of an additional 45% for additional income of 150,000 euros, capping tax loopholes at a maximum of €10,000 per year, and questioning the relief solidarity tax on wealth (ISF, Impôt de Solidarité sur la Fortune) measure that should bring €29 billion in additional revenue.

Education: supports the recruitment of 60,000 new teachers, the creation of a study allowance and means-tested training, setting up a mutually beneficial contract that would allow a generation of experienced employees and craftsmen to be the guardians and teachers of younger newly-hired employees, thereby creating a total of 150,000 subsidized jobs.

Aid to SME’s, with the creation of a public bank investment-oriented SME’s and reducing the corporate tax rate to 30% for medium corporations and 15% for small.

Recruitment of 5,000 judges, police officers and gendarmes.

Construction of 500,000 homes per year, including 150,000 social, funded by a doubling of the ceiling of the A passbook, the State making available its local government land within five years.

Restoration of retirement at age 60 for those who have contributed more than 41 years.

Hollande supported same-sex marriage and adoption for LGBT couples, and has plans to pursue the issue in early 2013.

The provision of development funds for deprived suburbs.

Return to a deficit of 0% of GDP in 2017.

This is “moderate”? Sounds pretty “sane” to moi.

Appropriately, Hollande’s jubilant left-wing supporters took their joyous celebrations to la Place de la Bastille where the Socialist President Elect spoke:

“I don’t know if you can hear me but I have heard you. I have heard your will for change. I have heard your strength, your hope and I want to express to you all of my gratitude. Thank you, thank you, thank you people of France, gathered here, to have allowed me to be your president of the republic.”

“I am the president of the youth of France! I am the president of all the collective pride of France! I am the president of Justice in France!

“Carry this message far! Remember for the rest of your life this great gathering at the Bastille because it must give a taste to other peoples, to the whole of Europe, of the change that is coming. In all the capitals, beyond government leaders and state leaders, there are people who, thanks to us, are hoping, are looking to us and want to put an end to austerity.”

Liberté, égalité, fraternité!
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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05.07.2012
11:04 am
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‘The Art Of Sounds’ - terrific documentary on the French composer Pierre Henry
11.19.2011
09:14 pm
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Some more vintage electronic French pop to round out the week on Dangerous Minds. Some folk may not know the name Pierre Henry, but they definitely know his music - well they would know his music, were it not for the fact that what they are hearing isn’t actually him. I’m talking of course about the Futurama theme tune, and how it is a blatant rip-off of Henry’s classic ‘Psyche Rock’ from 1967 (more specifically, the Fatboy Slim remix).

Now, don’t get me wrong I love Futurame, but it’s to Matt Groening’s eternal shame that he did not just stump up whatever cash was required to purchase the original track. What we now have in its place every week is a lame facsimile, that some people even confuse with the original track. Oh well. That’s entertainment!

Regardless, The Art of Sound is an excellent French (subtitled) documentary directed by Eric Darmon and Franck Mallet from 2006 that follows Pierre Henry as he collects unique sounds for his compositions, sets up an even more unique live concert in his house, and generally looks back over a career in music that spans over fifty years. It’s intimate and revealing, and its central figure comes across as quite the character.

No, scrub that - Pierre Henry is the shit. He went from being a pioneer of musique concrete with Pierre Schaeffer in the 1950s to creating psychedelic sound-and-light shows in 1960s Paris that could match anything dreamt up by Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead. He composed music for abstract ballets that still sounds genuinely psychedelic and like nothing else today. He may come across as crabby and extremely eccentric in this film, but I still hope I end up as cool as this guy if I get to be his age. I mean, you have to be pretty awesome to attract a steady fanbase to abstract electronic recital shows in your own bloody house, right?
 

 
BONUS!
More psyche-pop magic, this time with Henry & Colombier’s “Teen Tonic” (1967) set to footage of the 1960s German TV fashion Show Paris Aktuel by YouTube uploader Cosmocorps2000:

Pierre Henry & Michel Colombier “Teen Tonic”
 

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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11.19.2011
09:14 pm
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L’Histoire D’Anne Pigalle
11.16.2011
06:01 pm
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Anne Pigalle weaves her magic in this short biographical film, L’Histoire D’Anne Pigalle.

Made in 2001, during a point when the legendary chanteuse was re-examining her life, the film looks back on her creative life, from childhood through first bands, to the release of her classic debut album Everything Could Be So Perfect in 1985, to her slow disillusionment, as she questioned the value of her fame and success.

Since making L’Histoire D’Anne Pigalle, Anne has established herself as a multi-media artist, mixing art, photography and painting, with live performance. Last year, Ms Pigalle made a triumphant return to the top of the tree with her beautiful and spell-binding album L’âmerotica Part I and II, which was quickly followed-up earlier this year, with the stunning L’âme érotique.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

‘L’âmerotica’: The Return of the Brilliant Anne Pigalle


 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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11.16.2011
06:01 pm
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France is Bacon
10.26.2011
08:00 pm
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I might be late to the game with this one (a year to be exact), but goddamn is this funny. Redditor Lard_Baron commented on a “What word or phrase did you totally misunderstand as a child?” thread on reddit. Here’s what he wrote:


 
(via Poor Mojo )

Posted by Tara McGinley
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10.26.2011
08:00 pm
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Jim Hendrix on French pop TV show ‘Dim Dam Dom’
09.07.2011
12:07 pm
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The folks at Mod Cinema just keep the goods rolling out, don’t they? It’s hard to stay up with the embarrassment of riches on offer from them. Take for instance their recent duo of double DVD sets featuring unedited episodes of Dim Dam Dom, the distinctive, ultra-hip, fashion-forward late sixties French pop TV series. Dim Dam Dom had a very French “mod” sensibility, giving it a vastly different look and feel to British programs like Colour Me Pop or Top of the Pops and American counterparts like Shindig! and Hullabaloo.

Dim Dam Dom was a music variety hour produced for the Deuxième channel in France. The title summarizes this shows concept, “Dim” for Sunday, “Dam” for ladies, and “Dom” for men. Pioneering the creativity of the show was Daisy Galard. From the elaborate dance choreography, to the set design, to the production and staging, Dim Dam Dom serves as a colorful time capsule of pop music in 1968.

Included in Mod Cinema’s two 2-disc Dim Dam Dom sets are several complete unedited episodes (most in color, a few in black & white) with rare performances by Johnny Hallyday, Mireille Darc, Grapefruit, Marie Laforêt, Nino Ferrer, Eddy Mitchell, Stone, Memphis Slim, Ronnie Bird, Françoise Hardy, Procol Harum, The Electric Prunes, Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity, Sylvie Vartan, Jacques Dutronc, Pussy Cat, The Moody Blues, P.P.Arnold, Serge Gainsbourg, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Jacques Dutronc, “Les Bee Gees,” Claude François, The Easybeats, Manfred Mann, France Gall (who also sings the shows “theme song”) and many many others.

Order Dim Dam Dom from Mod Cinema here.

Below, The Jimi Hendrix Experience performing “Burning of the Midnight Lamp.”
 

 
Bonus clip after the jump: A young Keith Emerson and The Nice performing “Karelia Suite” on “Dim Dam Dom,” 1969.

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.07.2011
12:07 pm
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Are the Smurfs Communist Nazis?
06.09.2011
09:02 pm
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Image by Bit Weird.

I’d heard the theory that the Smurfs were a ploy to get us used to the imminent arrival of little blue aliens, but this is news to me. A French academic has published a book claiming that the Smurfs were both Communist and anti-Semitic, claims that have met with a backlash from fans of the little blue guys. From The Guardian:

Antoine Buéno, a lecturer at Sciences Po university in Paris, makes the claims in his new book Le Petit Livre Bleu: Analyse critique et politique de la société des Schtroumpfs, in which he points out that the Smurfs live in a world where private initiative is rarely rewarded, where meals are all taken together in a communal room, where there is one leader and where the Smurfs rarely leave their small country.

“Does that not remind you of anything? A political dictatorship, for example?” asks Buéno, going on to compare the Smurfs’ world to a totalitarian utopia reminiscent of Stalinist communism (Papa wears a red outfit and resembles Stalin, while Brainy is similar to Trotsky) and nazism (the character of the Smurfs’ enemy Gargamel is an antisemitic caricature of a Jew, he proposes). A story about the Black Smurfs, meanwhile, in which the Smurfs are bitten by a fly which turns their skin black and renders them unable to speak, has colonial overtones.

Reactions to the book were immediate and hostile, with commenters on Smurf fansites calling Buéno a “dream breaker”, an imbecile and a crook with “paranoid delusions”, who is ruining childhood memories.

 
Is this strange video perhaps more proof of a connection?
 

 
Thanks to Nicola Blackmore.

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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06.09.2011
09:02 pm
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Odd vintage French ad
05.27.2011
02:48 pm
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With my rudimentary high school French, I’m not entirely sure what this is all about, but I think it’s something about your kid being too stupid, so turn them into a broom? 

(via Das Kraftfuttermischwerk)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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05.27.2011
02:48 pm
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When Sparks Met Comedy Genius Jacques Tati in 1974
01.04.2011
02:44 pm
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This should have been something: When Sparks met Jacques Tati in 1974, to discuss Ron and Russell Mael’s’ starring roles in the French comedy legend’s next feature Confusion. N’est-ce pas incroyable, non? As the brothers explain over at the fabulous Graphik Designs website:

Russell Mael: “We were discussing with a guy from Island Records in Europe fun things to do that weren’t involved with being in a rock band and how to just kind of expand the whole thing… JacquesTati’s name was brought up and we just kind of laughed it off. Anyway, he approached Jacques Tati and somehow got him to come meet us. Jacques Tati didn’t know anything about Sparks because he was 67 years old and doesn’t listen to rock music.”

Ron Mael: “We were to be in Tati’s film Confusion, a story of two American TV studio employees brought to a rural French TV company to help them out with some American technical expertise and input into how TV really is done. Unfortunately due to Tati’s declining health and ultimate death, the film didn’t get met.”

Confusion was to be a “visionary project” in which Tati offered a critique of the encroaching globalization of the world through advertising and television. It was planned as a follow-up to his masterpiece Playtime that dealt with the damaging alienation caused by modern corporate life. Tati had even decided on a shock opening to his new feature. In the first reel, his famous comic alter-ego, Monsieur Hulot would be killed off, in a mix-up with a real and prop gun.

The film had Hulot working in a rural TV station and his death leads to the arrival of two young American TV execs (Ron and Russell), who have plans to modernize the TV station.

What should have been one of the greatest pop-comedy films ever made, sadly never happened after Tati went bankrupt and his declining health put the project on hold. However, Sparks did write a song for the film, Confusion, which appeared on their Big Beat album. Instead of starring roles, the brothers made a cameo appearance in the 1977 blockbuster Rollercoaster. Plans to film Confusion lingered on for a few years, until Tati’s death in 1982 brought the project to a close.
 

 
Bonus clips of Sparks, plus their demo ‘Landlady, Landlady, Turn-up the Heat’ after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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01.04.2011
02:44 pm
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Solar Skeletons Coming to Save the Planet
12.24.2010
04:45 pm
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Solar Skeletons consists of French duo TZII and RIPIT, who brought their musical talents together in January 2006 to create “a conceptual band with no limit of genre nor process.” Their music fused Industrial Minimalism with Blues, and a dash of psychedelia.

They sell their wares with a mix of tongue-in-cheek and sci-fi babble:

The Dead Sons of the Sun are roaming the Earth, choosing the musical weapon to convince the so-called human intelligence to fight if they can’t love each other. After conquering Mars and Pluto, they chose the East Coast of the USA to land and start their crusade. Their Head Quarters is now established in Brussels. They will blind the audience with raw rays of unseen light, and preach through distorted music clichés. The absurdity of human beings needs to be shown by pointing its most obvious form: religion, drugs, love etc… After being reprogrammed, humans will be able to save their planet.

Best stick to the tunes, guys, which are hypnotic, addictive and exceedingly tasty.
 

 
Bonus Solar Suns track after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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12.24.2010
04:45 pm
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My teenage love affair with Francoise Hardy
08.06.2010
06:09 am
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My mother is French and in my early teens I lived in Cannes and Paris. I developed a love for French rock and rollers - Sylvie Vartan, France Gall, Johnny Hallyday and, above all others, Francoise Hardy.

I had a Philips portable battery operated record player upon which I would play Hardy’s 45s non-stop, taking the player with me wherever I went like a prehistoric Walkman. I couldn’t be without her. She was my first teenage crush.

I’d sit on the beach at Cannes, smoking Gauloise cigarettes (which got me high) and listen to Tous les garçons et les filles and Le premier bonheur du jour for hours. It was just me and Francoise on the Riviera watching the thin line separating the blue Mediterranean from the perfect blue sky.

I had yet to discover The Beatles. American rock, with the exception of Chuck Berry, didn’t interest me. Francoise was my pop culture goddess. Nothing else mattered. Nothing. Well, actually, there was one record that I would allow to share the turntable with Francoise: The Lonely Surfer by Jack Nitzsche, a song with an almost Zen melancholy about it, spinning off into the void.

The year of my romance with Francoise and Gauloise and melancholic surfers was 1963. It was September and Hardy was scheduled to play in Cannes. My mother had bought me a ticket. For weeks I could think of nothing else but seeing my goddess perform. On the day of the show, I was dressed to impress in my pegged pants, loafers and turtle neck. I was ready for love. We ascended the steep marble steps of the concert hall and arrived at the ticket booth to be greeted by my worse nightmare…the show had been canceled! I was heartbroken. My mother and I walked back to our apartment building in total silence. I was beyond myself with disappointment. I felt as though I had been stood up on my first date. I felt shunned, abandoned. I suddenly understood the electric yearning in the twang of Nitzche’s lonely guitars. I was the solitary surfer, crashing against waves of youthful despair. Oh, Francoise, why, why?

I carried the torch for my Gallic lover until the following month when the trivialities of young love were washed away on November 22, the day Kennedy was assasinated. Things changed after that. Innocence was gone. I discovered Bob Dylan and soon The Stones, The Beatles and the rest. Eventually I moved back to the States and Francoise Hardy became a fading memory. It wasn’t until a couple of decades later that my crush was revived and I found myself buying every vinyl record I cound find of hers. And to this day, Francoise is my eternal teenybopper flame, the beatnik princess of my dreams.

Here are three clips of Francoise (one she sings in Italian). Two have not been readily available on the internet, the other has been seen my millions. I present them to you in all their pristine glory.
 

 
more loveliness after le jump…

READ ON
Posted by Marc Campbell
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08.06.2010
06:09 am
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Stuck in Calais: Europe, Immigrants, and Jack Chute’s Reaching Albion
06.25.2010
04:45 pm
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Over a year ago, Bournemouth University student Jack Chute released this truly impressive short film chronicling the hard lives of Sudanese, Afghani, Palestinian and other immigrants stuck in the French port city of Calais. On a clear day, these guys can see England, a country with far more lenient visa regulations than those of France. In short, they see their futures.

Located directly across the English Channel from the White Cliffs of Dover, Calais has been a historical touch-point between France and England since ancient times.  It was bounced back and forth between the two countries from the 14th through 19th centuries, and served as a crucial decoy to Hitler while the Allies invaded Normandy.

Now it’s a harrowing human locus of the New World Order. Since the film’s release, French police have raided and destroyed the migrant’s refuge, unofficially known as the Jungle.
 

Reaching Albion from Jack Chute on Vimeo.

 

Posted by Ron Nachmann
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06.25.2010
04:45 pm
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Refait: Football as Everyday Life
06.15.2010
02:11 am
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In a stroke of pure Euro genius, France’s Pied La Biche art collective have produced Refait, a complete re-enactment of the 15-minute penalty phase of the 1982 World Cup semifinals between France and Germany in the setting of Villeurbane, just northeast of Lyon.

By mapping the grinding tension of an extended penalty across the wide spaces and casual attitude of a small industrial town, Pied provide an irreverent yet plaintive—and somewhat hypnotizing—perspective on the frailty of human achievement. Horst Hrubesch’s winning shot never seemed so enduring.

 

Refait from Pied La Biche on Vimeo.

 

Posted by Ron Nachmann
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06.15.2010
02:11 am
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Serge Gainsbourg of Tortoises Dies
12.07.2009
06:17 pm
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The Guardian reports on a beloved French tortoise named “Kiki,” who apparently amused the French public to no end with his priapic, Gainsbourg-esque antics. Kiki, in addition to being one of the world’s horniest animals, was also one of its oldest. Canonize that mofo! >Via the Guardian:

France was in mourning today for one of its oldest and best-loved lotharios, a giant tortoise named Kiki, who died at the age of 146.

Staff at the M?ɬ

Posted by Jason Louv
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12.07.2009
06:17 pm
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French Mushroom Gangsters: Least Scary Criminals Ever
11.24.2009
02:56 pm
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Oh dear lord. Mushroom gangs? And not even for Special mushrooms? What are they, like roving Tom Bombadil guys with curly mustaches that make French-guy noises and steal your Portobellos at night?

It is a great French autumnal tradition that furnishes an essential ingredient in some of the nation?

Posted by Jason Louv
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11.24.2009
02:56 pm
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