NEWS ❘ LES INFOS 3,435 MAYOR’S DYING WISH
The number of French restaurants listed in this year’s Michelin Guide
A mayor has banned residents from dying at the weekend. When an elderly resident died in La Gresle, Loire, on a Sunday, it took mayor Isabelle Dugelet two and a half hours to fi nd a doctor to record the death. In a move intended to highlight the limited access to healthcare in rural France, Mme Dugelet issued the edict: “It is forbidden for residents to die at home on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays for the foreseeable future.”
HASHTAG SAD FACE
Emojis – love ’em or hate ’em, they’re a sign of the times. But in France there is downright fury over the release of a new fondue emoji bearing the Swiss fl ag – and yet there is none for raclette. French newspaper Le Monde had submitted a proposal for raclette to emoji creator Unicode Consortium, but was told: “The dish is too obscure and an emoji would not be generally recognised enough to be placed on the list of priority food emojis. The idea can also be expressed with existing emojis, such as fi re and cheese.” We presume it has nothing to do with the fact that Unicode
co-founder and president Mark Davis lives in Zurich…
WHO’S AFRAID...? A grey wolf has been spotted on the border of Charente and Dordogne for the fi rst time since 1926, proving it is not extinct, as experts had feared. The wolf was spotted by young mum Marina Varraniac-François, who said: “At fi rst I thought it was a big dog, but it looked a lot like a wolf. He was scared, you could tell he was scared.”
CONTROVERSY A FALLEN STAR
Paul Bocuse’s legendary Auberge du Pont de Collonges has lost its third star after 55 years
Foodie bible the Michelin Guide often comes with a side order of controversy, and this year is no different.
The 2020 edition has sent shockwaves across the culinary world by downgrading the late chef Paul Bocuse’s Auberge du Pont de Collonges, near Lyon, from three to two stars. It had held three stars since 1965. The news prompted president Emmanuel Macron to say: “I want to spare a thought for what his family represents, for all those he trained, and that cannot take away from the unique role of Paul Bocuse in French gastronomy.” It is said that Michelin’s international director Gwendal Poullennec visited the restaurant to break the news himself, out of respect for Bocuse, who died in 2018, aged 91, in the same room above the restaurant in which he was born in 1926. M Poullennec defended the downgrading, saying stars were not “inherited” and “must be earned every year”. “We obviously understand the emotion that the loss of a star can provoke, but there is no exceptional treatment,” he told Agence France-Presse. Last year, three three-star restaurants were downgraded, among them Marc
Veyrat’s La Maison des Bois. Furious, Veyrat sued the Guide, saying one of its inspectors had suggested he had used Cheddar in a souffl é, which he vehemently denied. He lost his case.
The sighting has been confi rmed by l’Offi ce français de la biodiversité
The 2020 guide lists 628 starred restaurants across France, with 63 new starred establishments. Three stars go to Christopher Coutanceau in La Rochelle, Kei Kobayashi of Kei in Paris, and L’Oustau de Baumanière in Les Baux-de-Provence.
C’EST PAS VRAI! STRANGE BUT TRUE TALES FROM FRANCE The France Today miscellany of weird and wonderful stories
IN THE MONEY
An unexpected windfall has left the 226 inhabitants of Montézic, Aveyron, €14m better off. Businessman Bernard Milhau, who died with no heirs, left his entire fortune to his hometown on the proviso they put fl owers on his grave.
NEW ART SPACE
French artist Jisbar put ‘La Punk Mona’ into orbit to mark the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death. “I wanted to offer [it] a timeless trip in the form of levitation in the cosmos, but also to paint the sky,” he said. Quite.
HAM-FISTED
Passers-by in Angoulême were horrified to see a car had been attacked with a packet of ham and the packet tucked carefully beneath the wipers. A waste of good ham that would have made a nice croque-monsieur, opined the local paper.
RATHER GAUCHE A hapless thief targeted a shoe shop in
Toulouse and made off with four designer trainers worth a total of €670. Even if he hadn’t been nabbed by police minutes later, he would have struggled to sell them on – they were all left feet.
Apr/May 2020 FRANCE TODAY ❘ 9
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