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So what was 2001 - 30/12/2001

from Time Out Paris - 26 december 2001/1 January 2002

The first weeks of 2001 saw widespread flooding in the Somme basin, leaving hundreds homeless and causing millions of francs' worth of damage. Distraught homeowners began to hint that Paris was to blame for their plight, claiming that the authorities had diverted the floods to save Paris. Nothing was proved.

In March, Paris elected its first Socialist mayor in over a century; Bertrand Delanoë is also the city's first (avowedly) gay mayor. On the other side of the tracks, President Jacques Chirac faced growing pressure to answer allegations that he had used city funds for personal travel during his own stint as Mayor of Paris. This political potato got so hot that Chirac made it the key topic in his annual broadcast interview on Bastille Day, denying any impropriety and aguing that the President of the Republic was not a citizen like any other and could not be summoned by judges. Back on the left wing, as the year came to a close, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin still had not made it clear whether or not he would be a presidential candidate at the forthcoming elections of 2002, but said that such an eventuality was probable. Another grand old man of the left, the late François Mitterand, was feted as a huge party at Bastille on the 20th anniversary of his election to the presidency.

The repercussions of the US terrorists attacks were felt in Paris: the whole city went on alert as the Vigipirate renforcé plan was revived. Over 2000 anthrax hoaxes were recorded (no real event) - far more than anywhere else in the world. 38-year-old French serial killer Guy Georges, the feared tueur de l'est parisien, responsible for the murders of seven women, plus rape and others offences, was convicted after DNA testing and sentenced to life emprisonment. The city's streets were extensively modified during the summer holidays by the addition of raised concrete separators to mark out the new bus lanes. Taxi drivers whinged vigorously, but the measure was generally reckoned a success. 2001 had its share of strikes: even gendarmes took to the streets, protesting about low pay and professional hazards. And those who remembered Paco Rabanne's dire predictions for Paris as the time of the 2000 solar eclipse sniggered as the Russian Mir space station was put voluntarily out of action, plummeting not onto the French capital but into the Pacific.

French cinema picked up: the smash popular successes of La vérité si je mens 2, coming-out comedie Le placard and martial-arts-meets-period-monster-movie Le pacte des loups propelled box office figures into the stratosphere (French cinema ended the year with over 40 per cent of total takings). Then there was Jean-Pierre Jeunet's feelgood film Le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain, which did so well (at last count, more than eight million viewers) it became a media phenomenon. TV channel M6 struck gold with Loft Story, the French equivalent of Big Brother. The show ran for several weeks, earning record viewing figures and huge amount of advertising revenue and media commentary. Busty blonde Loana was the big winner and an instant star.

Books, as ever in this literary city, were much in the news. Michel Houellebecq's third novel Plateforme, a tale of sex tourism, had predictable success. A less predictable publishing hit was the Bible - a new translation of the Holy Book which sold 140,000 copies in the three months after its launch. Sales of the Coran also shot up after September 11.

The dear departed

Artist Balthus and twinkly-eyed French superstar crooner Charles Trenet, both on 18 Feb. French crooner Gilbert Bécaud. Writer-actor Philippe Léotard. The three Paris branches of Brit departement store Mark & Spencer.

Originally published as jemisa.editthispage.com/discuss/msgReader$332
30 decembre 2001