by Aralena Malone-Leroy
-France-

In late December 2011, while most Europeans were doing last-minute holiday shopping and preparing for gargantuan meals and family festivities, hundreds of thousands of women spent achingly sleepless nights, worried that their breast implants might be giving them cancer. The French Ministry of Health had just released a statement recommending that women with breast implants manufactured by the French company Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP) have them removed, even in the absence of signs of rupture or other complications. All medical fees for the “preventive” process would be covered by national health resources.

by Aralena Malone-Leroy
-France-

Résiste
Prouve que tu existes
Cherche ton bonheur partout, va,
Refuse ce monde égoïste
Résiste
Suis ton cœur qui insiste
Ce monde n’est pas le tien, viens,
Bats-toi, signe et persiste
Résiste

- Résiste, France Gall, 1981

Resist! Prove that you exist! ... Refuse this selfish world. … Fight, make your mark, and persist! came to my mind while I listened to yet another group of protesters hurl words of indignation at the pension reforms proposed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration this summer. These celebrated lyrics by France Gall, first broadcast in the early 80s, speak to the Gallic instinct of not accepting political change sitting down.

by Aralena Malone-Leroy
News Editor, The WIP
- France -

In 2006, my husband and I decided to move from San Jose, California to Paris, France. The choice between Silicon Valley and the City of Light may seem like a no-brainer to some, but our decision was based on professional and family considerations rather than romantic notions.

When French people ask incredulously how I could leave the sunny beaches of California for grey Parisian city life, I inevitably answer: socialized healthcare. From the time I graduated from college in 2001 and moved to France, I was an employed, but uninsured, American. At the time approximately 16% of Americans were in the same boat – uninsured not necessarily due to unemployment, but to the national decline, particularly in the West, in employer-sponsored coverage.

by Aralena Malone-Leroy
France

When in 2002 President Jacques Chirac resuscitated a proposal for the creation of a museum of immigration, he was honoring an unpopular dream that had been in gestation for nearly 15 years. First proposed in 1989 by Zaïr Kedadouche, a second-generation Algerian municipal councilman, with support from a small group of historians, the project was considered too politically risky by then-President François Mitterand. Almost ten years later, in 1998, riding high on the euphoria of France’s post-World Soccer Cup win, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin tried to renew interest in the project, even recruiting representatives from the Human Rights League and various public officials to launch a proposal for a site - but the initiative stalled and faded again.

by Aralena Malone-Leroy
France

With a record-breaking voter-participation of 86% registered on May 6th, the French citizen’s participation in politics appears to have taken a positive turn from resignation and apathy to genuine interest and action. The reasons for this about-face of public participation in the political sphere are manifold, and emerging media seem to be playing an increasingly larger role.

by Aralena Malone-Leroy
France

In June 2007, at the precise moment when thousands of tourists will be meandering down the Champs Elysées, contemplating the statues of philosophers lining the façade of the Hôtel de Ville, or strolling hand-in-hand along the curving paths of the Buttes de Chaumont, the mayor of Paris will offer tourists and citizens alike another reason to fall in love with the City of Lights: the deployment of 260 Wi-Fi hotspots dispersed across Paris, providing free internet access to all those equipped with a laptop. For those who prefer to surf the net in the great urban outdoors, approximately 138 plein air sites will be available; the remaining 128 hotspots will be deployed in municipal buildings throughout the capital (libraries, community centers, city halls), should the weather dictate otherwise.