cafebabel.com

Sunday in Paris with Chopin and Steve Villa-Massone, street pianist

('Adam Wyett',) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:23:17 -0000

After trailing the streets of Europe with his piano - literally carrying it around - for ten years, the dedicated French pianist and composer from Nice is now bringing smiles to Parisian passers-by. We tag along with him in the streets of the French capital - the more of us around to push this heavy instrument, the better

Italian spritz aperol: the future’s orange

('Eva Vanhee',) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0000

The Italian-born spritz aperol has gained official international recognition, being classed as a ‘new drink’ by the international bartenders’ association. We took this as an excuse to try out the sparkling brew, which the Italians will tell us is anything but new

Jacques Delors: ‘pessimism is reason, optimism is will’

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 10:55:38 -0000

‘Young people and Europe’ is the reason why this morning’s private and exclusive meeting is taking place in a small room at the catholic institute of Paris. There are around twenty seats and a huge platter of croissants on the centre of the table. All (French) eyes are on one of the speakers, a mister Jacques Delors

Contentious Guéant circular rejects work visas in France

('Annie Rutherford',) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:07:12 -0000

France’s governmental memo on employment for their residing non-European students caused quite a commotion, and we’re not talking Jerry Maguire style. Graduates like Nabil Sebti are taking a stand against what could either turn into a long-term policy of sealing France off or be a strategy to gain votes in 2012 elections

Silencio: Paris club where David Lynch is more Papa Smurf

('Marta Nathansohn',) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:05:58 -0000

You certainly will not be greeted by 'Silencio, no hay banda…' upon entering David Lynch’s exclusive Parisian club, which opened in the French capital on 6 October. Although the name of the club is a tribute to his cult movie Mulholland Drive, don’t expect to find Rita, dead corpses or unresolved mysteries here, advises one Italian journalist

Italian writer Alberto Toscano on political gaffes

('Eva Vanhee',) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 18:02:12 -0000

On 12 November Silvio Berlusconi is scheduled to officially resign. Yes, he is leaving the stage, the king of all the clumsy politicians who has been one of the models of Italian journalist Alberto Toscano’s latest book, which was published in September in France

Ascanio Celestini: 'I denounce verbal violence of our time’

('Annie Rutherford',) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:00:00 -0000

He is the mouthpiece of contemporary Italian theatre, a critic of power, an anthropologist who depicts the evils of our time better than anyone else. The 39-year-old actor, director and author talks about coming from outside Rome and where his one-man-show gets its inspirations from

Trio Joubran: ‘It’s hard to be Palestinian musicians in the world’

('Annie Rutherford',) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:25:16 -0000

Samir, Wissam and Adnan Joubran are international musicians whose performance and perspectives nonetheless remain rooted in their homeland: Palestine. Just before the UN is due to consider Palestine’s official bid to become a UN member as well as a state, we meet the brothers in Paris about how their hopes for their country influences their music

Tips for taking a ‘laughter yoga class’ in Paris

('Katrina',) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:10:15 -0000

Laugh for the sheer pleasure of laughing. Laugh standing up, laugh sitting down, laugh lying on your back, laugh sprawled on your front, laugh during the day, laugh at night, and most importantly, laugh with someone else

Football: a poor man's sport? Not for Qatar

('Monica Mircescu',) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 10:12:49 -0000

The Qataris now own football club Paris Saint-Germain and have spared no expense in their attempt to turn the team into a crown jewel. But of whose crown: Sarkozy's kingdom or the Qatari emirate? What prompted these billionaire sheikhs to invest in Europe?

Why French pop singer Ornette hated Serge Gainsbourg

('ZoeBBee',) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:01:20 -0000

Far from offbeat artistic families, broken computers and restrictive music conservatories, the 28-year-old Parisian and mother-of-two has created a highly colourful musical project. Her debut album Crazy was released in France on 26 September

ABV guide to learning your Serbian (from your Croatian, Montenegrin and Bosnian)

('Nabeelah Shabbir',) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:38:35 -0000

To hail the European day of languages on 26 September, cafebabel.com tries to learn Serbian. The short rocket takes us past planet Cyrillic alphabet and planet Latin alphabet, before speeding through planet lexical history and firing off into next-door neighbour space

The hills are alive with the sound of Viviane Reding

('Annie Rutherford',) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 11:00:00 -0000

The EU commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship ‘comes from the heart of Europe,’ insists former EC president Jacques Delors, as he introduces her to French students at Paris’ political institute Sciences Po. Meanwhile, Reding goes all out to be less bureaucratic than she is

French electro music: profile of Yuksek

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:02:20 -0000

Pierre-Alexandre Busson’s mysterious single On a train (‘On The Train’), released in the spring of 2011, captivated the 33-year-old DJ and producer’s native France. Nothing left to do except jump on the bandwagon

Transition towns: in the gardens of Paris

('Annie Rutherford',) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 09:00:00 -0000

The most densely populated city in Europe, with just four days worth of food supplies and a startling shortage of accommodation, Paris has few resources to offer. It is the ideal city for experimenting with ‘transition’, but this is anything but easy. One young German tries to explain the lifestyle and philosophy to the Parisians

Sex, Sartre & rock n’roll in Paris theatre

('Annie Rutherford',) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 10:44:34 -0000

Anyone coming to Jean Paul Sartre’s ‘No exit’ (Huis clos) playing at the Lucernaire theatre until 10 September shouldn't expect a tedious and stiff evening. French director Vladimir Steyaert surprised the entirely young audience with a contemporary, ironically serious version of the classic, which of course, had to have an international cast

French-American folk musician Redeye: 'I was a bit unsure about country music'

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 12:47:53 -0000

Guillaume Fresneau is relatively unknown except for his outing as part of French band Dahlia. Moving on from the rock direction, he exclaims why it's good to be independent, travel and find yourself. His five-track EP 'Be The One' was released in February 2011

The life of a busy urban bee on a Parisian roof

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 10:00:00 -0000

From the roofs of the Opera Garnier to the gardens of Luxembourg, it’s easy to find honeycombs and beehives in Paris. The French capital’s honey taste better and is healthier than the honey from the countryside, which is infected by the pesticides used upon it. Citizens came together to maintain the urban biodiversity

Five gay friendly neighbourhoods in Europe

('Christiane L\xc3\xb6tsch',) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:00:31 -0000

As the spectacular gay prides flourish across Europe, cafebabel.com local teams from Paris, Ljubljana, Berlin, Budapest and Athens blog about the scenes across Europe

Supper clubs between London and Paris

('Amy Tighe',) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:55:34 -0000

With all the talk of recession-wrought doom and gloom, cutbacks and taxation, it can be easy to forget to make lemon cheesecake out of Life’s proverbial lemons. If necessity is the mother of invention, let the economic depression yield inspiration. And let's have a slap-up meal in the process

Belgian singer Selah Sue, no Amy Winehouse

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 11:45:00 -0000

She’s a singer with American, even Jamaican soul, but Sanne Putseys is also just like any other young angel-faced Belgian girl, despite her groove sisterhood

Six years after riots, French discuss French 'banlieue'

('hkeet',) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:00:00 -0000

In France you will get a different response to this question about its high-rise estates in the suburbs depending on whether you listen to the 'cliché factory' that is the media or the personal experiences of its inhabitants. Above all, it is the magnifying glass of France’s collective identity problem, and all of Europe is involved

cafebabel.com blogs: 'Nightlife: Paris are you Berlin...still?'

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:59:16 -0000

Where are the new places to hang out in Paris? Is it because Paris is realising she is a dead town that she is starting to organise events called Berlin, like at the Gaîté Lyrique between 29 March and 3 April? View from the cafebabel.com Paris blog

French activist Julien Bayou on Europe's youth: 'Obvious to see why you’d be disenchanted'

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 13:22:32 -0000

Today’s precarious youth can just about pay their rent and have to make do with internships or makeshift ‘contracts’. This activist and politician has worked on speaking about the elephant in the room. Meet the unwitting 30-year-old ‘official face’ of a generation in difficulty, who we meet at a renowned squat in Paris

Tiken Jah Fakoly: ‘Africa has to overcome its ethnic and religious issues’

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:15:00 -0000

The Ivorian roots-reggae singer is in Paris to promote an upcoming African solidarity week in June, but also to create an echo of the Tunisian people’s fight across the rest of the African continent

Survey: Yes I am French and I was born pessimist

('Danielle Farrell',) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 12:30:00 -0000

It's gruelling every time a holiday period winds down in Paris, capital of a country populated by the 'world champions of pessimisim'. Crestfallen faces enveloped in black coats on grey jumpers, the Parisians being carried away on the metro seem to have just been released from their hangover. I am one of them, and proud of it, because when even if you're a champion of the most nauseating state of mind, you're still a champion! Right?

Bleach this: Paris nightlife gets a cold shower

('Sarah Byrne',) — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 17:17:06 -0000

After being branded Europe’s party-pooper a couple of years ago, a group of courageous rescuers of the night are attempting to turn the legendary city of lights into a renewed mecca for night owls. To some avail…

Mario Monicelli: 'commedia all’italiana encompassed everything from love to death'

('Mary Maistrello',) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 12:00:00 -0000

The 93-year-old Italian director and father of the ‘commedia all’Italiana’ film genre, on the power of cinema which ‘acts like a mirror, tells a story, but doesn’t preach’.

Older migrants of Europe: forgotten until when?

('Monica Mircescu',) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 11:30:00 -0000

They came to work and in the end they stayed. Today the migrants of the 1960s are growing old in the cities of western Europe often in isolation and insecurity. Their discretion has turned them into an invisible generation. Portrait of retired immigrants whom everybody wants already buried

Heard about the niqab, mini short wearing ‘Niqabitch’ in France?

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 16:30:00 -0000

In September two twentysomething ‘crazy girls’ walked to the French ministry of immigration and national identity in Paris in somewhat alternative outfits; one has Maghreb origins. They're protesting over the internet against a law which bans the burqa in the public sphere - after all, 'this is a democracy’

Paris strikes: where clowns once protested, now zombies do

('Nicola Potter',) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 12:15:00 -0000

On 16 October zombies took over the nationwide protests for a withdrawal of the French retirement reforms (to be raised from 60 to 62). When even the deceased are coming back to defend their rights, can the French government really afford to turn a deaf ear?

Frank Bouroullec: 'There aren’t many people with the balls to paint live'

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:27:37 -0000

The renowned French speed artist, 43, is no 'painter', he’s a 'performer'. Nor does he 'work'; he 'gets his kicks'. A non-speed interview with a man who has painted live portraits of the likes of Eva Longoria and George Clooney upside down and in under four minutes

Jerome Kerviel: Europe’s poorest man

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 13:15:00 -0000

Will the 33-year-old really pay back 4.9 billion euros - that's 170, 000 years of his former salary. Is Societe Generale going to reduce the gigantic sum for this black sheep? Or will his future children be slaves to the banks and have to keep paying off their unhappy inheritance for generations to come?

Communism perspectives: 'discontinuous history of art in eastern Europe'

('Oliver',) — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 14:00:00 -0000

3 October marked twenty years after the fall of the communist regime. One exhibition in Paris this summer asked the central question: is there any value in the question of 'east-west’ opposition today?

Claire Ruppli: ‘Erasmus generation have to create Europe now’

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 12:00:00 -0000

The lovemaking Swiss theatre actress is taking on a one-woman stage interpretation of a haunted figure in Prague on Parisian floorboards. She talks getting into theatre, Europe and passion

Esma Redzepova: 'Roma are cosmopolitan'

('Annie Rutherford',) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:30:00 -0000

A mother of 47, a career spanning 20 albums and 40 years and songs in Serbian, Macedonian and Romany. At the Sin Fronteras festival in France, the Macedonian 'gypsy music queen' brings a bit of Roma culture to a country which is planning to export large numbers of its gypsy population 'back' to Romania and Bulgaria by the end of the month

Vienna, Berlin, Budapest and Paris: blogging city rivers

('cafebabel.com',) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:35:39 -0000

Europe's city rivers are both the place to be in terms of a good old rave - take the A38 ship on the Danube to Bar 25 on the Spree - and also for a spot of nudity or artificial beach time in the summer. Blog snippets from four cafebabel.com local team bloggers, who pay tribute to their watery city icons

French duo John & Jehn: 'in England, no-one cares about boundaries'

('emily',) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 20:00:00 -0000

On 29 March a duo like none of the other new faces on the French music scene released their second album, 'Time For The Devil’. Fans of Joy Division and The Velvet Underground, the couple live and compose in London, which might be why their album exudes the feel of the British new wave

France's 'war on criminality' aside, focus on Parisian Roma in 'social insertion villages'

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:19:08 -0000

Four years after their creation in Europe, 'social integration villages' are being presented as a 'Roma paradise'. European associations for minority protection expose some of the difficulties facing the most discriminated community in the EU. Meanwhile, the French government has since planned to dissolve 300 Roma settlements, whilst the UK is seeing its biggest Romany gypsy site, Dale Farm in Essex, bulldozed

Mentality problems? Shutting down clubs in Paris

('Sarah Byrne',) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:00:00 -0000

A meeting of politicians and concert organisers in France should impede the nightlife of the capital city from dying - the debate's missed the crux of the problem

Fired public radio satirists - 'Berlusconisation France'?

('Nicola Potter',) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:00:04 -0000

Censor one person and someone else will speak for them. That’s what happened on 1 July in front of La Maison de la Radio in Paris, where disappointed listeners and exasperated France Inter workers protested against the sacking of morning show comedians Stéphane Guillon and Didier Porte. Flashback

Why do Germans sing 'Schland'?

('Nabeelah Shabbir',) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 11:59:53 -0000

In a week looking to Germany appearing in a world cup semi-final (and maybe a final), the new phenomenon comes in the form of an incomprehensible chant which drops the 'Deut' out of 'Deutschland' – are the Germans too drunk to hail their country?

Top tips from Parisian music festival Solidays

('Angela Therain',) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:00:00 -0000

A few glimpses dedicated to the 168 000 public that attended Solidays – the second biggest music festival in France after les Vieilles Charrues – and without whom the festival would be just another line up of stars

Private parts

Wed, 26 May 2010 12:19:50 -0000

We stand on the doorstep of a subject which is a lot more intimate than we think. Here is the key to another dimension of European integration - a small dictionary of sexual terminology

Gogo Paris, go go digital? Ditching European travel guidebooks

('Tim Mac an Airchinnigh',) — Wed, 12 May 2010 19:02:44 -0000

In Europe, we don’t go on city breaks any more. We ‘pop over’ to foreign capitals like we pop downstairs to get a pint of milk. So where does that leave the traditional travel guide? One Paris-based webzine is pioneering a new species of travel guide with Europe’s new jet-setting, PDF-ing urbanites in mind

Electronic music duo Fuck Buttons: is this music?

('Aatish Pattni',) — Mon, 03 May 2010 10:00:00 -0000

From Worcester via Bristol to the world, schoolfriends Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power are fiddling with some old machines across a table in order to make some music. The universal sound goes by ‘drone, pop, noise’

Volcano: travelling Vilnius to Paris by train

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 09:19:15 -0000

Once upon a time, in the space of six days, airline companies lost 1.7 millions euros - and they weren't alone. I don't know exactly how many million euros Iceland 'owes' to the world aviation sector. With little sleep and lots of beer, it certainly owes me two days of my life by train across 2, 000 km of Europe

When does design (not) become art?

('Hanna Sankowska',) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:04:28 -0000

There was no clear answer at the 14th pavilion of arts and design in Paris between 24 - 28 March. We talked limited edition pieces, the concept of twenty-first century art and the nature of spending at the internationally renowned trade show, which was held in the Tuilerie gardens

Music: (subversive) songs for the European city

('Nabeelah Shabbir',) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 10:35:08 -0000

Madrid's famous Gran Via boulevard celebrated its 100th anniversary on 7 April, with a local survey seeing 'Gran Via' by crooner Antonio Flores top a list of songs dedicated to the city. From monkeys in Berlin to Red Bull and Swedes in Barcelona via Stalin in Warsaw, a selection of offbeat videos suggested by the cafebabel network

Europe's 'beautiful laundrette' culture: socialising chores

('Annie Rutherford',) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:00:00 -0000

Social networks have allowed a whole generation to abandon any sense of shame and showcase its private life. The fashion for exposure doesn't limit itself to the screen; Europe's urban landscapes offer more and more spaces which mix the private and the public. Washing your dirty laundry in public in Germany, France and Denmark