Most uneventful event of the week

September 10th. Blogging. Loïc le Meur, France's alleged "most successful blogger" (150 000 visits per month), a man who until now liked to describe himself as totally impartial when it came to politics (but who had jumped on the "bash the anti-CPE students" bandwagon, students he initially described as: "loudmouthed slackers lacking ambition"), announced on his blog, trumpets flaring, that he would be voting for Nicolas Sarkozy, because: "I have been an entrepreneur for 10 years [...] Nicolas Sarkozy's discourse and the time I spent with him and his team in Marseille, provided me with the arguments that I needed to accompany my sympathy for the man himself, and to support him openly and in particular his desire to create a society of creators and entrepreneurs".

Most sordid event of the week

September 12th. Violence. At 5 am, a group of homeless youths threw a student over the Pont Neuf bridge over the Garonne river, in downtown Toulouse. The 26 year-old student from Britanny, who prior to that had been chased, caught and beaten up by the homeless group after a heated discussion had started regarding his skateboard, hit the base of one of the bridge's pillars, bases that rise out of the water by the end of summer, and died. This is not going to help people's opinion of the homeless. And to think that so many homeless people have been thrown over bridges too. Sad news for the family in Britanny.

Quote of the week

September 17th. Hypocrisy. Nicolas Sarkozy, about providing papers for only 6,000 or so out of 20,000 paperless immigrant families having children in French schools, ie. in the same proportions he had announced (6,000 out of 20,000) prior to reviewing each family on a case-by-case basis: "In France, nothing is arbitrary: the only criteria for appreciation, for interpretation, is the desire to become French."

Number of the week

September 14th. Socialism. France's national statistics institute, the INSEE, published public expenses figures for 2005. It came out that in 2005, all public administrations jointly spent (total government expenditure) a total of 919.7 billion euros, representing 53.8% of the GDP. This is a 0.4% climb from 2004, which had seen us in the OECD's 3rd position behind Sweden (57.3%) and Denmark (56.3%).

Picture of the week

September 17th. Astronomy. Space Weather published this photo, taken in Normandy by amateur astronomer Thierry Legault, showing the shuttle undocking from the ISS (Intl Space Station), with the sun in the background: -- large picture is 1 MB --