Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
Five of the nine districts of Lyon, the second largest French city, are being monitored for the H5N1 virus, better known as “Bird Flu”.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France, Tunisia
Young Tunisians take to the streets on May 1 to voice their discontent about Sarkozy's inflexible stance on refugee resettlement, which many see as racist.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
Say you’re writing a poem in French, and you need to know how to compare your love to a beautiful sunny summer day. Unsure of the vocabulary? Listen to this weather report from local station Alsace 20 (covering the Alsace region of France) to pick up some useful weather lingo.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
You might already know that the euro looks slightly different from country to country. But France has also released a series of limited edition euro coins for each of its twenty-six regions. Remember when collecting state quarters was all the rage? Now you can move on to regional French euros!
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
The town of Nîmes goes all out for Christmas, with thousands of lights and giant candy canes all along the streets. It might just be the most festive city in France!
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
Marion Cotillard was not a superstar when she landed the role of Edith Piaf in La Môme. But, already a formidable actress, she had an impressive set of roles under her belt, and the film’s director had no doubt she was “the one.” He was right: Marion took home the Oscar for best actress in 2008.
An interesting note: The USA release title for the film – in French, ironically enough – is La Vie en Rose, the name of a famous Piaf song, which basically means, “life through rose-colored glasses.” The French title comes from Piaf’s nickname: “La Môme Piaf,” which can be translated as “the little sparrow,” but also means “little kid Piaf.”
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
It’s common to see photos of celebrities aged forty and up happily pregnant or pushing a pram. But according to most doctors, a woman’s chances of conceiving drop dramatically after age thirty-eight or so. Of course there are exceptions. Modern medical fertility treatments allowed a sixty-six-year-old Romanian woman to give birth to twins in 2005. But unless we’re willing and able to procure such treatments, which can be financially, emotionally, and physically draining, those who want to wait until their forties to have kids will have to take their chances.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
Workers for the power company in the city of Lille aren’t happy and want management to know it. So they sabotaged the grid, cutting off power to thousands of businesses and residences. Despite the inconvenience, the mayor, and even many residents, support the workers.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
Though we reported that some of the residents of Lille support the power workers and their blackout strikes, it turns out that not all of them do. Office workers shout from balconies to give the strikers a piece of their minds, and the workers respond in kind.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
As Laurent Voulzy is walking down the beach, he chances upon a fan, and sings a little duet with her. At his concert that night, she’ll be in the front row. Can that “change the face of the world”?
Difficulty: Advanced
France
A journalist is at Place de la République in Paris to gauge the mood after the French legislative election results. There's an overall sense of relief at the left coalition's defeat of the far right.
Difficulty: Advanced
France
French people are taking to the streets to protest against the government pension reform. Find out why people are so upset about it.
Difficulty: Advanced
France
In French there are two very similar expressions for extremely hot weather: une vague de chaleur (heatwave), and la canicule (oppressive heat). There are some technical differences between the two, as you will discover in this video.
Difficulty: Advanced
France
As the COVID pandemic endures, makers of homemade masks are being forced to switch to higher-quality materials to comply with government recommendations. But this means that mask prices are increasing too.
Difficulty: Advanced
France
This video shows us what the Paris metro system looked like the day after the lockdown ended. Social distancing in a crowded train is proving to be quite difficult...
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