Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Rock and roll, garage, hard-core, street punk — from Black Flag to Agnostic Front to Crisis, Frustration isn’t just a sentiment, it’s a way of life! With Frustration, “Your life will be sadder, but it’ll be more lucid.”
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
This newspaper, called “The Sapper’s Candle” (a “sapper” is traditionally a military man who disarms mines), only comes out on the leap year. But how can a periodical published only on February twenty-ninth be financially sound? Maybe it’s true: less is more.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Canada
For more than ten years, Les Héritiers [The Heirs] restaurant in Montreal, which specializes in French cuisine made from Quebecois ingredients, has been concocting dishes like risotto with marinated ginger and rack of lamb with garlic and rosemary sauce. But the food isn’t the only reason for the popularity of Les Héritiers: you can bring your own wine!
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Billions (oui, milliards!) of birds migrate from Africa every year, and with bird flu developing rapidly, their arrival to France is closely monitored at the Marquenterre National Park. Learn how French scientists and engineers there have taken innovative measures to make it difficult for the virus to settle in the mud where the birds like to feed.
Difficulty: Beginner
France
Celebrated French rapper Disiz La Peste (Dis Is The Plague) began his acting career in Dans tes rêves (In Your Dreams), a film that relates the story of a young rapper trying to make his way in the music industry.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
Dahlia formed in 1999 in the province of Brittany in northwest France as a collaboration between guitarist Guillaume Fresneau and cellist Armel Talarmain.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Peaceful student demonstrations were marred by the intrusion of young rioters, non-students who joined in and caused mayhem and violence. Now the student organizers have accepted the aid of union members and are working together to keep the march safe.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Will French dentists soon have their patients grow new teeth, instead of filling in the old ones? New techniques using restorative molecules and even stem cells (which can be found in the baby teeth of children) will go a long way toward helping people smile filling-free.
Difficulty: Beginner
Senegal
Amadou and Mariam reference a number of West African musical instruments, like djembes, dununs, balans, and tamas, in “Beaux dimanches”—a song about Sundays in Bamako.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
French scientists study 740,000-year-old Antarctic ice samples and find clues that point to a relationship between greenhouse gases and global warming. It is feared that the record high carbon and methane levels of today will cause severe climatic change in coming years.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Hipsters all over the world are surely mourning the loss of their favorite instant-nostalgia art medium: the Polaroid. With the recent closing of the last two remaining Polaroid factories in the U.S., it looks like that familiar and much-loved “ch-click-whrrr” sound will soon become a thing of the past. Polaroid has plans to soon launch products suited to the digital era. But can anything ever compare to the one and only original? Only time will tell.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Canada
Montreal is famous for hockey, but who cares about hockey when you can have chocolat? Edith Gagnon, owner of La Maison Cakao, shows us the magic behind her charmants chocolates.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Even the Chinese agree with French astronaut Jean-François Clervoy: the great wall of China is NOT visible to the human eye from space, not even from a low orbit. Chinese astronaut Yan Liwei, who orbited the earth fourteen times in a Chinese spaceship, couldn’t see it either.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
The magic of Nicolas Ghesquière? Innovating, without betraying the heritage of the venerable fashion house of Balenciaga.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
France
Babylon Circus, a ska band from Lyon, sings in this song about romantic regrets, missed cues, and lost opportunities. “J’aurais bien voulu” could well be translated as “Woulda, coulda, shoulda.”
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Nuits Blanches, French ambiance, old movies and nouvel art make Paris by night even more exciting.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Beautiful snow Leopards and Madagascar tortoises! The European Program protects rare species such as these in zoos, with the goal to eventually release them (or their children) back into the wild.
Difficulty: Beginner
France
Twenty-eight years ago, Frenchman Michel Garcia fell in love with Easter Island, home of clear blue water and the breathtaking moai. Since then he’s kept busy as a diving instructor and doting father, and he even found time to discover a new species of shellfish!
Difficulty: Beginner
France
The number of French students interested in studying Chinese has soared in French high schools in the last ten years. Though it is currently offered mostly by elite schools, the French government hopes to make it more accessible to all schools in years to come.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
One school is no longer serving chicken, claiming that children aren’t eating it when served due to fears of avian flu. The mayor is behind this decision – despite the protests of parents and chicken farmers – citing the “principle of precaution.”
Difficulty: Beginner
France
Like old cheese and old wine, old wood is in high demand when it comes to building new chalets. A modern cabin built of ancient wood provides the perfect balance of the old and the new.
Difficulty: Beginner
France
Born and raised in the Pyrenees region of southern France, Cali was an aspiring rugby player before attending a U2 concert at the age of 17.
Difficulty: Beginner
Senegal
Amadou and Mariam share singing duties with co-producer Manu Chao on a song with themes of migration and dislocation.
Difficulty: Intermediate
France
Microcredit can make a big difference to people on welfare or those without good credit history. Case in point: this fifty-five-year-old man who succeeded in opening up his own pizzeria thanks to the help he received.
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