Newsletter n°228 / Bastille Day Week

Dear franceinlondoner

'The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction.'
- Alexis de Tocqueville, French historian & political scientist, 1805-1859

Education

The Top Ten Schools in France and French Lycée in London Baccalauréat Results

For the French, the day the baccalaureat results are out is a day when the whole country comes to a holt to find out who got what. Unlike in England, this is really the very first serious exam that French students have to take. This is the one that determines their university potential. In England of course, GCSEs and ASs Levels are also key milestones.

Leaving

Suzanne (Kristin Scott-Thomas) is about forty years old, a doctor’s wife and mother of two teenagers living in the south of France. Her idle bourgeois lifestyle gets her down and she decides to go back to work as a physiotherapist, a job she trained for but quit in order to bring up her children. Her husband (Yvan Attal) agrees to fix up a consulting room for her in their backyard. The man in charge of the building work is Ivan (Sergi López), an odd job man who has been to prison. When he and Suzanne meet, the mutual attraction is sudden and violent. Suzanne decides to give up everything and live this all-engulfing passion to the full.

2 free tickets for performance at the Gate Cinema in Notting Hill on Thursday 22nd July at 6.35pm to be won