Word: gallic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Business-class travelers, ensconced in their designer flatbed seats, face a full French press of everything that Gallic cuisiniers can throw at them: menus by three-star chef Alain Ducasse, vin extraordinaire, and of course the smugness of knowing you're not in coach...
Many people in France talk of the "Asterix syndrome" and the "village gaulois" (Gallic village), the idea that tiny, embattled France needs to defend itself against the encroaching cultural influences of the U.S., or the English language, or both. Usually used pejoratively, the terms indicate an inward, backward-looking way of seeing the world. The sentiment is also tied up with the French obsession with its cultural exception, the various rules and regulations designed to protect the French way of life from outside forces: French singers must sing in French, English words are banned from advertising, half...
...same goes for the rest of Europe. The patchwork of nations that make up the European Union sports a combined population of half a billion people - hardly a small Gallic village forced to defend itself against the onslaught of an economic empire. In ways both obvious and less so, the E.U. is now a superpower...
...with the president and foreign minister offering up grief-filled tributes to a “visionary” and “humanist.” Here in the U.S., media reactions have been more muted: a faithful reflection of our general domestic indifference toward the intricacies of Gallic theory. (That the anthropologist shares his name with the most American of institutions, a denim manufacturer, lends his fate something of a surreal twist; a Google image search intersperses pictures of primitive art with links to purchase boot-cut flares.) Yet Lévi-Strauss deserves a moment of genuine...
France - or at least parts of it - will soon find out. And how will a society famous for being rabidly protective of its leisure time, long vacations and nominal 35-hour workweek respond? Probably with a Gallic shrug. Polls show 55% of French people oppose the law and 42% support it. Still, 40% of respondents say they'd heed a boss's call to work Sunday if it meant making more money, while another 30% say they'd welcome the chance to shop on Sundays. (See pictures of Bastille Day celebrations...