Yesterday, our region of France, the Rhone-Alpes, staged an event destined to rival Woodstock- at least if one can believe the hype from our trusty daily newspaper, “Le Dauphine Libere.”
Annecy, host to yesterday’s stage of the Tour had about the same number of spectateurs (400,000) as Woodstock. Throw in various garage-type bands, as well as a celebrity or two (Matthew McConaughey or according to “Le Dauphine,” Matthew Mac Conaughey) and the parallels, to the festival at Woodstock (which, of course, was not held at Woodstock) were well, rather mistakable.
No matter. Here is some French hype about yesterday’s event designed to set Jimi Hendrix spinning in his grave demanding to do for La Marseillaise what he did for the Star-Spangled Banner. Le Dauphine wrote:
“Hier le coeur du monde battait en France et celui de la France battait a Annecy. Jamais la ville n’avait autant palpite.”
The rough translation is that “yesterday the heart of the world was beating in France while the heart of the French was beating in Annecy. Never has the city been so alive.” Mon Dieu, the French are poetic.
Perhaps we can forgive the hyperbole. Annecy, a beautiful city (population around 55,000) is one of 205 cities in France to receive the designation “quatre fleuries,” the highest award for overall aesthetics presented by the government. Annecy is in competition to be chosen as a locale for the 2018 Olympic Games and yesterday the city handed out 6,000 signs supporting Annecy’s candidacy.
I should point out however that although I’m sure the editors of "Le Dauphine" didn’t have this in mind, “le coeur de France” is actually the name of a French cookie. We call them elephant ears in the U.S. That’s okay. I’m sure the spectateurs had plenty of good cookies to eat in Annecy yesterday even if the event doesn’t quite replace Woodstock in the public’s imagination..jpeg)
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