A Paris!

Finally, I can try my French in Paris. You see as an American, my French lacks tonal character. My American accent is flat, non-tonal, whereas after two weeks I can finally get the second syllable working again. But never in Paris.

Now a kind French politician is proposing to make this illegal. As Reuters notes:

French member of parliament has proposed that mockery of accents be outlawed, after an irate politician derided a journalist’s southwestern pronunciation before asking if anyone had a question in “understandable French”. Laetitia Avia of President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party said she was proposing a bill that would classify such mockery with other forms of prohibited discrimination such as on grounds of sex or race. She did so after a journalist from Toulouse in southwest France asked former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon about an anti-corruption investigation of his hard-left political party. In an exchange widely relayed on media and social networks, Melenchon mimicked the journalist’s accent and told her she was “talking nonsense” before turning away and saying: “Has anyone got a question in more or less comprehensible French?” 

I may be able to return to Paris yet. In Normandy no problem, in Savoy, no problem, in Brittany, no problem. Finally a solution. Bonne chance mes amis!