Seriously, WTF?

I really hate to follow the Murder of Valentin with this story, but this is just a major WTF?!! moment for me. You might also find this in English news, but I don’t care, this is something I need to post.

You may of heard of the bus incident in Canada that happened this week. I didn’t blog about it because it wasn’t French Canada… but the basic gist is that a man went crazy and started stabbing a bus mate. After being locked on the bus alone with the body after the other passengers fled, the killer taunted the people with the victim’s decapitated head.

This story is so eerily similar, I’m starting to worry if this is going to become and epidemic! It must be something in the air…

Link: ‘Til Death Do I Part You

The night of August 3rd in Greece (early this morning for America), police reported a man that was brought into custody for murdering his wife; however, this is in no way a conventional murder.

Two suspects in the Murder of Valentin arrested.

A hopeful development of a grisly murder occurred today in France. Earlier this week, the body of Valentin Cremault, an 11 year-old boy, was found in a small street in Lagnieu, a small town between Lyon and the Swiss-French border. Valentin (as he is being affectionately called by the French) was stabbed around 40 times with a knife. His body was found Thursday night nearby his bicycle and it is said that his blood has stained several streets of the town.

Needless to say, the murder shocked everybody in France and developments have been making the front page for several days now. Detectives were closely following any trail left by DNA. Yesterday, a DNA sample produced no results from the national database, only the fact that the murderer was male.

La Pub de la semaine: Stick’em up!

Okay, so this isn’t a French ad per se… but it is for Peugeot, a famous French car company, and was aired in France, so I say it counts!

Plus, this ad is just so great— I had to post it!

“Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis!”

Today, I was reading Le Figaro and found an article about France’s “Top 50 Personalities”, a survey conducted twice a year to see who is the most famous French celebrity in France.

Link: Top 50 French Personalities

I’m sorry to say that my girl Carla only reached the 50th spot this time around, but never fear! It was her first time on the list and she only started becoming popular with the people of France around March, when her relationship with Sarkozy exploded. I expect her rank to increase, very, very soon.

Equally unfortunate is Sarkozy’s ranking– 44th, down 12 spots from six months ago. I’ll let that speak for itself.

The “coveted” number one spot was given to Yannick Noah, a former tennis player, now musician, who has been active in charity work. He is the guy who trademarked the tennis move where you hit the ball between your legs. From my experience, I can safely tell you that this move is often imitated, but never matched.

However, Noah isn’t who I wanted to focus on today (no offense to the Noah lovers out there). Instead, I want to talk about who came second in the survey: Dany Boon.

I <3 Carla Bruni

This is no French news, but I just had to tell all of you loyal readers out there! Plus, any French culture freak must know about Carla Bruni. Tomorrow at 9/8C on Dateline NBC, Barbara Walters is doing a piece on Carla, the French First Lady extraordinaire.

Can’t wait! I’m hoping it’s good… I’ve actually never heard her speak English before so I’m hoping that worked out for her.

If you are an Olympic fanatic, you might remember her taking part in the opening ceremonies of the 2006 Winter Olympics. She was born in Torino, and participated in the honoring of the Italian flag. I still remember!

You see, I’ve always had a thing for Mme Bruni, even before she was Mme Sarkozy..

Did I mention that not only does she sing but she was a super model as well? She’s also fluent in (at least) three languages, French, Italian, and English. And on top of that, she seems like a super lady!

The video here is her music video for “Quelqu’un m’a dit”, back from 2003 or so. (A translation of the lyrics can be found at the very end of this post.)

La Pub de la semaine: Le Cochon con

So every Sunday I’m going to be providing you with a French publicité (commercial ad), or pub for short. Of course, I’ll provide you with a transcript! One in French for you learners out there and one in English for the idiots.

This week’s pub features animated barnyard animals as they discuss the French lottery (a very common scenario, I’m sure).

This ad has earned a cult following, especially with young kids who now run around screaming “DéeeeDéeeee?!”. See the transcripts after the jump.