Jeannine & Roger's French Cheese Odyssey

Carcassonne - Macron's Influence - 27th May

The difference between the two images above: one is a mark, the other likes to leave his mark and is doing a pretty good job.

MILITARY
Every day we see ‘Red Berets’ in our neighbourhood which is not surprising as the 3rd Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment has 3 military bases and 2 accommodation areas near to us.
So what has this got to do Macron? Well, in 1996, President Jacques Chirac suspended compulsory military service and replaced it with another compulsory program. Macron then replaced that with a voluntary regime in 2021 for people aged 16 to 25; below is an excerpt of what is involved.

“The basis of this voluntary service is to "increase the cohesion of the nation". The service lasts one month and is not compulsory. The draftees must wear uniform-like clothes; they have to hand over their mobile phones and are placed in collective accommodations far away from their home community. The daily routine follows a strict schedule: in the morning the anthem is sung at the flag roll call and afterwards courses must be attended, such as a first aid course, an introduction to the written driver's licence test and learning rules of conduct in the event of a terrorist attack. The other half of the time has to be fulfilled with assignment in a non-profit organization, the military, the police, or a fire department.”

The other day an intake of high-school aged children was marched down our street with their packs on, kept in line by the Red Berets. Hopefully this will aid France in being a better Nation in general life and in War. Remember from our previous posts France are good at commemorating the Wars, they are good at providing and maintaining Memorials and cemeteries for the war victims, but in battle their leaders have often sold the country short.

Just so there is no confusion:

RENEWABLE ENERGY
To lessen the energy price increases caused by power shortages, Macron is investing in alternate power sources and passing laws that will ensure everybody is doing their bit. This includes legislation that providers of large car parking areas must provide covered parking that has solar panels on the roof. Depending on how many car parks you have determines how many years you have to complete the project. We had already seen these on previous trips to France, but below is an example of one today; thanks to Macron our car was only registering 31 degrees as opposed to 37 degrees when we parked in the open.

It is because of this extreme heat that we basically went nowhere today except to the market and shops to get essentials, that’s blackberry beer and fly spray for Roger and cherries and Pringles for me.

Cheese Experience No.36 - Pur Brebis translates to pure sheep. I went against my own principles and bought cheese from a market stall. The guy speaks English, has a small table stall and offers free samples with a commentary. But still you ask for 100grams and get close to 200grams including the heavyweight paper wrapper, the cheese went nicely with the cherries. The stall I got the cherries from allowed you to pick the degree of ripeness of the fruit, which was good because most stalls and shops sell them while they are still light red.