French

French crossing the border with jerry cans

by

In cities like Madrid and Barcelona, ​​today Diesel starts at 1.94 euros per liter, with gasoline close to 1.60. These are absolutely sky-high prices if we compare them with those of the last few months before the start of the conflict between the United States and Iran. But for the French it is a candy they are not willing to reject. The French case. France is one of the countries with the most aggressive taxation of its fuels. Something that has caused prices to skyrocket above 2.30 euros. This same week, 12% of French stations have run out of fuel. Reason? TotalEnergies capped the maximum price at 1.99 euros per liter for gasoline and 2.09 euros in the case of diesel. Within a few hours they were practically out of supplies. Solution? Spanish. Those transport professionals and regular drivers close to the border are reactivating a practice they resort to when fuel costs skyrocket: refueling in Spain. In some cases the price difference reaches close to one euro per liter, which has caused a very high influx at low-cost Easygas stations in Guipúzcoa, according to Diario Vasco. Filling drums. A deposit may not make a difference. But a few, yes. On their gas station pilgrimage, the French are filling drums and jugs with fuel, according to the newspaper. The regulations allow up to 60 liters of gasoline per container to be transported, up to a total of 240 liters. Europe is not so happy. Although prices continue to be high, Spain is an anomalous case compared to Europe. Brussels is warning the Government that the VAT on fuel cannot be reduced from 21% to 10% as the executive stated, and threatens sanctions if the tax is not modified. Sources from the Ministry of Finance have defended that The measure is “temporary and not structural” and that its “priority” is “supporting families, self-employed workers and companies to mitigate the effects of a war that should never have started.” On March 26, Congress approved a package of measures that includes tax cuts to contain fuel, gas and electricity bills during the conflict. France sleeps peacefully. Spain, Croatia, Hungary and Germany are European examples of attempts at fuel containment. Either through reductions in the tax burden, or through limits on price increases by gas stations, such as the Alemán case. Meanwhile, in France, the Government has not intervened in the price in any way, which has catapulted the final ticket to one of the highest positions in the European ranking. In Xataka | Finding the cheapest gas station in your area is very simple thanks to this very powerful tool

The French AI startup profiting from geopolitical chaos just raised $830 million. For European data centers

by

The French startup Mistral has raised 830 million dollars and it has done so with one objective: to create AI data centers in Europe that will be based on NVIDIA chips and technological solutions. That’s good news, but it also has a disturbing side. Merci, Monsieur Trump. There is a geopolitical irony in the rise of Mistral. The French AI startup has become a reference in Europe, but it has done so not so much because of its models or technology (that too) but because of Donald Trump. Since the American president returned to power and began to destroy the era of globalization, the demand for “sovereign” European alternatives to the large US technology platforms has skyrocketed. Governments and companies that previously turned to Microsoft, Amazon or Google without thinking are now trying to look for options that free them from those dependencies. Mistral is precisely the clear alternative in terms of AI. 830 million to have its own infrastructure. The round that Mistral has raised is not venture capital, but debt financing granted mainly by French banks such as Bpifrance, BNP Paribas, HSBC and MUFG. It is an interesting aspect and shows that the company no longer needs to convince investors, but rather finance the infrastructure necessary to scale its business. Those $830 million are destined for its future European data centers, starting with its facilities in Bruyères-le-Châtel, near Paris. Said center will house 13,800 GB300 chips from NVIDIA and will begin operating before the end of June. Debt, not equity. There is an important difference between the venture capital rounds that have financed Mistral until now and this new round of debt. Venture capital is not returned: investors bet on a stake in the company and get paid if the company grows and is sold or goes public. The debt is repaid, and it is with interest, regardless of how the business is going. That Mistral has opted for this mechanism suggests that it is optimistic about the future, but it also represents added pressure for the company, which will not be able to afford consecutive quarters of losses. Betting with other people’s money has its problems, but doing so with borrowed money also has important problems. The success of the 13,800 chips. May that French data center get 13,800 GB300 chipsthe most advanced from NVIDIA, is not a minor detail. These AI accelerators are on the waiting list of many companies, and here Mistral competes with hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google or xAI that buy tens of thousands of units and have priority agreements. That this European startup has managed to secure that amount seems to demonstrate that it has negotiating capacity or a special relationship with NVIDIA and its CEO, Jensen Huang. European AI ecosystem. Mistral is little by little becoming the perfect European ecosystem for companies that want not to be exposed to dependencies on North American partners. Having everything under European control is what more and more governments are looking for in Europe, and here we are facing an effort that wants to offer that certain independence… which of course is anything but complete. Be that as it may, Mistral has become the great European seller of sovereignty as a product. But. Mistral expects to achieve 200 MW of computing capacity by the end of 2027, including a €1.2 billion facility in Sweden with 23 MW that will begin operating next year. These are decent numbers in a European Union that has barely raised its head in this segment, but they are very far from those in China and especially the United States. OpenAI and its partners have agreements worth several hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure, and while here we move in megawatt capacities, there we talk about gigawatts. The distance is still enormous. And the dependency still exists. The paradox that no one seems to want to allude to is important: the European “sovereign” infrastructure that Mistral is building depends entirely on chips designed by an American company and manufactured in Taiwan. If for any reason Washington decides to make Europe a banned region for its technology and prohibits the export of GB300 chips, Mistral’s expansion would be paralyzed. The quest for digital sovereignty is interesting, but the reality is that Europe will continue to depend on US technology and Taiwan’s manufacturing capacity to an even greater extent than the US o China depend on its rival. The old continent has activated some measures for mitigate the problembut that will not prevent it from continuing to exist in the long term. Paris, European capital of AI. The French startup has turned France into one of the great European references in AI. Mistral was valued at $12 billion after raising $1.7 billion in financing led by ASML. In addition, they expect to exceed 1,000 million in annual recurring revenue. This company is now joined by the recently launched startup Yann LeCun: Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs (AMI Labs) has already managed to raise more than 1 billion dollars and will also be based in Paris. Another detail should be highlighted: Bpifrance, the French public investment bank, is leading the round. That is significant, because that means that the one supporting this initiative is the French state. In Xataka | Mistral does not generate hype, it is a discreet AI, it does not boost the shares of any company, but it already makes more money than Grok

While in the US there is a civil war over military AI, a European one has sneaked into the French Armed Forces: Mistral

by

One of the big topics of conversation in recent weeks is the civil war in the United States. between two of the AI ​​giants and the Government itself. To sum up, Anthropic gave in his artificial intelligence Claude to the Pentagon to integrate it into all its systems along with Palantir. It is estimated that it has been a key tool for capture Nicolás Madurobut also to attack Iranbut since the US wanted to go further and Anthropic refused, OpenAI took its place. It is a very strange situation because the result could be that The US blacklists Anthropic as if it were Huawei. It would be the first time they have done that to an American company and it is something that tells us two things. The first is that governments need big technology companies and their tools. The second is that technology companies also have a lot to gain. And, while all that noise is happening in the United States, in Europe another AI company has ‘sneaked’ into its country’s security systems. We refer to a Mistral that, without making noisehas been building its portfolio of contacts in European defense systems for some time. A local AI for the security of Europe With all the spotlights pointing to ChatGPT, Claude and Chinese equivalents such as DeepSeekothers have been carving out a niche for themselves. Almost without a sound, and overnight, a French company called Mistral was building multilingual models that rivaled the American alternatives that captured all eyes. Founded in June 2023, Mistral will soon converted in the French technological jewel, but also in the Europe’s AI gem. Its managers, engineers who came from Google (deepmind) and Meta, managed to attract the attention of NVIDIA, ASML, Samsung, IBM, Salesforce or a Microsoft that invested 15 million euros and incorporated Mistral models into Azure. Mistral’s policy is to release the code of its models so that anyone can analyze, use and adapt it. According to them, it is something that will accelerate innovation and, without the muscle of the American giants, their approach is to a large model with other smaller and specialized ones. At the beginning of this year, the bombshell arrived. The Ministry of the Armed Forces of France arrive to an agreement with Mistral AI to integrate the company’s models, software and services in public entities related to the ministry. For example, the Atomic Energy Commission, the National Office of Aerospace Studies and Research, the Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service of the Navy and, also, the Armed Forces. It is the Ministry of Defense Artificial Intelligence Agency that will supervise all operations, but the idea is to “deploy Mistral tools in France’s infrastructure, ensuring full control over data and critical technologies.” From the Government, it was noted that, with these new tools, they can prepare the Armed Forces for the challenges of the future. However, the fact that Mistral is the Defense model in France may matter little to us… unless we take two things into account. The first: shortly after this agreement became known, public information on how Mistral is seeking Defense contracts outside France. They are getting more and more into this path, signing agreements with Helsinga German defense startup, and Arthur Mensch, CEO of Mistral, argued that its AI models will be “instrumental in the development of a new generation of defense systems.” Here comes the second thing to take into account. Mensch himself commented that these tools “will ensure Europe’s strategic advantage on the global stage”. This is important because Europe is now at a point where it has realized that the partners and allies of the past may not be the same as those of the future. European sovereignty At the user level we see movements like those of independence from American technologiesbut at a political level, Mistral responds to that search for European sovereignty. Instead of leaving your Defense-related systems in the hands of a foreign company, these agreements mean that it is a European company that is on the inside. And, in the end, this is not just about AI. In recent months we are seeing how Europe is moving to have a more powerful voice in terms of semiconductors, computing for artificial intelligence and even in the new space race. For a long time it has been said that others innovate and Europe legislates, but the current situation It has caused Europe to continue legislating while doing everything else. Images | Mistral AI, Amio Cajander In Xataka | The United States wants to be “sovereign” on a technological level. The problem is that everything it builds depends on other countries

It took eight months for the French Academy to bring Jim Carrey to Paris. It took the Internet eight hours to decide that it wasn’t him

by

On February 26, Jim Carrey received a prestigious Honorary César for his entire career in Paris, after years of semi-retirement. But what was born as a touching emotional tribute at the center of a conspiracy theory: was it really him who took the stage, or an impersonator with prosthetics? The story of how an Instagram post unleashed chaos (and how it ended up being denied). A tribute. Jim Carrey has received this year’s Honorary César: the French Oscars rewarded his “exceptional versatility” with an award that Julia Roberts, Christopher Nolan and David Fincher had already received. It also arrived at a time when Carrey’s career was at a peculiar point: in 2022, at the press conference for ‘Sonic the Hedgehog 2’ he announced that he retired. But he came back three years later. with brutal honesty: “I have bought many things and I need the money“Frankly.” Therefore, Carrey arrived in Paris after a false retirement that had made him partially disappear, yes, from the red carpets and premieres. And now he was on the most elegant stage in European cinema. He had not disappeared from the public light, however: in November, had been seen at Soundgarden’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Los Angeles. But his appearances have always been, in recent years, spaced out in time and without warning. The delivery. The first unexpected moment of the night came when Carrey, after being introduced by Michel Gondry, and with an aesthetic that left behind the lush beard of recent years, gave the acceptance speech completely in French. The accent was unmistakably American, but it was very worked. As Gregory Caulier, general delegate of the Caesars, would later reveal, I had prepared it for months. In it revealed a connection with France that no one knew: his ancestor Marc-François Carré (the family’s original surname before Anglicization) was born in Saint-Malo and, from there, emigrated to Canada The change. In fact, already at the aforementioned Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony its appearance It had aroused some surprise: it already had the aesthetic that it repeated at the Césars, with shoulder-length hair and slightly different facial features than usual. The first speculations pointed to the cosmetic surgery as a possible reason and some experts on the subject speculated about what those interventions could have been. Dr. Millicent Rovelo speak of an upper blepharoplasty (to remove excess skin from the upper eyelids) and a significant volume of Botox on the forehead. Another surgeon, Dr. John Diaz pointed out to a possible cervical tightening procedure. The very media Dr. Tony Youn pointed out signs of an endoscopic brow lift that would explain the slight displacement of the hairline. and joined the hypothesis of blepharoplasty and Botox. Finally, Dr. Raffi Hovsepian, dissented: The changes in the forehead and eye area seemed compatible with natural male aging, without surgical evidence. Let’s not forget that in 2003, Carrey appeared at the Teen Choice Awards completely blindfolded, wearing sunglasses, pretending to come out of surgery. By then rumors arose about the tweaks to his physique. The mask artist. Four days after the ceremony, Alexis Stone posted a carousel of three images on Instagram. The first two featured Jim Carrey. The third was a latex mask, false teeth, a dark wig, and various makeup materials arranged on a table with the Eiffel Tower out of focus in the background. The caption was simply “Alexis Stone as Jim Carrey in Paris.” Stone is a self-taught effects designer who has built a career on hyperrealistic transformations that have allowed her to pass herself off as Madonna, Jack NicholsonLana Del Rey, Robin Williams’ Ms. Doubtfire or Glenn Close’s Cruella de Vil. Stone usually documents his process in detail, but this was not the case: we only saw a mask that even had details that some users saw themselves as belonging to an AI generationwith excessively perfect contours and a blurry background typical of synthetic images. but when famous like Megan Fox or Katy Perry spread Stone’s posts, the rumor germinated all over the internet: the Césars were not Jim Carrey, but an imposter. Because. The arguments that the conspiracy theorists maintained They appeared almost at the same time as the gala. For example, the color of the eyes, usually dark brown, here a more greenish tone. More: Carrey is left-handed, and several short videos showed him in Paris using his right hand to sign autographs. The third argument was the speech itself: that someone who was theoretically retired and had no active ties to France spoke for ten minutes in French with very elaborate pronunciation, it was, for a part of the public, tremendously suspicious. The interviews that prove it. Of course, this is the moment that conspiracy theorists have been waiting for to bring up interviews from Carrey’s past with ambiguous, philosophical or downright incomprehensible answers. In 2017 declared that he did not believe in personalities, that the fashion party he had gone to and at which he was being interviewed seemed to him “absolutely meaningless” (from a metaphysical point of view) and that “there is no self, there are only things happening” (later the actor himself I would rate the interview “existential experiment”). In a previous interview, he calmly said “I’m dead“, but it was in the context of a conversation about spirituality and ego. We recommend fans of the most disconcerting Carrey to check out the incredible documentary ‘Jim and Andy’, which documents his literal transformation into Andy Kaufman for the filming of ‘Man on the Moon’. Official confirmation. The first official statements came from Marleah Leslie, Jim Carrey’s publicist for decades, with a brief message and that left no room for doubt: “Jim Carrey attended the César Awards, where he accepted his Honorary César Award.” That same day, the aforementioned Gregory Caulier told Variety what the eight months of preparatory conversations had been like and the months that the actor dedicated to working on his French. Carrey went to Paris accompanied by … Read more

Spain agreed with Germany and France to bypass the US. And it will end with a fleet of F-35s because of a French name

by

Since the end of the Cold War, Europe has tried several times to build large joint military programs capable of rivaling those of the United States, almost always clashing with national interests, different industrial cultures and, of course, technological egos that are difficult to fit into. Each generation of fighters has promised more integration and less external dependence. Few have managed to fulfill it, and now it was not going to be less. The surprise that was not. He FCAS was born as a high-caliber strategic ambition: France, Germany and Spain agreed to promote a new generation combat air system to get ahead of the United States and reduce European dependence of American fighters, with the ubiquitous F-35 in all pools. It was an explicit attempt to surprise technological, industrial and political in front of Washington. Today, that project more than 100,000 million of euros staggers to the point of threatening the opposite result: that Europe will continue buying F-35s and that Spain will end up reinforcing a US fleet just when it had opted for its own alternative. Dassault, the constant. Here comes an actor with a name of his own who has turned everything upside down. The main blockade does not come from Berlin or Madrid, but from a historical constant in the French military industry: Dassault Aviation. The Financial Times recalled this morning that the company, controlled by the Dassault family for generations, has demonstrated time and time again that its priority is maintain absolute control of the design and production of French fighters. He already did it in the eighties abandoning the Eurofighterand today he repeats the pattern at the FCAS, refusing to give up technical leadership or accept a shared governance with Airbus. Dassault Rafale A project broken from within. Furthermore, the FCAS was designed as an integrated system: a manned fighter, drone swarms, advanced weapons and communication networks, with Dassault leading the aircraft and Airbus the rest. That balance was blown up when disputes began on specifications, distribution of work and industrial control. France wanted a plane lighter and navalizableGermany another heavier and more versatile one. The technical differences masked a possibly deeper clash: who is really in charge at the heart of the system. France does not rule as much as it seems. Here another crux appears to understand the mess: although the French State is Dassault’s main client and controls exports, its real capacity to impose decisions is limited. Yes, the company has survived nationalization attempts, political pressures and merger projects for decades, always prioritizing independence and control. Hence, presidents have passed and ministers have changed, but Dassault remains the same. President Emmanuel Macron has tried rescue the FCAS in multiple diplomatic rounds, but his room for maneuver has narrowed as he nears the end of his term. Spain, trapped in collateral damage. The Spanish nation entered the FCAS as a partner convinced that the project would allow it break the dependency technology of the United States. That agreement with Germany and France meant resigning in the short term to the American F-35 in exchange for their own European future. If now the FCAS ends up failing as it seems and Spain ends up resorting again to American fighters, the irony is bitter: because the fault would not be in Washington, but in “home” of an ally. The outcome that no one wanted to admit. As we counted yesterdaywith the project running aground, Germany is already slipping that it could go on your own or look for other partners, while France protects to their national champion. From that perspective, the FCAS has become the closest thing to a failed test of European credibility in common defense. For Spain, the risk is now double: losing years betting on a blocked program of billions of euros and being forced to knock on Washington’s door again, although now with less political margin and worse conditions. He surprise European will have to wait and for now it is diluted, and the old Atlantic balance is imposed again, this time not due to lack of ambition, but because of excess control. Image | José Luis Celada Euba In Xataka | Spain, France and Germany could not depend on the “button” of the F-35. So the future European fighter aims for something else In Xataka | If the question is where is the 100 billion European fighter, the answer is simple: stuck on a dead-end runway

One of the biggest wine critics is French and has toured China. There is no good news for French wine

by

TO Michel Bettane he likes wine. In fact, it is more than a hobby: he has developed a career around it, until it became one of the wine critics most influential in the world. For two decades he worked at ‘La Revue du vin de France’, a prestigious magazine that covers current events in the wine industry, until he decided to become independent and, together with a colleague from the magazine, founded the Betanne and Desseauve Guide. Bettane is one of the most authoritative voices worldwide in terms of wines and one with weight within the sector. He recently completed a tour of China in which has tasted more than 300 premium Chinese wines and its conclusion is as resounding as it is hurtful to French pride. The chinese wines They are superior to many of those found in France. And this guy doesn’t try cheap wines, but rather high-end ones. Chinese wines >> French wines These incendiary statements came after the sixth edition of the Bettane + Desseauve Wine Tasting in China. Held in Beijing and Shangri-La (Yunnan), the critic and five other international wine experts tasted more than 300 premium wines produced in China. Bettane has indicated that China is experimenting an “amazing awakening of the terroir”, and it is something that is not out of place if we take into account the international position of the country’s industry. If just 15 years ago it was a desert, now They are sneaking into the conversation like a power. The strategy of the Chinese industry is not to attack in quantity, but in quality, and for this there are wineries that have studied in the most powerful wine and wine regions in Europe to learn and then apply that knowledge to their field. Taking advantage of the particularities of each of its regions, there are wines that are becoming some of the most sought-after without having a French surname. Bettane stated that what has impressed him most is the technical precision when controlling the grape ripening and fermentation processes. “We found almost no wine with serious defects”he assured, adding that “the overall strength of the production standard is, in fact, higher than what we often find in our annual tastings in France.” It looks like a Scottish castle, but it’s a Chinese winery Above all, he highlighted two wine regions: Ningxia and Yunnan. We have already talked about Ningxia recently in Xatakaa very complicated area in winter for which they have developed a technique that consists of burying the vines so that the snow does not affect them. Those responsible have “copied” Bordeauxand it is something that catches the critic’s attention. The other is Yunnan, one that, he says, left him speechless. Especially for a white wine, a ‘Shangri-La Chardonnay‘ which, for Bettane, “can play in the league of the world’s great whites”. A wine strategy modeled on that of smartphones The interesting thing is something that the critic comments about the change in strategy of the Chinese producers, and it is something similar to what has happened in the technological world, especially with the smartphone industry. At first, as happened with Ningxia producers, they dedicated themselves to “copying” Bordeaux, but now Bettane has seen how are beginning to experiment and discover synergies between the grapes, the land and its climatic conditions instead of simply continuing to imitate the European model. As I say, it is similar to what happens with the mobile phone industry and, specifically, with an Apple with which all Chinese brands are compared at any given time. When Apple presents a new feature for the iPhone, we begin to see a rapid adaptation of Chinese mobile phones to include those features, while adding some new functions. The iPhone dynamic island and his twin in other brandsvisual elements in the operating system or the photo button (which existed long before Apple integrated it, but the influence of the apple brand is what it is) are three examples. For Bettane, the possibilities that China’s vast territory offers when it comes to creating and perfecting grape varieties are “unlimited.” And if you read me from France or are a lover of La Mancha wine and right now your fist is clenched… at least we have the cheese left. That, at the moment, has no Asian rival. Images | WBC, Treaty Port In Xataka | If the question is what is the future of wine, more and more Bordeaux wineries are clear about it: non-alcoholic wine

There is nothing more French than a baguette. And even the French have gotten tired of them

by

That in France the baguette is a symbol, an icon, an institution (almost), is beyond any doubt. Just three years ago UNESCO included it on its list of intangible cultural heritage and together with the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame and a handful of other symbols (not many) it is part of the iconic heritage of Paris. Despite all this, the French seem less and less interested in taking baguettes home, which coincides with a general drop in bread consumption. There are those who already warn that the popular bar is presented with a “uncertain future” or even, going further, he wonders: Can French baguette die? France, less and less panera. France may have turned baguettes into a national symbol, but even that has not prevented bread from facing a complex crisis there. The demand data shows this clearly, as CNN recalled this week in an analysis on the topic. If after the Second World War the French consumed an average of 25 ounces of bread per person per day (about 700 grams), in 2015 that figure had already dropped to four ounces (113 g). The trend does not seem to have reversed in the last decade and today this average consumption indicator is even lower, standing at 3.5 ounces (almost 100 g). In practice, that amounts to less than half a baguette. Is there more data? Yes. And most of them are not what they say are encouraging for the sector. In 2023 the Confederation of French Bakeries and Pastry Shops published a survey which reveals that, of the thousand consumers interviewed, more than a third (36%) acknowledged having reduced their bread consumption during the previous five years. The decline was also especially pronounced among middle-aged people (35 to 49 years old). In his case the ‘puncture’ reached 43%. In the lower cohort, young people between 25 and 34 years old, one in four interviewed (26%) declared that they had increased their consumption of bread, although this trend has some important nuances. Young people are beginning to see bread as part of the meals they eat outside the home and are banishing it from their breakfasts, a time of day when it was previously common to consume baguette bread with butter, jam or chocolate and hazelnut cream. Among those under 24 years of age, 57% maintain this habit. It is a considerable percentage, but it is far from the 83% that reaches among the population group of 55 to 65 years. “Coucou, tu as pris le pain?” The decline of bread in France is nothing new. In 2013 the trend was already clear enough for French bakers to launch a campaign to encourage its consumption. His slogan was “Coucou, tu as pris le pain?” (“Hey, did you pick up the bread?”) and was plastered on billboards, bus shelters and shop windows across the country with a clear purpose: to get French families to buy baguettes on the way home. They didn’t have it easy. The change of scenario facing the sector responds to a cocktail in which both internal factors and changes at a social and cultural level are combined. And what factors are those? To begin with, the offer has changed (a lot). It is not the same bread that the French found in the 50s or 60s as those of 2025. CNN remember how there are new professionals (“neo-bakers”) who are choosing to remove baguettes from their shelves and opt for other products, aromatic sourdough and whole-grain breads, made with cereals, organic flour and sold by weight. The reason, beyond their flavor: they stay fresh longer, an important factor for a generation that has lost the habit (or simply does not have time) of going to the bakery every day. Added to this is the popularity of other competitors, such as processed sliced ​​bread from the US. The data is once again incontestable. A study by the Federation of Bakery Entrepreneurs reveals that nine out of ten French (86%) admit to consuming industrial white plan bought in supermarkets. In May the Sirhafood medium I remembered that the market for packaged industrial sliced ​​bread moves more than 500 million euros annually, which has meant that the format (soft bread) has even aroused the interest of artisan workshops. Beyond the industry. The drop in bread consumption is also linked to something more complex: changes at a social, cultural and demand level. Simply the young they cook less and they eat more outside the home, where they also find a greater gastronomic offer, with alternatives in which bread is not a central piece. It’s not a coincidence. Yes in 2005 88% of French people Respondents saw bread as the basis of a balanced diet, in 2023 that percentage was already 66%. In its day, the baguette also offered a series of advantages (an easy-to-store format, availability, price and flavor) that may be less appreciated in the market today. The bar must be consumed the same day it is purchased, which requires going to the bakery daily. In a society in which time is scarce, this is a handicap and explains the implementation that supermarket bread has achieved. Beyond France. The phenomenon is not in any case exclusive to France. In Spain it happens something similar. Data from the Ministry of Food show that per capita consumption has plummeted in recent decades: from 56.4 kilos per year in 1990 we have gone to 27.4. The most curious thing is that the fall is once again focused on fresh bread, which (although it remains the most popular) is the one that has suffered the greatest ‘puncture’. The consumption of industrial bread has grown, although not enough to compensate for the collapse of traditional loaves. Images | Sergio Arze (Unsplash), Mohamed Jamil Latrach (Unsplash) and Shalev Cohen (Unsplash) In Xataka | We knew that freezing bread was convenient, cheap and fashionable. What we are not clear about is that it is “so good” for health

The French Revolution proposed dividing the day into ten hours. It didn’t catch on, but an artist has created watches that respect that idea

by

Apparently it is a normal clock: its division by hours, its two hands (yes, we already know that if you are from Generation Z it is very possible that you do not know how to read time in this device, but let’s start from the fact that it seems to all of us that this looks like a traditional watch)… However, as soon as you look closely you will see that there is an extraordinary difference: the dial is divided into ten spaces instead of the usual twelve. In the name of Lewis Carroll, what the hell is this. Ruth Evans, provoking. The clock is the work of artist Ruth Ewan and is part of a series of similar creations, called ‘We Could Have Been Anything That We Wanted To Be’, originally presented at Folkestone Artworks in 2011. It is a triennial of urban art works that, in its latest edition, includes 91 works by 52 artists. Ewan, a Scottish artist whose works always contain a social message, has retouched for the occasion some of the watches she created almost fifteen years ago for the contest. How they work. The strange arrangement of the numbers is not an aesthetic decision, but rather we are looking at clocks that divide each day into ten hours, each hour into one hundred minutes and each minute into one hundred seconds. Midnight takes place at ten and noon at five. Currently, you already know: a day has 24 hours, each of which has 60 minutes, each with 60 seconds. From there we also use decimals: a second has ten tenths of a second, one hundred hundredths or one thousand thousandths. But Ewan’s is an absolutely rational division of time that is not capricious: it has a historical basis. Making history. As we already said in its day, The ten-hour system was officially implemented in 1793 as part of the radical reforms spurred by the French Revolution. This decimal system was intended to simplify calculations and break with the past, aligning itself with other revolutionary aspects such as the republican calendar that divided the year into 12 identical months, of 30 days each and 10 days per week. The use of decimal time was mandatory from the end of 1793 until April 1795, when its use was suspended after only 500 days, due to great popular resistance and the difficulty of adapting daily life and existing clocks to this new system. Some watchmakers attempted to create watches with dual numbering (decimal and traditional) to help the transition, but the change clashed with customs and business needs that depended on the traditional system. What does it mean? Ewan’s intention with this watch is to show how changes in the organization of time can also symbolize profound social transformations, and proposes a new way of perceiving the world and questioning current systems. Let us remember that revolutionary France sought to introduce reason, equality and efficiency in all aspects of social life, including the measurement of time. With something as simple as reminding us that time can be perceived very differently with a simple change in the artifacts with which we measure it, Ewan proposes a possible new social order, and an invitation to imagine alternative futures. The work questions the rigidity of capitalist chronological time, and that is why Ewan prepared and distributed some pamphlets that spoke of the utopian concept of time in the Revolution. In Xataka | Physicists do not know precisely what time is. Still, they suspect it’s just an illusion.

Two years ago, an asteroid exploded over France with unusual violence. What saved the French was their size

by

February 13, 2023. It was 4:59 in the morning when a violent explosion illuminated the skies of Normandynorth of France. It was not a ray, nor a missile. It was the end of a travel of millions of kilometers for a small asteroid called 2023 Cx1. Seven hours of notice. The 650 -kilogram rock had just a meter in diameter, so it had been detected only seven hours before impact. But the most disturbing thing was not his surprise arrival, but his behavior when entering the earth’s atmosphere. An exhaustive analysis published two and a half years later in Nature Astronomy He has revealed that, if the asteroid had been larger, the consequences of his extraordinary explosion could have been devastating. A high -risk meteor. Most meteorites are fragmenting as they descend through the atmosphere, but 2023 CX1 endured intact until it reached a distance to the ground of only 28 kilometers. At that point, the pressure made it explode like a pump. After traveling through space for about 30 million years, the asteroid released 98% of all its kinetic energy in a second fraction. And in a very concentrated region of the atmosphere, when it reached a dynamic pressure of 4 megapascal. It does not compare with Cheliábinsk. The 2023 CX1 behavior was radically different from that of the car whose explosion of 500 kilotons He broke windows and caused hundreds of injured in Russia in 2013. The one in France generated a spherical shock wave instead of cylindrical, concentrating much more energy and greatly increasing the area of ​​soil affected by overpressure. According to researchers, this type of abrupt fragmentation could cause much more damage than the progressive fragmentations of similar size bodies. The French were lucky that it was so small. More firewood for planetary defense. The analysis was based on an unprecedented number of observations after mobilizing the scientific and citizen community in those seven hours of margin. The prediction of the fall by ESA and NASA had a margin of error of less than 20 meters between the planned and observed trajectory, which in turn facilitated the recovery of more than one hundred fragments of the meteorite in the commune of Saint-Pierre-Le Viger. According to the CSICwhich participated in the investigation, this event confirms the existence of a new population of asteroids, type L chondrites, capable of these violent explosions. “These asteroids must be taken into account in the Planetary Defense Strategiessince they represent a higher risk for populated areas, “says Auriane Egal, first author of the study. With what we know today, perhaps the authorities activate evacuation plans the next time an asteroid of this type threatens us. Provided that detection systems do not fail, and detect the threat in time. Image | THAT In Xataka | Tunguska: the explosion of 12 megatones that reminds us that space is full of wonders, but also of horrors

Tourism of juice and sandwich expands through the Basque Country French

by

“I had never seen so many people doing picnic on the beach!” The phrase is from Sébastien Meric, manager of the Taverne Basque, a restaurant of Saint-Jean-de-Luzin Nueva Aquitaine (France), and although a priori it may seem a positive comment hides a feeling that worries the hoteliers of this village of the Atlantic Pyrenees as well as those of Other destinations From Spain: they arrive (almost) as many tourists as in 2024, but they think about it much more when it comes to their portfolios. And that is a problem. What happened? That with the summer campaign already advanced, the hoteliers of San Juan de Luz, a small commune of France famous for its traditional beaches, port and architecture, recognize having a bittersweet taste. It is not so much that tourists have stopped visiting the town and that they no longer do it with the same joy. So I know They recognized A few professionals recently to the newspaper Sud Ouestto which they admit their concern about what is promised a “mediocre” summer. Why’s that? To start because Julio has left a puncture in the influx of tourists. According to the Departmental Tourism Agency of the Atlantic Pyrenees, last month the flow of visitors in the Basque Country French descended -1%a fall that was even more pronounced if we talk about overnight (-4%). In the whole of the Atlantic Pyrenees the demand remained stable (+1%) thanks in part to a warmer and dry meteorology of the usual. Sud Ouest Precise That, according to the Julio Tourist Barometer, San Juan de Luz lost about 55,000 visitors, a fall that is largely related to the lower influx of visitors from other parts of Europe with respect to last year (Dutch, Spanish or Germans) but also from travelers from other regions of the country itself, such as Paris or the department of Hauts-de-Seine. From the City of San Juan de Luz, this decline in visitors, which relate to circumstantial factors, reduces importance in any case. “Time has been unpredictable and beaches have been closed by jellyfish,” Clarify The organism, “it is better to wait at the end of summer to draw conclusions.” Is there anything else? Yes. And that is perhaps the most interesting idea than comment The hoteliers of the region A Sud Ouest. Beyond the fluctuations in the influx of travelers, the really curious thing is that businesses perceive a contraction in spending. “Before we made a lobster barbecue per 100 euros, now we make chuletones with blue cheese sauce for three times,” confesses a restaurant, recalling that this is the second summer that does not meet expectations. “Last year we thought it was for the Olympic Games or Bayonne partieswhich coincide with those of Pamplona, ​​but this year is the same. ” detects New habits among veraneantes. “I had never seen so many people doing picnic on the beach!” A third place specifies that this year has encountered an “excess template.” And what is the reason? The big question. The Agite Du Tourism 64 perceive “For the first time in many years” a decrease in the influx of customers with a high level of income (-2%) in the French Basque Country, a trend that the organism believes compensated by an increase in equal extent of the middle-class clientele. The regional press points out other hypotheses, such as a decrease in the purchasing power of tourists or the changes in the legislation that regulates tourist floors. The New standard It puts certain limits to holiday rentals of second residences, which limits their offer and forces tourists to use hotels in which the average price per night in high season, slides Sud Ouestcan perfectly be around 170 euros. A higher expense in the accommodation would leave visitors (especially families) with less margin when it comes to allowing other extras during their vacations, such as meals or dinners in restaurants. Why is it important? Although Saint-Jean-de-Luz is located in France his data and especially the testimony of his hoteliers are interesting because they show us another perspective of tourism. One that is not exclusive to Atlantic Pyrenees. He last balance The INE reveals a considerable rise in the total spending of international tourists (+5.5%) and the average daily expenditure, but in some regions there are also hoteliers who have alerted a billing drop. They did recently in Diario de Mallorcathe hoteliers of Port de Sóller, in Mallorca, where they have detected a puncture of the demand in full high season. “We have gone from not having workers to overcome us,” admits the owner of two restaurants that he has had to do without employees. “This is a rebound effect after the madness after Covid. We return to the situation we had before the pandemic, but with much narrower margins.” Images | Tourisme Pays Basque Office (Flickr) and Cylk34 (Flickr) In Xataka | The north of Spain has been complaining about mass tourism for years. Asturias has discovered the bitter consequences of losing it

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.