6th May 2018

This week in 1869 saw the opening of the Folies Bergere on 32 rue Richer, 9th arrondissement, Paris, where a troupe of high-kicking girls displayed an element of je ne sais quoi. Today very different folies are taking place in Paris as yet more students take to the streets to protest, as in 1968, against government plans to modernise out-dated working practices. Elsewhere in France, a museum in Elne discovered that 60% of its paintings by local artist Etienne Terrus were fake, only discovered by accident when a curator tried to re-hang them. He found that some of the artwork was on material that didn’t exist when the paintings were supposedly produced and some of the painted signatures were so recent they could be wiped off with a glove. Wonder what President Macron thought of all this as he continued his globe-trotting quest?  The French may still be revolting, young people continue to kick out at old folies but, as with Monet, Degas and Renoir, first Impressions are de rigeur!