NormanH

I am up in the centre of Town, but there is a lot of flooding down at river level, for example on the road you would come into Béziers on from your place. More is to be expected, since in places from which the water drains into the Orb there has been over 400mm of rainfall! Many of the roads are closed, for example the one from Béziers to the sea via Sauvian ..

Not surprised to hear it.

There was asparagus and the first local strawberries from Capestang (NOT watery Spanish) but at 6.50 a barquette in the indoor market on Friday. Apparently they have been brought on early by all the sunshine, though we are paying for it today as you can see on another thread...

Well despite the mockery of some posters the Sirens sounded here last night, this time as an alert for flooding. They are there in case of Civil Defence types of emergencies ...

He has to back-track because the extreme right candidates he supports (il a parrainé MLP, but as a fellow journalist he is also very close to Zemmour) are both in difficulty over Russia, she because her campaign has had a big loan from a Russian Bank in the past and this year from Hungary https://www.lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2022/article/2022/02/02/marine-le-pen-a-obtenu-un-pret-de-10-6-millions-d-euros-d-une-banque-hongroise-pour-la-campagne-presidentielle_6112009_6059010.html; and Zemmour who has been supportive of Russia and even said that he was sure Russia wouldn't invade Ukraine which doesn't show very good judgement for a Presidential candidate

Don't confuse the situation at Calais with the specific history of M.Ménard. " Au moment de la crise migratoire en Europe en 2015, le maire de Béziers avait estimé que sa commune « n’avait pas les moyens d’accueillir de nouvelles personnes, surtout si elles ont vocation à rester par la suite, puisque l’État ne fait pas appliquer la loi en reconduisant à la frontière ceux qui doivent l’être ». Then he went into a flat where some Syriens were staying, also fleeing a war as are the Ukrainians at present, and told them that as Maire of the town he was saying that they weren't welcome. He also had fake posters put up around town showing them as a menace:

Perhaps he thinks that Ukrainians have lighter skin than Syrians, and are Russian Orthodox?

It is interesting to see the differences between the salaries and the 'patrimoine' Second jobs are a nice little earner too, as in the UK https://www.thenational.scot/news/19704137.richest-conservative-mps-listed-second-jobs-bring-1m/

And yet https://www.blablacar.fr/ has been established for ages here...

The obvious way would be for the Moderators to make sure he couldn't continue to wreck the Forum with these 'troll ' tactics: " It can sometimes become difficult to tell the difference between a troll and someone who just genuinely wants to argue about a topic. However, here are a few tell-tale signs that someone is actively trolling. Off-topic remarks: Completely going off-topic from the subject at hand. This is done to annoy and disrupt other posters. Refusal to acknowledge evidence: Even when presented with hard, cold facts, they ignore this and pretend like they never saw it. Dismissive, condescending tone: An early indicator of a troll was that they would ask an angry responder, “Why you mad, bro?” This is a method done to provoke someone even more, as a way of dismissing their argument altogether. if a troll begins to clog up a thread, you can also opt to report them to the site’s moderation team. If your report is successful, the troll may be temporarily suspended or their account might be banned entirely. There are a couple of posters here that seem to fit that description (if they aren't in fact the same person posting under two names)

I don't believe any of the make-believe rollocks that you post either under this name or any of the other fake ones you use

A more interesting question would be 'why do so many British posters on an Francophile Forum find it necessary to run down the country to which they have chosen, uninvited, to emigrate? "

"I seem to have touched a nerve! " You haven't but you want to since the main reason for many of your "contemptible" posts (to use your own word) , is to irritate other posters, rather than serving a useful purpose such as providing useful or helpful information. They are simple assertions based on your ignorance, which is why you are so against "links". Take an example from your post "go the whole way" means once naturalised , give up the original Passport" 1) You give no guidance on what you mean by "give up the original Passport.' Do you mean not renew it, or is there some other mechanism for giving up Nationality to which you are privy but which you are too lazy to reveal. 2) How do you know I haven't ? You don't so by definition you are ignorant.

Apart from the fallacy of generalisation and your ignorance of each of our personal circumstances, could you explain whet you mean by "go the whole way'' with a detailed description of the process, backed up with a suitable link to an official source? Or are you simply bringing "something off topic into the conversation in order to make that person mad" as in the definition of "trolling" above?

According to Tom Postmes, a professor of social and organisational psychology at the universities of Exeter, England, and Groningen, The Netherlands, and the author of Individuality and the Group, who has studied online behavior for 20 years, "Trolls aspire to violence, to the level of trouble they can cause in an environment. They want it to kick off. They want to promote antipathetic emotions of disgust and outrage, which morbidly gives them a sense of pleasure." Someone who brings something off topic into the conversation in order to make that person mad is trolling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womyn I have never liked the word 'fluid' when applied to 'gender'. It sounds line something that might stain the sheets. 'undecided', 'not-fixed' even 'flexible' (unless applied to wb) seems better to me

But I can say "troll".

1) There is a distinction between the Government of a country and the country itself. It is perfectly possible to like one and criticise the other, as you seem to with regard to France where you have chosen to live uninvited, while making constant negative comments about its Government and administration. Please have the courtesy to allow others to do the same with regard to a country they have chosen not to live in. 2))" My country ", the one I have chosen to live in and the country of which I have taken Nationality is France, but no-one here has even hinted at a wish to see Britain 'harmed', although the present Government has made a good job of harming the country's reputation. 3)You are the only person in this Forum who continually brings up the issue of Brexit which is irrelevant to the issue of Ukraine

You should know better than anybody ? I think he is doing an essential job in keeping a channel of communication open.

Diplomacy is essential in conflicts and Macron continues to pursue that, rather like a negotiator in a hostage situation. Johnson's reputation as a serial liar means that unfortunately he has no International status.

Britain’s emphasis on muscular deterrence has come at the expense of diplomacy. It has contributed almost nothing to peace-making efforts. When Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, met Lavrov in Moscow, their talks ended in an icy standoff. Johnson has gratuitously undermined Macron’s Moscow initiative while Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, spoke disparagingly of a “whiff of Munich”. Meanwhile, the government has yet to enforce effective measures to curb Russian money-laundering in London. All else aside, the Ukraine crisis has brutally underscored Britain’s diminished international influence abroad. Separated by choice from the EU, the UK is now viewed in Russia (and much of Europe) as little more than a cheerleader and errand boy for America. When Johnson asked Biden what else the UK could do in a phone call last week, the US president replied: “We’re not going anywhere without you, pal.” That summed up Britain’s war to date. The rule of thumb for post-Brexit foreign policy: ask pol