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peopolisation, another Anglo-French neologism, this one meaning excessive media interest in and coverage of politicians’ private lives. Mind you, Sarkozy’s divorcing his wife of 18 years just three months after taking office and his subsequent marriage to Italian-French model/pop singer Carla Bruni would have tongues wagging in even the most taciturn of societies. Indeed, his well-publicised holidays with the rich and famous and what some French people see as his extravagance have earned him the sobriquet ‘President Bling-Bling’, a reference to an American hip-hop term meaning showy, often crass jewellery. Waiting in the wings are the Socialists, encouraged by their successes in the March 2008 local elections, which included holding on to the power base of Paris. But will it be a replay of the ‘Sarko-Ségo’ show next time around in 2012, or will the president be eclipsed by Mayor Bertrand Delanoë’s rising star?

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STAR-CROSSED LOVERS

He was a brilliant 39-year-old philosopher and logician who had gained a reputation for his controversial ideas. She was the beautiful niece of a canon at Notre Dame. And like Bogart and Bergman in Casablanca and Romeo and Juliet in Verona, they had to fall in love in medieval Paris of all damned times and places.

In 1118, the wandering scholar Pierre Abélard (1079–1142) found his way to Paris, having clashed with yet another theologian in the provinces. There he was employed by Canon Fulbert of Notre Dame to tutor his niece Héloïse (1101–64). One thing led to another and a son, Astrolabe, was born. Abélard did the gentlemanly thing and married his sweetheart. But they wed in secret and when Fulbert learned of it he was outraged. The canon had Abélard castrated and sent Héloïse packing to a nunnery. Abélard took monastic vows at the abbey in St-Denis and continued his studies and controversial writings. Héloïse, meanwhile, was made abbess of a convent.

All the while, however, the star-crossed lovers continued to correspond: he sending tender advice on how to run the convent and she writing passionate, poetic letters to her lost lover. The two were reunited only in death; in 1817 their remains were disinterred and brought to Père Lachaise cemetery Click here in the 20e, where they lie together beneath a neo-Gothic tombstone in Division 7.

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ARTS

Paris is a bottomless well when it comes to the arts. There are philharmonic orchestras, ballet and opera troupes, theatre companies and copious cinemas from which to choose your art form. And its museums are among the richest in the world, with artwork representing the best of every historical period and school from the Romans to postmodernism. Generous government funding allows local venues to attract top international performers, and the number of international arts festivals hosted here seems to grow each year.

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LITERATURE

Literature is something that matters deeply to French people, and it is an important focus in their sense of identity. Problem is, nowadays there are no schools or clear literary trends emerging, some authors are impossible to read and, relatively speaking, little contemporary literature finds its way into English translation. Much French writing today tends to focus in a rather nihilistic way on what the nation has lost in recent decades (such as identity, international prestige etc), particularly in the work of Michel Houellebecq, who rose to national prominence in 1998 with his Les Particules Élémentaires (Atomised). And accessibility? In 2002 the winner of the Prix Goncourt (Goncourt Prize; boxed text) – Les Ombres Errantes by Pascal Quignard – was denounced even by some of the prestigious prize’s judges as ‘over-erudite’ and ‘inaccessible’ to the average reader.

Such novels do not help the traveller get into the head of Paris, to see and feel how the city thinks and works. For now perhaps it is better to stick with the classics of French literature or even those writers who are more descriptive and thus accessible. The