Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.
Game of policing
France's budget negotiations continue to grind on, slowly and painfully, due to reach a climax of some kind on Tuesday, when parliament must vote on the first part of the 2026 spending plans, the Sécu (social security).
There are clearly a lot of behind-closed-doors negotiations going on as prime minister Sébastien Lecornu desperately tries to find allies among the opposition parties.
But amid all this, France's Interior Minister did also find the time to file a legal complaint . . . against a board game.
The game Fachorama, produced by a left-wing anti fascist collective as a politically-themed piece of entertainment, features a character of 'flic raciste' (racist cop), whose characteristics include contrôles au faciès (racial profiling) and destructeur de camps de migrants (destroying migrant camps).
Laurent Nunez, formerly the Paris police chief, apparently considers this a matter for the courts.
Which will be interesting to watch, because can anyone really deny at this point that some - very much not all, but some - of France's flics are racist?
Over the past five years a reasonably steady stream of videos have emerged showing French police officers treating people of colour extremely badly - including the vicious beating of black music producer Michel and the killing of French-Algerian teen Nahel.
Even worse, the official version of many of these incidents was drastically different to what the videos showed - pointing to a more serious institutional problem where it seems that even the officers who are not racist or abusive are willing to lie for their colleagues who are.
That's on top of more daily, low-level harassment such as the supposedly random ID checks or traffic stops disproportionately targeting people of colour.
Nunez has only been in post as Interior Minister since October, so maybe he is indeed working on a plan to tackle all these problems and the associated loss of confidence in the police which was one of the main drivers of the widespread rioting that France saw in the summer of 2023.
But if he is working on such a plan then he has never mentioned it. Indeed his only public comment on this topic so far has been to go after the makers of a board game who have pointed out an uncomfortable truth about modern France.
Meanwhile, Paris police officers are under investigation for posing with an upside-down banner seized at a women's march - a common trope among football hooligans when they have seized the banner of one of their 'enemies'. Apparently this police unit considers as its enemy 'Antifa feminists against transphobia and racism'.
Talking France
The latest episode of Talking France discusses the budget latest and that police investigation, as well as new train links and SNCF's problem with central France, as well as the French mayor who has ordered a 'silent street' in his town. Listen here or on the link below.
Creepiest 'art' of the week
Was French rugby excited by the return of legendary player Antoine Dupont after a long layoff for injury? Just a bit! His return to play in Toulouse last weekend was front page news in several sports papers and the subject of much excitement from fans.
However the Top 14 league chose to celebrate with this bizarre and hideous (presumably AI-generated) image showing Dupont in the robes of a king and the Toulouse fans as some of Medieval peasants. Dupont seems like a nice lad, so hopefully he won't end up being guillotined in Place de la Concorde at the age of 38 - in the style of Louis XVI - even if Les Bleus do under-perform in next year's World Cup . . .
Il est de retour ⌛️ #TOP14 pic.twitter.com/x3UsuTsNvC
— TOP 14 Rugby (@top14rugby) November 28, 2025
Also, worth noting the unimpressed replies to this tweet - payez des graphistes fdp (pay artists, dickheads).
French lessons
The Louvre - 10 million visitors a year, home of the world's most famous painting, and some lessons to be learned on security. But the Paris museum this week earned another accolade; apparently, it is the word most likely to be mispronounced by Americans.
The issue, as so often in French, is the 'r'.
READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: How to master the French rolling R✎
I must admit that I hadn't really noticed this before, but Americans tend to pronounce the museum 'loove', while French people say the 'r' so it sounds more like 'loo-vruh' - ably demonstrated by the Paris prosecutor investigating that €88 million jewellery heist, who has a particular crisp pronunciation.
Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.
Comments