MARION Cotillard’s win as the best Oscar actress this year has boosted the morale of the French as they are approaching spring break. Imagine a French garnering the most reputable American movie award in the world. And Marion Cotillard’s win of her portrayal of French singing legend Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose has even inspired French filmmakers to keep on making films.

Marion Cotillard’s win comes at a time when France’s president Nicholas Sarkozy is in the French Riviera himself along with lovely newly instituted First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy to promote tourism in Agde and other areas around the Mediterranean during spring break. Sarkozy was seen sitting down and talking with a fisherman in his boat docked at a fishing wharf and the fisherman was giving Sarkozy a grouper. The whole scene is captured on YouTube and has received millions of hits around the globe, thereby boosting Sarkozy’s image as a president of the people. And indeed Sarkozy is just like that. As the epitome of a French person, he knows how to deal with his constituents and also with other peoples around the planet.

Being the head of state of France, Nicholas Sarkozy meets various people in a day. Today, right after Oscars night, he is meeting at the posh French Riviera a group of Moroccan immigrants who are congratulating him with his no-nonsense approach against racial profiling. A day after, he will be meeting with French Jews who have applauded him for inserting Holocaust education in their basic education system.

One of the key elements to the survival of a country is agriculture. The main agricultural produce here in France is olive that is why olive oil is relatively cheaper to purchase here compared to other countries. Olive oil is the healthiest cooking oil in the planet because of its relatively low fat content that’s why the French have one of the longest life expectancies in the world. Olive is also used as the main ingredient for the native rose French wine. Because of the demand for olive byproducts overseas, one of the ticklish issues hounding French agriculture is whether to approve the production of genetically-modified olives or not. It’s now a question between playing God and expanding its economy. Of course, the French need to expand its economy right now in anticipating a recession in the United States.

THIS year or any other year, there is no other place on earth to spend Valentines more romantically than in France. For centuries now, people have this notion that the French are the most romantic people in the planet, France is the most romantic place in the world to visit, French is the most romantic language and French food is the most elegant. There are definitely no scientific bases to this notion although people have attested based on their personal experience that the French really know how to care for a lady. Let’s now deduce this one by one.

The French’s romanticism stems from their being very intellectual. Any foreign student in the Universite de Paris from as far as the Philippines can attest to that. The French know how to take care of a lady. France is also considered the most romantic place in the world for a number of reasons. Its capital alone, Paris, is called the City of Lights for all the landmarks in the city such as Champs de Elysee, Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower are illuminated at night even though it’s not Christmastime yet. Next, the people there are a mixture of the conservative and the liberated. That’s why they go to Roman Catholic churches during Sunday mornings and end up in nudist beaches the whole day. The Roman Catholic cathedrals there are so picturesque such as the Notre Dame Cathedral at the heart of Paris which is imbued with Goth designs. The Goth designs in churches are common in mainland Europe because the bishops in olden times want to convert the Frankish pagans and to do so, they must appreciate the latter’s art in their quest. The largest nudist resort in the world is in fact found in Europe, particularly at the city of Agde. That’s why the resort there is called Cap d’Agde.

And although the annual film festival in Cannes has long been gone, it is also worthwhile to visit it and the rest of the French Riviera like Cassis, Nice, Avignon and Marseilles during Valentines because of its proximity to the Mediterranean. When you will be spending Valentines here in the French Riviera, you will also have the opportunity to taste the Mediterranean diet which is said to be the healthiest diet in the world because it consists of nothing but produce from the Mediterranean depths such as grouper, redfish and fresh lobsters. If you and your fiancée can stroll down to a fishing village in the French Riviera and you can speak a little French, you may be rewarded with a huge grouper so you can grill it back in the vacation villa that you are billeting.

Meanwhile, the French language is considered as the most romantic language in the world even though it isn’t the most widely used (Chinese is) and most advantageous (English is, unarguably). Maybe it is because of its etymology as a Romance language because it stems from the old Roman language which ironically stems from the old Frankish language. Yet why is it called romantic? After all, isn’t it lovely if someone calls you je taime?