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.