Photography & Blog
society
The French state pays roughly 4 billion euros a year to the media. Its own Court of Auditors has been writing for ten years that the system has not proved its effectiveness. The money goes first to titles owned by the richest men in France. …
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society
Thailand wants every tourist to pay 450 baht, part of which would buy them insurance. The stated reason is the treatment of foreigners the state cannot recover. It costs four hundred million baht a year. The levy would raise ten billion.
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Looking back at Leo XIV’s four days in France in late September 2026, and at what his speeches prompt in an atheist: end of life, abortion, rearmament, Catholic schools, artificial intelligence, young people.
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A specialist appointment the same day, a full meal for under three euros, and a local press explaining that the country is entering its second lost decade. It was surprising enough that I tried to dig into it. I am not an economist, just …
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Seven approaches in three months to find private health cover at 72. Two refusals on age without anyone opening our files, one refusal with no reason given, two silences, and a waiver written down nowhere.
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In expat groups, visas are the whole conversation. Always the procedure — which form, which office, which amount. Never what the procedure opens onto. I went and looked, and the answer is short.
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Route 4 in Hua Hin, a weekday afternoon On 7 August, a fourteen-year-old boy killed eight people at his school in Nonthaburi, on the outskirts of Bangkok. Three weeks earlier, on 22 July, around ten armed men attacked a checkpoint in …
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Rice fields west of Phatthalung. A post caught my attention in an Isan Facebook group. Well written, interesting. It describes “a multitude of khok nong na” that you would see flying over the region, and it explains the …
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Regulated electricity tariff (Base, 6 kVA), 2015-2026. I was wrong — well, half wrong. In April 2024, I bet that tax increases would cancel out the theoretical drop in electricity prices announced by Transitions & Energies. The article …
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Liberty Leading the People, Eugène Delacroix, 1830 (detail) — Louvre Museum (public domain) Yesterday we celebrated Bastille Day, and it’s become almost a ritual: we happily watch our parade down the Champs-Élysées, symbol of the …
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A near-deserted Paris street during lockdown, under the eye of a police car. At last, an article from the CNRS that dares to look this period in the face — not from a public-health angle, but from a regulatory and policing one. And the …
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To better understand the various tariffs, an article in Transitions & Energies this month. In theory prices should fall in 2024, but since the government is scrambling for money everywhere, my bet is on higher taxes, so no drop at all …
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The scapegoat. An excellent piece by Jean-Philippe Delsol on the endless subject of “conspiracy thinking.” His thesis is crystal clear: conspiracy thinking simplifies reality by pointing to a scapegoat; that simplification …
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