Regards sur la Nouvelle-Calédonie (New Caledonia in brief)

Dès le lundi 6 mai, Kiwi French Mag consacrera les quatre prochaines semaines à la Nouvelle-Calédonie, Territoire français, et à ses liens d'actualité avec la Nouvelle-Zélande voisine.

 

La Nouvelle-Calédonie était à l'honneur en Nouvelle-Zélande en 2007, avec des expositions explorant les liens entre le passé et le présent du Territoire. Du 25 août 2007 au 28 janvier 2008 se tenait l'exposition War in Paradise au Museum of Wellington City and Sea. Les curieux ont pu y découvrir des photographies retraçant la présence des soldats néo-zélandais sur le sol calédonien pendant la seconde guerre mondiale et leurs traces encore présentes dans la ville de Bourail. C'est pour cette raison que Bourail célèbre traditionnellement le jour de l'ANZAC (article KFM du 25 avril) en même temps que ses voisins anglosaxons.

Autre exposition, KANAKart, ancestral body, au Pataka Museum of Arts and Cultures de Porirua du 26 août 2007 au 2 décembre 2007, qui s'est consacrée à l'art patrimonial et contemporain kanak, en collaboration avec le Centre Culturel Tjibaou et le Musée de Nouvelle-Calédonie.

 

Des popinées (nom de la femme mélanésienne, et par extension de la femme en général) vêtues de "robe mission", l'habit local. 

La Nouvelle-Calédonie est située en Mélanésie. Le français est la langue officielle du Territoire, mais plus de 28 langues vernaculaires sont usuellement parlées. Au niveau juridique, c'est une collectivité dite "sui generis", c'est à dire "de son propre genre", rattachée à la France et non pas une Collectivité d'Outre Mer. Les Accords de Nouméa de 1998 sont à l'origine de ce statut particulier, et impliquent le transfert d'un certain nombre de compétences de la France vers la Nouvelle-Calédonie. Un référendum local portant sur son indépendance ou son maintien dans la République Française est prévu en 2014. La monnaie n'est pas l'euro mais le franc CFP.
Géographiquement, la Nouvelle-Calédonie est la plus proche voisine de la Nouvelle-Zélande : nombreux sont les Calédoniens qui visitent la Terre au long nuage blanc.

 

 

HISTOIRE

On attribue la découverte de la Grande Terre, autre nom de la Nouvelle-Calédonie, à l'explorateur James Cook, qui baptisa l'endroit en l'honneur de l'Ecosse. Caledonia était l'ancien nom latin de la province correspondant à l'Ecosse Britannique. Des missionnaires commencèrent à s'installer en 1841, mais ils se heurtèrent à la résistance des tribus locales et l'installation ne devient durable qu'à partir de 1851. Pour assurer leur assise en terre calédonienne, les missionnaires protestants et maristes réclamèrent respectivement l'assistance du Royaume-Uni et de la France. Mais la Nouvelle-Calédonie est finalement déclarée colonie française en 1853. L'année suivante, les militaires français fondent la ville de Nouméa, qui s'appela Port-de-France jusqu'en 1866. Nouméa deviendra par la suite la base militaire principale du Pacifique, notamment pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. De nombreux soldats américains l'utilisèrent comme base dans la guerre contre le Japon.

Dans un premier temps la colonisation fut principalement pénale, mais l'échec de cette initiative poussa Napoléon III à lancer la colonisation civile. Après la guerre, le Territoire connut une croissance économique rapide grâce à l'exploitation de l'or vert : c'est le "boom du nickel", dont la Nouvelle-Calédonie était alors le troisième producteur mondial. Les tensions entre partisans et opposants de l'indépendance atteignirent leur paroxysme dans les années 1980, dégénérant en insurrections quasi-généralisées et aboutissant en 1988 à la prise d'otages d'Ouvéa. Cet épisode conduisit les deux camps à signer les Accords de Matignon en 1988, prélude à l'Accord de Nouméa dix ans plus tard.

 

La terre de Nouvelle-Calédonie a la particularité d'être très rouge, car elle contient des minerais métalliques. 

 

GEOGRAPHIE

La Nouvelle-Calédonie est constituée d'une île principale, la Grande Terre. Elle comprend également un ensemble d'îles plus petites, les îles Belep au nord, l'île des Pins au sud, les îles Loyauté à l'est (Lifou, Ouvéa, Tiga et Maré), et plus loin à l'ouest les îles Chesterfield. La Grande Terre mesure près de 400 km de longueur sur 50 à 70 km de largeur. Elle est parcourue sur toute sa longueur par une chaîne de montagne. Le lagon calédonien, d'une surface de 24 000 km², est l'un des plus grands lagons au monde. Le climat est tropical océanique. A l'instar de la Nouvelle-Zélande, la Nouvelle-Calédonie a une faune et une flore endémiques d'une richesse incomparable, dont l'oiseau appelé cagou est l'emblème.

 

Le cagou 

For an English presentation of New Caledonia, please visit the official New Zealand website about New Caledonia Season. You can also look at some pictures of the different events.



Sources :
- Le site officiel de l'Ambassade de France en Nouvelle-Zélande
- New Caledonia Season (in english)
- La page Wikipédia sur la Nouvelle-Calédonie

Crédit photo :
- Wikipédia
- E-voyageur

Domaine Georges Michel : French experience in Malborough

It was an instant love affair. The first time Reunion Island-born entrepreneur Georges Michel visited New Zealand with his wife Huguette in 1994, they knew they were viewing a piece of the future. As owner of Chateau de Grandmont, a wine estate in Beaujolais/Burgundy, Georges was already heartedly enamoured by wine.

In 1997, Georges and Huguette visited New Zealand again and, having discovered the potential of the Marlborough region for producing high quality wines, found the piece of land they were looking for.
Domaine Georges Michel was born. It is situated in the 'Golden Mile'. This denotes the central route of the Rapaura area, a region renowned for the production of fine fruit and intense flavours.

New vines were planted and the winery revamped with the inclusion of new stainless tanks and French oak barrels. Then in 2000 a further 12 hectares were planted. With the aim of producing 200,000 bottles of fine wines from an annual crush of 200 tonnes of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir.

The first Sauvignon Blanc was released in 1998 followed by an oak-aged Chardonnay and a Pinot Noir crafted by the prestigious French winemaker Guy Brac de la Perriere, a man from one of France's oldest winemaking dynasties, who visits Domaine Georges Michel regularly to oversee production. Guy Brac de la Perriere blends his years of French winemaking experience with the fresh new flavours of Marlborough to produce triumphant wines from New Zealand.

Georges's daughter, Swan, joined the winemaking team in 2004. After her degree in Viticulture and Oenology in Lincoln University, she went to France for the 2004 vintage at Chateau le Grand Verdus ( Bordeaux) where she crafted the wines under the supervision of another world famous winemaker: Patrick Valette.
Since 2005, after the vintage at the New Zealand family winery, Swan has been part of the winemaking team at the famous Clos des Lambray in Morey St Denis ( Burgundy) . In 2006, Swan spent the vintage in Sancerre at Henri Bourgeois.

 

Georges and daughter Swan 

Hortensia House, named after the French word for hydrangea, is the private homestead and garden of Georges and Huguette Michel. It was Huguette's love of hydrangeas that inspired the title. She has reflected her love of these old favourites in the recently planted hydrangea hedge outlining the driveway, which brings welcome colour throughout the summer. The Monet-inspired garden is informal in design and is loosely themed on blue and yellow capturing an essence of serenity and reflecting the colours of the house. The desire to have flowers in the garden all year is reflected in the large variety of species to be found in the garden.

 

 

 

 Source : official website

EADS demonstration in New Zealand

EADS Socata manufactures touring, training and business aircraft and also aerostructures for major aircraft producers such as Airbus, Dassault, Embraer, Eurocopter and Lockheed Martin. The headquarters and production are located in the Toulouse region of Southwest France, on the Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrenees Airport.  With over 6,000 aircraft in service worldwide, EADS Socata is one of the leading general aviation manufacturers in the world as well as an industrial partner of major aerospace programs. EADS Socata is a wholly-owned subsidiary of EADS, the second largest aerospace and defense company in the world. The EADS Group includes the aircraft manufacturer Airbus.

Since the 17th of March EADS Socata has sent a TBM 850 (one of the latest aircraft) for a demonstration around New Zealand, particularly in Wanaka the 21st, 22nd and 23rd of March. 

 

Inside a TBM 850.

"The TBM 850 offers jet performance and excellent short-field characteristics without exposing owners and pilots to the huge leap in direct operating costs, time-consuming transition training, and the insurance premiums associated with the emerging category of light jets. The TBM 850 has much better useful load and range than typical "very light jets". This allows owners to make trips with fewer fuel stops giving them lower travel times and lower operating costs.

Fly non-stop from Chicago to Nassau in the Bahamas, from Vancouver to San Diego. Fly across Europe or Eastern Australia. Cruise at 31,000 feet after a fast climb. Descend swiftly and keep up with jets in busy terminal areas or slip into 2,100-ft strips or mountain airports." (from the official website).

 

Source : EADS Socata  

Jean-Marc Villard, French chef

Jean-Marc and Alice Villard. 

 

Jean-Marc Villard was a chef-professor for ten years at the Ecole des Arts Culinaires et de l'Hotellerie, now the Paul BOCUSE Institute. He worked in well-known restaurants such as L'Alexandrin*, Le Gourmandin, Chez Louis Restaurant in St Louis, L'Oasis***. His international experience includes: Missouri and also in Bombay, Singapore, Rome, Djakarta, and Bogotá.

«When I made the decision to share my passion and culinary savoir faire, I wanted to create a learning environment where practical experience could be achieved in an atmosphere of conviviality.
Joining the two values of practising the art of food production and creating a warm and welcoming environment, I have dedicated myself to taking individuals and groups on the magical voyage of discovering French cuisine.
With this goal in mind, I have opened my own professional kitchen in Champagne au Mont d'Or to welcome you into this warm and inviting cooking space, surrounded by lush greenery, only ten minutes outside of Lyon.»

The different cooking courses include:
- Gourmet mornings: cooking tips for the greatest chefs' recipes, and food tasting with a glass of wine.
- Gourmet evenings: cooking lesson and dinner with Jean-Marc Villard in a french or english-speaking ambiance.
- Gourmet meetings: cooking lesson for groups.
- Gourmet cooking class: cooking lesson in english, on request in France and abroad.
Much more on the website.

 

Photographs by S.L.

 

 

 

 

Jean-Marc Villard fut pendant dix ans Professeur et Chef de cuisine à l'Ecole des Arts Culinaires et de l'Hotellerie, aujourd'hui Institut Paul BOCUSE. Il travailla dans des maisons de renom : L'Alexandrin*, Le Gourmandin, L'Oasis***, le restaurant "Chez Louis" à Saint louis - Missouri - USA. A Bombay, Singapour, Rome, Djakarta et Bogota : il est le représentant de l'art culinaire Français à l'étranger (démonstrations et formation).

 

« Lorsque j'ai choisi de transmettre mon savoir faire culinaire, mon souhait était de privilégier la pratique et la convivialité.
C'est avec ces deux valeurs clés que j'ai choisi de guider particuliers et groupes sur les sentiers de l'art culinaire à la Française.
C'est aussi dans cet esprit que j'ai construit ma propre cuisine professionnelle pour vous accueillir dans un contexte chaleureux et verdoyant à Champagne au Mont d'Or, à seulement dix minutes de Lyon. »

Les cours de cuisine se décomposent en plusieurs thèmes :
- Les matinées gourmandes, pour apprendre les secrets des plus grands chefs, et déguster des mets raffinés avec un verre de vin.
- Les soirées des gourmets, pour découvrir les secrets de Jean-Marc Villard et dîner en sa compagnie. Les Français peuvent perfectionner leur usage de la langue anglais lors des dîners anglophones, et les étrangers peuvent s'imprégner de la culture française lors de soirées francophones.
- Les rencontres gourmandes: leçon de cuisine pour les groupes d'amis, de collègues ou de clients.
- Gourmet cooking class: cours de cuisine en anglais. Jean-Marc Villard se déplace sur demande en France et à l'étranger.

Et bien d'autres thématiques à découvrir sur le site web.

 

Crédit photo : S.L. 

Alexis Poilvert

After one year in Taupo, frenchman Alexis Poilvert and family have been living in Wanaka for the last four years. They became New Zealand citizens last month.

An experienced abseiler, Alexis specializes in acrobatic works, which is a French specialty not yet recognized as it should be because of the language barrier. Speaking fluent English (IELTS level 7), Alexis intends to change this fact.

According to 'Australasian Drilling Magazine', Alexis offers a wide range of services including sandblasting, cleaning, painting, repairs and maintenance on buildings, pylons, silos, boats and much more. In addition, he is proficient in the use of the European-designed "DACHS" drilling system. DACHS is a down hole hammer activated through rods by a pneumatic rotating head fixed on a trolley moving on a slide. Fixed with an ingenious bracket on a special frame equipped with two wheels and a slide paten, Dachs is an extremely light and handy drilling unit. It can quickly be operated either on a flat uneven or vertical ground by a team of two experienced abseilers using a combination of manual winches, ratchets and bolts.

 

 

The Dachs can drill 90 mm holes up to 10 metres in depth in either very hard rock or in inconsistent ground, with very little risk of getting stuck. According to Alexis, "It's very easy to adjust the angles of the holes, permitting either vertical or overhanging drilling if desired."

"Fitted with wheels, the machine is easy to drag on ski slopes or on cliffs. It's easily dismountable and can be carried anywhere a bulldozer cannot go - in a backyard or into a construction site, and it can be heliported on to a mountain range or other difficult access sites."

Alexis has been using the Dachs system successfully in Europe for a number of years, mostly in infrastructure protection including anchoring, rock-bolting and rock fall barriers Other applications include: road and railway construction, slope stabilization, landslide prevention, special building foundations and reinforcement, foundations for ski lifts, pylons, huts and dam. As Alexis said, "I design safe systems for any kind of job needing industrial, rope-access solutions."

 

 

For example, as a supervisor Alexis worked off-shore in Maui Fields for Aerial Abseil Access. He conceived and set up cable system permitting the repainting of the ceiling under the bow of Shell's boat. On the Nevis Bluff, near Queenstown, he was in charge of the drilling of a 150-metre-high cliff overhanging the road.
He also does difficult access building maintenance: window cleaning, painting, masonry, leaks repairs…

 

During his leisure time, Alexis is fond of skiing. He was trained as an Officer Cadet Mountain Guide (ENSA Chamonix in France). In 2007, he came third in the first kiwi ski mountaineering competition. You might have crossed him skinning up Treble Cone slopes, or riding down.
His son Romain, 18 years old, got an outstanding scholarship in French last month...
While his wife Florence is successful librarian in Mt Aspiring College. But that’s another story!
Daughter Maia, 8, and son Gary, 6, are attending Wanaka Primary School, both bilingual and confirmed skiers.

 

If you are interested in Alexis Poilvert's skills, please contact him or his Company:

 

 

Drilling & Abseil Services Ltd
134 Stone Street Wanaka NZ
Tél : [phone]
Mob : [phone]
e-mail: [e-mail]

 

 

Complementary source: Australasian Drilling Magazine

Photographies by Alexis Poilvert. 

The Boat Shed

Pratiquement tous les guides sur la Nouvelle-Zélande vous parle du « Boatshed », ce restaurant sur pilotis installé à Nelson et spécialisé dans les poissons et fruits de mers.

Dans les années 1880, le bâtiment était un atelier sur pilotis où l’on construisait et réparait des bateaux. Au début des années 1980, les lieux furent occupés par une petite entreprise de pêche et de ferry. C’est en 1993 que Cole Ryan donna l’inspiration en transformant le bâtiment en café servant des moules, crabes et langoustes tout droit sortis des bacs. Mais c’est en 1998 avec la venue de Zviki Eshet que l’endroit devient un lieu incontournable.

Il y a quatre ans, le Boatshed a changé de mains. Les nouveaux propriétaires, Matthew et Rovshana Towse, maintiennent, avec l'aide de leur chef Aaron McCorkindale, la réputation du restaurant considéré comme le passage incontournable de Nelson.

Ainsi, nombreux sont les touristes nationaux et internationaux qui viennent profiter de la vue sur la baie de Tasman. Les habitants de Nelson plébiscitent également le restaurant : le Boatshed accueille une fois par an les membres de l'Alliance française de Nelson pour une réunion autour d'un copieux petit-déjeuner.

Au menu du lunch et du dîner, vous pouvez notamment déguster les fameuses Greenlip mussels, des huîtres, des coquillages St Jacques, des crabes et même des coquillages Paua (abalone), emblématiques de la Nouvelle-Zélande. Le restaurant propose également un menu luxueux de cinq plats pour deux personnes, pour une découverte complète des produits de la mer néo-zélandaise. La carte des vins propose un large choix de grands crus néo-zélandais, français et australiens.

Sources :

- Le site officiel
- L'expérience personnelle de l'auteur

Crédit photo : S.L.

 

Almost every travel guide about New Zealand mentions the « Boat Shed », a restaurant settled in Nelson which specializes in seafood. Around 1880, this building on piles was a boat building and repair business. In the beginning of the eighties, it was a paddle crab fishing business and a ferry service. In 1993, Cole Ryan began turning the character building into a fresh seafood café. In 1998, Zviki Eshet bought the Boat Shed café : the restaurant became then the essential place to be in Nelson.

Four years ago, Matthew et Rovshana Towse became the new owners. With the help of the chef Aaron McCorkindale, they are continuing the Boat Shed's fine traditions.

Many national and international tourists come to the restaurant to enjoy the view over Tasman Bay. The place is also a focal point for locals: the members of the Alliance française of Nelson meet once a year around Boat Shed's fine dishes.

At lunch or dinner, you can taste the famous Greenlip mussels, oysters, scallops, crabs and even wild paua. Or you can try the Boad Shed Experience, which is composed of five courses for two people designed to showcase the best of New Zealand seafood. The wine menu offers a wide range of fine wines from New Zealand, France and Australia.

Sources :

- The official website
- The personal experience of the author

Photographies by S.L.

Peta Mathias, a New Zealand chef

Peta Mathias is a respected and prolific New Zealand chef, author and broadcaster.

 

Having started off her culinary love affair in Paris with her restaurant 'Rose Blues' in the 5th arrondissement, she returned to New Zealand ten years later to teach, cook and write. 'Fête Accomplie', the first book about life in Paris with recipes, is also the first of her eight gastronomic travel books written about North Africa, France, New Zealand, Ireland and Vietnam. In 2005 A Cook's Tour of NZ came out and the most recent book is 'French Toast'.

Since 1995 Peta has been presenting the prime time travel/food shows 'Taste New Zealand', 'Taste Takes off' and 'A Taste of Home'. In 2006 she presented the food segment on TV One's 'House & Garden'.

The NZ Guild of Writers voted Peta as the Supreme Award winner at the New Zealand Guild of Food Writers Culinary Quill Awards in 2003. The Supreme Award is a new category in the Culinary Quills biennial awards, which recognises the most outstanding entry of the fourteen category winners. The President of the Guild said the judges found it difficult selecting an overall winner and it was Peta's passion for the craft of food communications that made the final decision.

Peta was born and bred in Auckland, a stunningly sparkling port city where she still lives but travels extensively researching books and filming her series. She is a member and judge of Slow Food and is proud of the fact that she lives in one of the cleanest, most beautiful countries in the world.

Source and photography: Peta Mathias' website.

Cassoulet: a French dish

Cassoulet is a well-known French dish, and a speciality of the south-west of France.

According to the legend, the first "estofat" (occitan word, which is a local dialect) with beans was cooked while the City of Castelnaudary was under siege, during the war of one hundred years (1337 - 1453). This war opposed French and English for the control of the west of France.
In order to feed the defenders of their City, the cooks of this epoch gathered all the food available and prepared only one dish made of dried beans and various meats. After this copious meal washed down with plenty of alcohol, the combatants rushed at the panic-stricken English army, who ran away. The legend says the English did not stop running until they reached the shores of the Manche.

Some historians believe the culture of beans was introduced in France during the seventeeth century by the Arabs. Others think beans were known in France a long time before the discovery of America by Christopher Colombus, and were cultivated a lot in the south-west of France.

The origin of the word "cassoulet" is less debated: the potters from the village called Issel, close to Castelnaudary, used to make pots in terracotta. The name of these pots was "cassoles", in which the "cassoulet" simmered.

Castelnaudary is the capital of cassoulet, but Carcassonne and Toulouse, two other cities in the south of France, have their own cassoulet dishes.

Here is the real recipe to make the perfect cassoulet: (for ten people)

Ingredients:

- First Cooking:
1 1/2 pound white beans
4 ounces fresh pork skin rolled up and tied
1/2 pound cubed salt pork belly
2 carrots, scraped and sliced
1 onion, peeled and stuck with 6 cloves
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1 bunch of fresh herbs: parsley, thyme, rosemary, fennel, bay leaf, tied together
6 black peppercorns, crushed

- Second Cooking:
1 leg of preserved goose or duck (confit), with its dripping (1/4 of a fresh bird can substitute)
1 pound boned, rolled, and tied shoulder of lamb (optional, but it may substitute for the goose)
1/2 pound lean pork cut into large pieces
1/2 pound fresh pork sausage (saucisse de Toulouse or any garlic-flavored fresh pork sausage)
3 garlic cloves, crushed
2 onions, chopped
2 large tomatoes, skinned and chopped
OR
8 ounce can tomatoes
1/2 pound dried spicy garlic sausage
Salt and pepper
Turn this recipe into a puzzle!

Method:

You will need a heavy saucepan, a frying pan, and a cassole or toupin, or your favorite large earthenware pot with a lid. Check the beans for little bits of gravel, and then put them to soak overnight in cold water.

The next day, drain the beans and put them into a saucepan with the rest of the "first cooking" ingredients. Cover everything with fresh water, bring to a boil, and skim off the gray foam which rises. Turn down the heat and simmer the beans for an hour, until they are soft but still whole, adding more boiling water if necessary.

Meanwhile, prepare the meats in the "second cooking" group. Put the preserved leg of goose or duck into a frying pan and melt off the drippings. Take out and reserve the leg itself. Or prepare the piece of fresh bird by broiling it gently for 10 minutes on each side until the fat runs (put these drippings into the frying pan). If you're using lamb, fry it until the outside is caramelized. Fry the pork with the garlic in the goose drippings, until browned. Remove and reserve them. Fry the onions. Drain off the fat which remains and save it for the finishing.

When the beans are ready, take out the onion and the bunch of herbs. Untie and lay the pork skin (with the fat side down) in the base of the earthenware casserole. Layer the beans with the meats, onions, tomatoes, and garlic sausage into the casserole, finishing with a layer of beans. From now on it is only a matter of oven time. Long, slow cooking is the trick. Cover the pot and put it in a preheated 250F (120°C) oven for 2 hours (if the beans get too dry, pour in a little boiling water -- the beans will harden if you use cold water).

At the end of this time, take the lid off the casserole for the final stage, which will take another hour (completing the four hours).

Pour a tablespoonful of the melted goose fat over the surface of the casserole. Increase the oven heat to 325F (160°C) and return the dish uncovered to the oven. It will take half an hour to form a beautiful crust. Break this with a spoon and stir it into the beans.

On the final stirring, taste, and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. Leave for the final half hour.


Sources :
- Cassoulet.net (in french)
- Official website of the "fête du Cassoulet"
- Wikipedia (about the war of one hundred years)

Photography :
The French newspaper Le Monde

Inauguration de la carrière Wellington à Arras

Aujourd'hui premier mars a lieu l'ouverture officielle d'une section du réseau souterrain creusé par les soldats néo-zélandais à Arras pendant la Première Guerre Mondiale. Le lieu a été nommé "carrière Wellington" en leur hommage.

De 1916 à 1918, les soldats néo-zélandais transformèrent cette carrière de craie en véritable ville souterraine, alors qu'ils n'avaient qu'une formation militaire de base. Grâce à eux, les soldats britanniques purent préparer une offensive massive : des souterrains conduisaient jusqu'aux lignes allemandes, permettant une percée le lundi de Pâques 1917 et la victoire des Alliés quelques temps plus tard. Cette ancienne carrière abrita environ 24 000 soldats tout au long de la guerre, et elle protégea les résidents d'Arras contre les bombardements ennemis pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale.

Le public peut désormais découvrir ce passé historique commun à la Nouvelle-Zélande et de la France. La visite est prévue pour durer soixante-quinze minutes. Les visiteurs passent devant un grand mur recouvert des noms des soldats qui ont vécu dans les souterrains, puis ils descendent à vingt mètres au-dessous de la surface pour visiter une partie du réseau souterrain. Un guide se charge d'accompagner les visiteurs pour leur faire découvrir l'histoire du lieu. Un film sur la bataille de 1917 est ensuite projeté pour revivre l'évènement dans le pas des soldats.

Sources :
- L'Ambassade de France en Nouvelle-Zélande
- Le site de l'office de tourisme d'Arras


Today, the first of March, is the official opening of a section of the underground network dug by New Zealand soldiers in Arras during World War One. Arras is in the north of France, close to the Belgian border. This underground passage is called "Wellington quarry", in honor of the New Zealanders and because this place used to be a quarry of chalk.

From 1916 to 1918, New Zealand soldiers transformed this quarry into a real underground town. Thanks to them, English soldiers were able to prepare a massive attack: some underground passages led to the German lines, allowing a breakthrough on Easter Monday in 1917 and, some time later, the victory of the Allies. This former quarry also sheltered about 24 000 soldiers all during the war, and protected the inhabitants of Arras from German bombing during World War Two.

Now the public can discover this historic past shared by both New Zealand and France. It takes about seventy-five minutes to visit the section. The visitors go past a big wall covered with all the soldiers' names. Then the visitors go down twenty metres below the surface, where a guide explains the history of the place. As a reminder of the event, a film about the battle of 1917 is finally projected in the soldiers' footprint.

Sources :
- French Embassy in New Zealand
- Tourism office of Arras

Read them in English

The French Embassy in New Zealand publishes an online magazine to inform francophile kiwis about French books translated in English. This magazine is called "Read them in English", and the last one has just been published.

You can download the PDF file there.

 

For example, one of the books recently published in English is The Curtain by Milan Kundera, a famous French writer. "A magic curtain, woven of legends, hung before the world," writes Milan Kundera in The Curtain, his fascinating new book on the art of the novel. "Cervantes sent Don Quixote journeying and tore through the curtain. The world opened before the knight-errant in all the comical nakedness of its prose." For Kundera, that curtain represents a ready-made perception of the world that each of us has—a pre-interpreted world. The job of the novelist, he argues, is to rip through the curtain and reveal what it hides. In this entertaining and always stimulating essay, Kundera cleverly sketches out his personal view of the history and value of the novel in Western civilization. Too often, he suggests, a novel is thought about only within the confines of the language and nation of its origin, when in fact the novel's development has always occurred across borders: Laurence Sterne learned from Rabelais, Henry Fielding from Cervantes, Joyce from Flaubert, García Márquez from Kafka. The real work of a novel is not bound up in the specifics of any one language: what makes a novel matter is its ability to reveal some previously unknown aspect of our existence. In The Curtain, Kundera skillfully describes how the best novels do just that.

(From the French Embassy website).

Number of Pages: 168

Date of Publication: 2007

American Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

ISBN: 978-0060841867

French Title: Le Rideau, Essai en sept parties

French Publisher: Gallimard 

 

You can also discover The Chatelet Apprentice, Jean-François Parot's first novel, Kick The Animal Out by Véronique Ovaldé, and many more interesting books.