GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – France, as viewed from just across the border, has finally bowed to the inevitable: 200 years or more of paying homage to the motto that includes “égalité” has finally resulted in women being reduced to just one label.
A man is a man is a Monsieur and now a woman is a woman is a Madame, with Mademoiselle being gently buried. The little girl/old maid title was officially dropped by the French government Tuesday 21 February by a government circular, reports Le Monde.
In these days of cautious government spending current documents with the old labels will be used before new ones that take note of the death of “Mademoiselle” are printed.
Feminist groups in France have been fighting the use of the label, particularly in official documents, arguing that it involves a subtle form of discrimination, often implying information about a woman’s marital status when it is not required.
The campaign to step up the fight began in earnest in September 2011 on the web site madameoumadame.fr, and in November 2011 Solidarity Minister Roselyne Bachelot asked Prime Minister François Fillon to ban the title of “Mademoiselle”.
“Maiden name” is being buried alongside its twin, Mademoiselle.
RIP.
20-29 age group responsible for one-third of licenses lifted
Photo, Valais police
NEUCHATEL, SWITZERLAND – The number of drivers licenses removed by police in 2011 on Swiss roads fell by 2.6 percent, with a drop in every age group except those over 70, where there was a nearly 10 percent increase. The group that remains the most significant is drivers ages 20 to 29, who accounted for one-third of the 76,913 people who lost their licenses.
The main reasons for having a license taken away were speeding, down 9 percent to 32,231 cases, and over the alcohol limit (driving with 0.8/1000 or more, down 6.2 percent to 17,217 cases.
The legal limit is 0.5 for alcohol but for first-time offenders measured at 0.5 to 0.79, police generally give them a warning. These, too, were down by 5.5 percent to 6,374 cases.
The most frequent license ban is for one to three months, in 63 percent of cases, but in 20 percent of cases the license is removed for an indeterminate period, and there was a 7 percent increase in 2011 for these.
The 2011 figures were published Friday 10 February by the Swiss Statistical Office in Neuchatel.
Chateau de Bethusy, Lausanne, where the CAS sports arbitration court, holds its hearings
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The CAS, the international arbitration court for sports in Lausanne, says it has accepted for review the appeals by two former officials of the international football federation, Fifa.
Former Fifa executive committee member Amos Adamu of Nigeria has asked that he be found not guilty and his three-year suspension overturned.
Ahongalu Fusimalohi of Tonga is asking that his ban be lifted.
The two were part of a group of six officials found guilty on various corruption charges linked to the 2018 and 2022 football World Cup bidding contests. Fifa in November 2010 handed out fines ranging from CHF5,000 to CHF10,000 and the officials were banned from participating in any football-related activities for a period of one to four years.
The CAS has not yet set a date for the hearings.
A court in Belgium will rule on a case brought by a Congolese man to ban sales in the country of the 1920s book by cartoonist Hergé, Tintin in the Congo. The book has long been criticized for its racist images and dialogue, and even the cartoonist referred to it years later as “a youthful sin which reflected the prejudices of the time”, according to the BBC. The UK’s Commission for Racial Equality at one point asked for the book to be banned, but it is now often sold in Britain with a wrapper saying the contents may be offensive.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss federal government is warning consumers not to buy sweet jellies that come in small plastic containers, which pose a “high’ risk of suffocation, if the container is sucked into the windpipe when the sweet is swallowed. The products have been banned in Switzerland since 2002 but they have recently been reappearing in the country, mainly in Asian shops, says the government.
Chateau de Bethusy, Court of Arbitration for Sport, Lausanne
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - French tennis player Richard Gasquet took part in a seven-hour review of his suspension by the Court of Arbitration for Sport Tuesday 10 November. The review follows demands by Wada (World Anti-Doping Agency) and the International Tennis Federation for his penalty to be increased to a one-year ban.
The review came on the day when Wada celebrated its tenth birthday, with director general David Howman saying “All over the world, awareness is much higher today than it was ten years ago . . . Global anti-doping efforts in general have become smarter and much more sophisticated with experience.”
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swiss police and cantonal and federal authorities will be coordinating their investigations more closely with their counterparts abroad as the Swiss government steps up efforts to combat animal rights activists who have been attacking pharmaceutical companies. The government announced that a dozen persons have been banned from entering the country, based on investigations to date, but no details of the attacks were provided. The activists are fighting the use of animals for pharmaceutical research.
