The News in Angers, France (AS)

When it comes to current events and being abroad, there have only been a few differences. The differences in the realm of news broadcasting are the way in which the news is being delivered to the people of your general location. In the Unites States, I feel as though the preferred method of obtaining the news is from the TV. Here, in Angers, there has been an apparent trend of people who listen to a news radio station as they eat breakfast, lunch or dinner with a few people reading the newspaper.

        

    When looking at the topics that are covered in the news, the big topic here in Angers is that of agriculture and “Bio” products. These Bio products would be the equivalent to the organic, natural, and healthier foods that are in the US. Over the past week, while listening to the radio during breakfast, there has been a lot of discussion about the local agriculture staying within the general Bio protocols. This region of France has a lot of pride in their agriculture due to the fact that most of it is well within the Bio protocol.

            There has been a lot of hullaballoo with the possible construction of a new airport, L'Aeroport du Grand Ouest (Notre Dame des Landes). It will be located here in the western region of France. The airport has been thought to help create less of congestion in Paris and Nantes to hopefully help the flow of people into continental Europe. There has been a bit of a debate though. Since this area is so proud of its agriculture and how much work they put into it, there is a fear that the airport will bring in a lot of pollution and then damage the local ecosystems. There could also be local damage to the ecosystems due to the influx of tourists, creating more noise and also the risk of trashing the local environment. With all of these worries, one can find it surprising that the vote in the Loire-Atlantique region is still in favor of the airport’s construction.

Map of where in France the new airport
will be located (the black airplane in the key)

            Within the aspect of general interest in the news, there is a common trait between the age groups in France and the United States and who is keeping up with the news. It seems that the older generations are the ones who are in tune with the news, but the younger generations are becoming more and more interested in what is going on in the world. For example, and as I said in my last blog post, the world is fascinated right now with the US presidential elections (granted everyone here is mostly interested in Donald Trump’s campaign and how we Americans feel about him). While relaxing while dinner was in the oven, my host mother and I were watching the news, and they happened to be talking about the US elections. It seems that the news here only really covers the major events, such as Ben Carson’s withdrawal from his presidential campaign or Super Tuesday results. This only makes sense though because in the US, there is only minimal coverage of things such as the previous French presidential campaign season. I think that the reason for this trend, not for lack of reason purposes, but for those of the maintaining of neutrality between states. It would not look good to one country if the other was using their news sources against a political party (even though people in London tried to have Donald Trump banned from their country, something like that).

            News depends on where you are in the world. The coverage, the manner in which it is delivered, and the popularity of the subject at hand all take a part in how it is all absorbed into our daily lives. It isn’t as though people are more interested in one place or another, maybe they don’t have daily access to radio or TV stations or their generations are just not interested in the news, yet. It has been interesting listening to everything rather than reading it in my NY Times newspaper at Allegheny.

           More developments to come, stay tuned.