Practice French with excerpts from "The Loire Valley" in French, followed by the English translation.

En français:
Le Val De Loire
La Vallée du Grand Fleuve Royal, ainsi pourrait-on appeler le Val de Loire, région constellée de centaines de demeures princières qui offrent une profusion d'images issues tout droit de la Renaissance, une des époques les plus prestigieuses de l'histoire de France.

Contrairement à la Bretagne ou à la Normandie, véritables entités géographiques et historiques, le Val de Loire composé de pays à l'histoire et aux caractères variés, ne tient son unité qu'à la présence de la Loire, le plus long fleuve de France avec ses 1.020 km.

La plupart du temps, étalée dans un lit trop grand pour elle, la Loire coule mollement entre des bancs de sable doré ou étreint des dizaines d'îlots. Qu'on ne s'y trompe pas! Sous son apparente indolence, la Loire dissimule un tempérament de torrent et ses colères surprennent. Des pluies fortes se déversent-elles dans le Velay où elle prend sa source, les neiges du Massif Central fondent-elles rapidement, la Loire s'enfle alors en crue dangereuse. Les chiffres gravés dans la pierre de maintes piles de ponts et même de maisons riveraines en témoignent: crues meurtrières de 1856, 1910 et 1936.

Le plus souvent pourtant, la Loire est d'humeur paresseuse et maintenant qu'a disparu la pittoresque industrie de batellerie qui la sillonnait jusqu'au milieu du dix- neuvième siècle, on serait tenté de l'accuser d'être inutile si elle ne traçait, de château en palais, un incomparable itinéraire.

Et surtout, les poètes ne s'y sont pas trompés qui ont chanté sa couleur changeante, moirée. Les uns l'ont vue bleutée, d'autres blonde voire jaune quand ce n'est pas franchement verte; peu importe la nuance, elle compose un miroir mouvant qui reflète à merveille la lumière du Val de Loire, cette fine lumière qui enveloppe monuments et paysages de la transparence d'une aquarelle.

In English:
The Loire Valley
"The Valley of the Great Royal River," as one might call the Loire Valley, is a region studded with hundreds of princely residences which offer the visitor a profusion of sights straight out of the Renaissance, one of the most prestigious periods in the history of France.

Unlike Brittany or Normandy, which are authentic geographic and historical entities, the Loire Valley, consisting of regions with varied history and characters, owes its unity solely to the presence of the Loire, the longest river in France: 1,020 kilometers long.

Spreading out in a bed too big for her, the Loire usually runs gently between golden sandbanks or chokes among tens of islets. But make no mistake! Under its apparent lethargy, the Loire conceals a torrential temperament and its rages can be unexpected. Should heavy rains pour down on Velay, where it has its source, and snows melt rapidly in the Massif Central, the Loire can swell to dangerous flood levels. Numbers engraved on the stones of numerous bridge piers and even riverside houses attest to killer floods in 1856, 1910 and 1936.

Most of the time, though, the Loire is in a lazy mood and, since the loss of the picturesque industry of river traffic which criss-crossed it until the middle of the nineteenth century, we might be tempted to accuse it of uselessness if it didn't trace an incomparable itinerary from one castle and palace to another.

And, above all, the poets were not mistaken who sang of its changing, shimmering, color. Some saw it as blue-tinted, others as light gold, even yellow, when it wasn't undeniably green; whatever its hue, it is a moving mirror admirably reflecting the light of the Loire Valley, this delicate light surrounding buildings and landscapes with the transparency of a watercolor.

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With the election season just behind us in the United States, we thought it a good time to glance at French politics and meet a man recently ousted from his seat in the European Parliament: Jean-Marie Le Pen.

French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen recently lost his seat in the European Parliament after losing a final appeal over his conviction for assault on a rival female politician. A final attempt on Friday to ask the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to suspend the ruling failed when the court rejected the appeal.

European Parliament President Nicole Fontaine announced the decision. "Mr. Le Pen, I invite you to leave the chamber, and so that everything happens with dignity... I am adjourning the session for a quarter of an hour," he said. Le Pen reacted sharply to the news, saying it was a move to "shut me up".

Le Pen, whose political career began in Paris in the early 1950s, has been involved in several public incidents leading to court cases. He has often stoked controversy by his strident anti-immigrant stance and anti-semitic comments. He and his party have argued that France is at risk from the tide of immigrants and that immigrants should be dispatched back to the countries they came from. He once described the gas chambers as "a little detail" in the history of the Second World War.

"This incident will not stop me from continuing my fight," said Le Pen, who says he will stand as a candidate in the next French presidential elections. Le Pen said he would appeal to the European Court of Justice. He has already lost his seat in the regional assembly of Provence-Alpes- Côte d'Azur, but will have served his penalty in time for presidential elections due in 2002.

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Exciting news! According to PC Data, October 2000, Transparent Language, Inc. has maintained the number one position in the foreign language software category for the month of September 2000 and for the entire year to date!

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