Man hands
The concert halls have been closed for many months, but, rest assured, there is still the Senate. And Jean Castex. The day after Emmanuel Macron’s announcements of a third confinement, the Prime Minister took the stage to convince his audience of the relevance of the measures taken, frowning, generously waving his hands. In 2015, an American study showed that a good speaker could use up to 465 different hand gestures. In view of the performance of Jean Castex, one would swear that a rock star from Gers uses even more.
Fingers of facts
If many opposition senators had decided to boycott the Prime Minister’s song, refusing to participate in a “Trap vote”, he could count on the attentive support of members of the government.
Everything suggests that Gabriel Attal, posted in the front row, was taking notes here, on his cell phone, of the best elements of Jean Castex’s speech. Unless he sent an SMS to the so-called Pierre-Jean Chalençon to refuse an invitation to the Palais Vivienne. Do we ever know…
Magnetic source
On the desks, several fluorescent files are prominently placed. The opportunity to recall that obtaining fluorescent comes from a complex technical process, consisting of the excitation of a molecule by absorption of a photon. The opportunity to emphasize, above all, that an American study – one more – has shown that an individual dressed in black attracts 30% fewer glances than an individual dressed in fluorescent yellow. The magnetic Jean Castex being the exception here. Obviously.
Checklist
On some desks in the Senate Chamber are affixed, at random, fifteen commemorative plaques in memory of former senators. Victor Hugo, Georges Clemenceau, René Coty, Edgar Faure, Maurice Schumann or François Mitterrand each have their own.
Here, on the desk of François Patriat, president of the LREM group in the Senate, is fixed the medal in tribute to Victor Schœlcher, the architect of the abolition of slavery in France. A staunch republican, this early abolitionist was elected irremovable senator in 1875.
Radio-carpet
Aesthetes and fans of intoxicating vacuuming sessions will have noticed with excitement here the carpet trodden by the Prime Minister. This is obviously not just anything. This carpet is the work of the Royal Manufacture of the Park, located in Aubusson, in the Creuse. Founded in 1751, it also supplies the Elysée, the Académie and the Comédie-Françaises, numerous fashion houses, major hotels, the Eurostar or the A380 … But the Senate is indeed the only concert hall equipped by the Manufacture.