It’s back! After a brief six month break, Season Two of the series that reintroduced Marcel Leblanc’s gentleman cambrioleur to the world has landed on Netflix.

Lupin

Season One’s short five-episode run ended with a real cliffhanger¹According to the site FranceTerm, the proper French term for a cliffhanger is un suspens … but it doesn’t seem to be very commonly used.. Without giving anything away, I’ll just say that la saison deux wastes no time diving right back into the action, staring off with a very dramatic first episode.

As someone who grew up reading the novellas, I was thrilled to see how, according to this New York Times article at least, the series has led to renewed interest around the world in the books that inspired the series. Since the books are now in the  public domain, you can read them for yourself if you’d like thanks to Project Gutenberg. There is sadly currently only one version available in the original French, but there are many English translations available.

The fun promotional video below, in which the actor – and start of Lupin! – Omar Sy poses as un colleur d’affiches dans le Métro, pokes fun at the underlying concept of many of Arsène Lupin’s adventures (that he operates more or less in the open but always under the radar). As Sy says in the narration: “En portant la bonne tenue, au bon endroit, au bon moment, il est capable de se faire passer pour n’importe qui, n’importe où, pour arriver à ses fins.“²By wearing the right outfit, in the right place, at the right time, he is able to pass for anyone, anywhere, to achieve his goals.

L’écriture inclusive

Following a May 6th announcement in the Bulletin officiel de l’éducation nationale³Official journal of national education debate about the use of l’écriture inclusive is also back.

While l’Académie française has always been formally opposed to it, the form – which leverages le point médian⁴the medial period/dot to create gender and number inclusive words like marchand·e·s for merchant(s) – had gained traction in certain circles.

But now with the recent announcement, Jean-Michel Blanquer, le ministre de l’Éducation nationale de la France⁵the French Education Minister has banned the teaching of l’écriture inclusive in French schools (a move “surtout symbolique, car dans les faits l’écriture inclusive n’est pas enseignée en class“⁶a largely symbolic more since in practice inclusive writing is not taught in class according to this article from Le Monde).

Speaking before l’Assemblée nationale, Blanquer defended the move saying: “[le point médian posse] un risque énorme … quant a la transmission du français,”⁷the medial dot presents a series risk to the transmission of French agreeing with some of the form’s detractors who claim that it is “artificielle et propre à créer une complexité supplémentaire face à certains handicaps.” ⁸artificial and creates additional complexity for those with certain handicaps (specifically those with dyslexia and other language-processing challenges).

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  According to the site FranceTerm, the proper French term for a cliffhanger is un suspens … but it doesn’t seem to be very commonly used.
• 2
  By wearing the right outfit, in the right place, at the right time, he is able to pass for anyone, anywhere, to achieve his goals.
• 3
  Official journal of national education
• 4
  the medial period/dot
• 5
  the French Education Minister
• 6
  a largely symbolic more since in practice inclusive writing is not taught in class
• 7
  the medial dot presents a series risk to the transmission of French
• 8
  artificial and creates additional complexity for those with certain handicaps (specifically those with dyslexia and other language-processing challenges)