I've just spent a happy half-hour at the official Asterix website. There's plenty here for intermediate French students to enjoy - there's La Missive d'Informations, where your pupils can subscribe to a monthly email newsletter from Asterix' village. They can also send Asterix e-cards to penfriends and even try some Asterix adventures in Picard and Creole dialects.
I remember greatly enjoying Asterix chez les Bretons when I was at school, though I'd forgotten the authors' entertaining disclaimer at the beginning. Apparently they published a similar disclaimer in all of Asterix' adventures abroad, lest any of the nationalities lampooned took it the wrong way:
"As usual, we caricature what we are fond of, and we are fond of the British, in spite of their strange way of putting Nelson on top of their columns instead of Napoleon. However, when it comes to presenting this skit on the British to the British, we feel we owe them a word or two of explanation. Our little cartoon stories do not make fun of the real thing, but the ideas of the real thing that people get into their heads, i.e., clichés.
We Gauls imagine the British talking in a very refined way, drinking tea at five o'clock and warm beer at the peculiar hours of opening time. The British eat their food boiled, with mint sauce; they are brave, phlegmatic, and always keep a stiff upper lip. Suppose we were British, caricaturing the Gauls, we would say they all wore berets, ate frogs and snails and drank red wine for breakfast. We might add that they all have hopelessly relaxed upper lips, and that phlegm is not their outstanding characteristic. And most of all, we should hope that the Gauls would have as good a sense of humour as the British."
Bonté gracieuse!
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