PARIS – The French government has formally surrendered to the 1940s this morning, following the discovery of a World War Two bomb that proved "too emotionally exhausting" to move.
As the news broke, the city fell into a practiced rhythm of despair. Citizens were seen weeping openly into their Emmental, the holes in the cheese providing a perfect metaphor for the emptiness of the human condition.
While other nations might use robots or controlled explosions, the French bomb disposal team—wearing ceremonial necklaces made of artisanal onions—opted for a more sensory approach. The device was neutralized by being smothered in ripe Camembert and left in the midday sun until the sheer, decaying funk of the dairy forced the detonator to lose the will to live.
As the bomb was rendered safe, a twelve-baguette salute echoed from the Arc de Triomphe. The crusty projectiles were fired into the air with such Gallic indifference that three of them stalled in mid-air and refused to land.
President Macron was later seen on the balcony of the Élysée Palace, staring blankly at the horizon while smoking four cigarettes simultaneously. When asked for a statement regarding the safety of the public, he simply exhaled a cloud of Gitanes smoke and whispered, "C’est la vie, and also, c’est le boom," before retreating into a dimly lit room to listen to jazz.
The government has announced seven days of national mourning, during which French life will be lived entirely in black and white. Pedestrians are required to walk with a slight slouch, and all dialogue must be delivered in subtitled, philosophical monologues about the futility of time.
Photo by Chris Karidis on Unsplash
French armed forces, aided by the Royal Navy, have captured the snake oil tanker Board of Peace while it was sinking in the mid-Atlantic.
"The Board of Peace had been sailing under a false flag," explained Jacques Croissant, captain of the frigate Grenouille
"It had been registered by the US president as an organisation to rebuild Gaza but was secretly designed to replace the United Nations.
"Monsieur Trump had managed to sign up the leaders of the world's most vile dictatorships, like Russia and Belarus. They didn't give a damn about Gaza, but clearly hated the UN just as much as Trump does and wanted it gone. The Board of Peace started to founder when other nations saw through the plot."
"I would have gotten away with it, if it hadn't been for you pesky Frogs," snarled the demented skipper of the Board of Peace, Donald Trump.
"And if you weren't such a bunch of snowflake liberals, you'd hang him from the yard arm," squawked a parrot on Trump's shoulder called JD Vance.
It is thought the SS Board of Peace had been returning to its home port of Mar-a-Lago from Davos, where Captain Trump had just delivered a speech to the World Economic Forum containing 50,000 tons of high-octane snake oil and bilge.