French Econ 101

The Côte d’Azur has been bulldozing its beach restaurants. The demolition began a few years ago, wiping out celebrated haunts and their too-permanent installations. The image is shocking – but as ever, this coin has two sides. As the upheaval moves closer to home, French Lessons tries to understand.

Returning home from dinner late one night, French Lessons found our home worryingly dark. Somehow Bellevue’s electricity had been cut. An improvised gadget, a can-do spirit, and neighbourly ties eradicate our latest gremlin and cast light on the ongoing dilemma of local business owners.

When French Lessons returned to France this summer, we didn’t know what to expect.  Could the gilets jaunes – the famous demonstrators-turned-vandals – block our taxi on the way to Bellevue?  Had the rebellion ripped the heart from our beloved Antibes?  The answer depends on who you ask.

The end of the Côte d’Azur’s scorching canicule marks the close of French Lesson’s 2018 season.  We look back over the summer months and a fast-paced, so-called agenda de ministre, to highlight some of the season’s fun, intriguing, and jaw-dropping stories that didn’t yet make these pages.

From infuriating legalese to unwritten expectations, the rental market is tricky at the best of times.  French Lessons tests the waters in the Côte d’Azur this summer with its quest to hire . . . a cello.  We leave Nice’s top stringed instrument maker humbled and charmed.

Security angst and the burkini make the Côte d’Azur’s Summer of 2016 go down in the record books as being truly bizarre. Of course there were bright spots, too: C’est la France! Enjoy our end-of-season grab bag to close out French Lessons’ tenth season running.

In the recent theatre of French labour protests, the world watched the country’s unemployment woes unfurl into the streets – but what about the unemployed themselves? In typical French Lessons fashion, Jo shares with us – up close and personal – how tough it can be to draw the benefits.

As French Lessons treads into the middle of the Côte d’Azur’s acclaimed summer season, we pause, catch our breath, and revel in a jumble of what makes the French Riviera so dazzling, so bewitching. But spoken or not this summer, one topic seems to cut through all the fun.

Bellevue’s air-conditioning is again on the fritz, but this time the repairman doesn’t fire us. Instead, along with an ingenious and swifter-than-merited resolution, he offers French Lessons an unconventional glimpse into the inner workings of the European Union.

French Lessons welcomes back Philippe for his annual one-man show. Insightful and entertaining as ever, he regales us with his latest musings about the French economy – this time with nods to the hotly discussed Uberization, a foundational book Sapiens, and les Dames Pipi.

Amid international headlines to the contrary, French Lessons discovers that Cap d’Antibes’ real estate market is floundering with the latest Russian exodus. We search for green shoots with Angela, our colourful property agent, while recalling the glory days when our northerly neighbours lived large on the peninsula.

French Lessons looks back at the highlights of Summer 2014 in the Côte d’Azur as Bellevue’s occupants declare they are utterly exhausted from all the fun. In many ways this summer was like no other – and yet we discern a few conspicuous and intriguing themes that have endured this summer as in the past.