Their bedbugs can be a little over-friendly, and the vegan food offerings could be improved. But the French have got a lot of things right
‘Got my Covid jab, €7,90,” I texted my best mate last week, repulsively smug, plus some obnoxious photos of local oysters, knobbly picturesque squashes and ceps at the market. I’m in France, évidemment. “Remind me,” she replied, back home in England. “Why do we live here?”
Last year, this conversation was prompted by French melons – so fragrantly delicious and treated so reverently – and we often have it about environmental matters. France is no green wonderland – as the recent shutting down of climate activists Les Soulèvements de la Terre (Earth Uprising) demonstrates – but there’s more appetite for radical change: a new 50-point plan to reduce emissions; €2bn on promoting bike use. Car ads urge you to use public transport where possible, and TV weather has become the “weather and climate forecast”, hammering home nightly how extreme temperatures, drought, floods and fires are the consequence of anthropogenic climate change.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...