The End is Nigh!
Tradition dies hard in the French Pyrenees, but winegrowers are shrugging aside Gallic pride to bottle their wine in plastic to meet a demand for lighter, unbreakable bottles.
"Plastic bottles are difficult for me," said Pascal Fernandez, a winegrower from the Pepieux cooperative in the Languedoc. "In the French culture, a glass bottle with a natural cork is engraved in our genes."
What message does wine in a bottle give? Can't see this marketing well
Today the Guardian reports on the French Property market .....
Britons who own a French holiday home have had to weather a much gentler downturn than in Spain – and house prices may now be on the up
Britons typically buy near airports served by budget airlines, in four main regions – the south west, from Normandy down to the Spanish border; the Mediterranean coast, along the Cote d'Azur and provence and into Languedoc; the Alps; and a smaller number of generally wealthier purchasers look to Paris.
Britons who choose France for a holiday home are typically better off than those who buy in Spain and have had to weather a much gentler downturn. Price falls of 10% to 15% have been common over the past five years.
Few buyers have had to cut their losses, however. Estate agents say there has been no discernible rise in "distressed sales". Instead, some believe canny Britons, who bought when sterling was strong, are waiting to see if the exchange rate shifts further in favour of the euro – in which case a quick sale could see them net a good profit.
After years of gentle decline and sometimes sharp falls, the French housing market appears to be picking up.
The Fédération National de l'immobilier, the French estate agents' body, says average prices of all homes rose 6% in 2010 and property purchases exceeded 700,000 – a 15% rise on 2009. "Prices, after having fallen quite significantly – approximately 10% if we look at the end of 2009 – have regained a certain strength," says FNAIM president René Pallincourt.The average price of a home in Burgundy is now €148,400 (£129,000), while in Languedoc the figure is €208,800 (£182,000) rising to €384,200 (£334,000) in Provence.
1st for French Property report that enquiries are up in early 2011 but Brits are looking to negotiate on prices to protect themselves against further falls
Sacre Bleu - art is under attack in France. Culture and arts are part of the French psyche so Sarkozy is showing signs of being a philistine. The Guardian explains the problems in France ....
In the French arts world, there is a rebellious mood. Last month, the country's curators – not normally known for stepping out of line – published a scathing critique of the state of French museums. They warned that cuts to regional and local administration budgets meant small museums were in a "precarious" state, decaying and threatened with closure. One third of France's curators are due to retire in five years, and the government policy of making savings by not replacing all retired workers meant that museums would suffer.
They also warned against the state adopting free-market economics for the arts, saying state intervention must protect art for art's sake. "There's a huge gap between Paris and the provinces, between big and small museums," said Christophe Vital, head of the curators' association. "But that doesn't mean the big establishments don't have problems too."
Last year, the heads of the country's most important museums, the Louvre, the Pompidou and the Musée d'Orsay, warned the government against a "short-term" mentality of cost-cutting that could put their museums at risk.
Learn how to say "I, you, he, she...." etc. and about feminine and masculine nouns with this edition of Lost in France.
Burglars padlock gates to French police station. They also blocked an access road to the bank with a burning car before using explosives to blow open a cashpoint machine at the BNP-Paribas bank in Aulnay-sous-Bois.
The four gunmen armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles then stole several hundred thousand euros in cash before fleeing on two high-powered motorbikes, and were never caught.
Are you sure you were not watching a film? Great planning and audacity sounds like a great movie script in the making.
PARIS—France, one of the world's nuclear powers, moved quickly to try to reassure the world and its own people that its nuclear plants were safe, as Japan's unfolding crisis threw a wrench in a much-vaunted global nuclear renaissance.
Nuclear energy accounts for around 80% of France's electricity output, and the country has for decades invested money and manpower to build state-of-the-art nuclear plants, including so-called third-generation reactors that are considered among the world's safest and most advanced.
Buoyed by recent renewed interest in nuclear energy, companies such as France's Areva SA and Électricité de France SA—two of the industry's biggest ...
Today the Telegraph reports on Lower Normandy coast and islands - very close to England and well served by ferry ports
Driving west along the Alabaster Coast – named because the sea is milky with chalk – brings you to Etretat, an elegant resort famed for its magnificent wave- crashing setting.
On the Falaise d’Aval and d’Amont cliff walks you can marvel at sea-sculpted features such as the Manneporte arch and the Aiguille. Off the east coast of the Cotentin Peninsula lies the “warrior island” of Tatihou. Accessible via a 10-minute boat crossing from St Vaast- la-Hougue, the wild beauty of this moorland, dune and shingle nature reserve is enhanced by the imposing Vauban Tower.
With perfect toytown machicolations, the tower dominates a 17th-century chateau designed by royal engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban. Children relish a tour of gunpowder store, sleeping quarters, cannon-platform and fortified farm complete with barracks and chapel.
Further up the Cherbourg peninsula, the Gatteville lighthouse is another skyscraper well worth a visit and a climb to the top – ideally fuelled by a moules- frites lunch in nearby Barfleur, the Anglo-Norman kingdom’s leading port. Tradition has it that the boat that carried William the Conqueror to England was built here. What is the magic of Mont-St-Michel? The early eighth- century abbey – complete with causeway, ramparts, village and garden – perches on top of a rock, rising majestically out of the sea in a beautiful bay. Tides faster than a galloping horse can separate it from the mainland. The air resonates with ancient pilgrim tales of quicksand and fogs. Aim for low tide and cross the marshes barefoot, or try to catch the sunset over the bay from the steps of the abbey church.
Paris police find £16 million in stolen jewels in sewer. Among those charged was the heist's suspected mastermind, who had been sentenced to 15 years in prison in a drug trafficking case. Police found stolen jewellery and €760,000 at this house.
A guard at the Harry Winston boutique put police on the trail of the suspects. When investigators learned that an Israeli was expected in Paris to buy some of the stolen jewels, police moved in to make the arrests.
Alpes-Maritimes is a department in the extreme southeast corner of France enjoying over 300 days of sunshine. Tourism in the department centers on the French Riviera, commonly known as the Côte d'Azur, renowned for its beaches, luxury hotels and chic lifestyle.
The area inland from the busy Côte d'Azur is an excellent base for many outdoor sports: cycling, mountain biking, skiing, walking, rock climbing, canyoning, canoeing, rafting, fishing, horse riding, forests of adventure, and caving. More References:Where do 14.5 tons of oysters disappear too? How long will they keep fresh? The one (or several thousands) that got away?
Photo by Allerina & Glen MacLarty
"I'm split between anger and surprise at retrieving (many of) my oyster," said one of the robbed farmers. "But I also know that such thefts risk multiplying in future," he warned.
Oyster prices have rocketed by up to 50 per cent in recent months, reaching £15 per dozen in some areas, after a three-year shellfish plague that has all but wiped out young oysters. Scientists are warning that the viral epidemic is so widespread that there may be no oysters left for next year's festive season.
The price hikes have led to a rise in thefts. The Oléron area registered around 10 robberies last year but the number doubled from October to January. Local gendarmes have stepped up helicopter and boat patrols in an attempt to thwart the thieves.
The Telegraph reports on a British couple in Provence selling their snail business - a boutique hotel would you believe! Read the extract ....
The hotel, nine miles from Avignon, is set in four acres of landscaped gardens and is on the market for €2.45 million (£2.1m).
"Running the hotel and farm has been very enjoyable. It'd be wonderful if other Britons wanted to follow the path I've carved," said Mrs Parkes.
The sales particulars for the property, Les Carmes, lists its seven suites, inner courtyard for al fresco dining and its swimming pool in glowing terms before adding - almost as an afterthought - "and a working snail farm."
French consumers eat an estimated 35,000 ton of snails a year, according to the French snail producers' union. But only around 1,500 tons of those are produced in France, with the rest imported from eastern Europe, where they are picked in the wild.
There are only 200 professional snail farmers in France and to qualify as one of them, Mrs Parkes spent three months studying snails' reproductive cycles, the grains on which to feed them, and how to set up an electrically-fenced enclosure.
