Day 2961 (Thursday) 17th July 2025

This is Menton

and this is Eze Village.

Huw went to school in Nice this morning, he’s only got a few classes left.

He said the traffic in Nice was terrible – welcome tourists.

When we came home we went to Beaulieu to get a delicious chicken and roast potato sandwich and ate it on the baech. The beach was nowhere near as rammed as ours in Villefranche.

Huw took this great photo…and it reminded us of a story Olivier told us on Saturday. They have two cats, one is really huge and the other one is pretty small and a seagull swooped onto their balcony, which is pretty big, and attacked the cats. The seagull attacked the little one but Olivier managed to scare the bird away. How awful is that? Luckily our balcony is too small to attract seagulls, pigeons yes, but seagulls no thank goodness.

French PM suggests slashing two public holidays as part of budget cuts

Prime Minister François Bayrou suggested making people work on Easter Monday and on May 8, as he presented measures to bring the public deficit down from 5.8% last year to below 4.6% next year. 

French Prime Minister François Bayrou speaks during a news conference to present a major public finance recovery plan, outlining his first budgetary orientations for 2026, in Paris, France, July 15, 2025. ABDUL SABOOR / REUTERS 

France's Prime Minister François Bayrou said, on Tuesday, July 15, he wanted to reduce the number of public holidays as part of a 2026 budget proposal to slash public spending while also increasing defense expenses, aimed at tackling what he called the "curse" of his country's debt. Bayrou suggested making people work on two holidays out of France's total of 11, suggesting "as an example" Easter Monday as well as May 8, a day that commemorates the end of World War II in Europe.

After years of overspending, France is on notice to bring its public deficit back under 3% of GDP, and cut its sprawling debt, as required under EU rules. Bayrou had said previously that France's budgetary position needed to be improved by €40 billion ($46.5 billion) next year. However, this figure has now risen after President Emmanuel Macron said at the weekend he hoped for additional military spending of €3.5 billion next year, and then by a further €3 billion in 2027, to help France cope with international tensions. France has a defense budget of €50.5 billion for 2025.

Losing two public holidays would add "several billions of euros" to the state's coffers, Bayrou said. Yet the proposed measure sparked an immediate response from Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN). He said abolishing two holidays, "especially ones as filled with meaning as Easter Monday and May 8 is a direct attack on our history, our roots and on labour in France." The party's three-time presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, warned that "if François Bayrou does not revise his plan, we will vote for a no-confidence motion."

Radical left-wing figure Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the La France Insoumise party, meanwhile called for Bayrou's resignation, saying "these injustices cannot be tolerated any longer." His party colleague Mathilde Panot accused Bayrou of starting "a social war."

The centrist premier said the government aimed to bring the deficit down from 5.8% last year to below 4.6% next year, and to under 3% by 2029. To achieve this, other measures would include a freeze on spending increases across the board – including on pensions and health spending – except for debt servicing and the defence sector. "We have become addicted to public spending," Bayrou said, adding that "we are at a critical juncture in our history."

The prime minister even held up Greece as a cautionary tale, an EU member whose spiralling debt and deficits pushed it to the brink of dropping out of the eurozone in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. "We must never forget the story of Greece," he said. France's debt currently stands at 114% of the country's GDP – compared to the 60% allowed under EU rules – the biggest debt mountain in the EU after Greece and Italy.

Bayrou said France had to borrow each month to pay pensions or the salaries of civil servants, a state of affairs he called "a curse with no way out." The government hopes to cut the number of civil servants by 3,000 next year, and close down "unproductive agencies working on behalf of the state," the premier said.

Bayrou also said that France's wealthy residents would be made to contribute to the overall financial effort. "The nation's effort must be equitable," Bayrou said. "We will ask little of those who have little, and more of those who have more."

I think this is going to cause chaos. 

Huw took this video the other day and showed it to his teacher because she has seen the pencil with teeth marks in it, the teacher has fallen in love with little Badger.