Day 3168 (Monday) 9th February 2026

This is Nice

and this is the I love Nice sign.

 

Huw found this photo of Rue du Poilu taken in the 1950s this morning and then went and took the same photo – it hasn’t changed much other than there were more bars in the old days. 

This was taken in 1865.

 

What’s happening in France this week

French ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot. (Photo by Pau Barrena / AFP)

A controversial bill to authorise certain insecticides is back in the news, a French astronaut is set to make history, the second wave of school holidays begin, and census takers are set to hit the streets.

Monday

Wine — International wine show Wine Paris will be held in the capital at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles from February 9th to February 11th. 

Tuesday

Assembly — A delayed debate on the petition against the now-defunct Loi Duplomb will take place in the National Assembly, a day before a new bill introduced by the same Senator, Laurent Duplomb, aimed at authorising certain insecticides, is due to be debated in the National Assembly.

Wednesday 

Carnival — The Nice Carnival gets under way, featuring many, many floats, decorated and presented under this season’s Long Live the Queen theme, in a colourful, festive, family atmosphere. 

Politics — It has already been mentioned, but the two-day debate on a new bill to authorise certain insecticides is due to start in the National Assembly. Environmental groups have called for protests across the country on February 7th, 8th — and on the 11th outside the Assembly building in Paris — to coincide with the debate.

Space — Sophie Adenot will become the second female French astronaut, after Claudie Haigneré who went on missions in 1996 and 1999 as part of the Soyuz programme, when the Crew-12 mission to the International Space Station takes off from Cape Canaveral. They will replacing Crew-11, which returned to Earth in January, a month earlier than planned, during the first medical evacuation in the space station’s history.

Friday

Court — The appeal trial over the theft of a Banksy artwork in Paris in 2019 gets under way.

School holidays — The second wave of France’s winter holidays begin, with children living in school calendar Zone B (including Marseille, Nantes and Strasbourg) starting their two-week break at the end of classes on February 13th. Those in Zone A (including Bordeaux, Grenoble and Lyon) are entering the second week of their holidays, while children in Zone C (including the Paris region and Toulouse) have one more week of school to get through.

Saturday

Festival — When life gives you lemons, you celebrate. The resort of Menton, in south-east France, tempts more than 200,000 visitors every year for a spectacular 15-day celebration of all things citrus. Yep, that's right. There are carnival floats made out of lemons, the town is decorated in lemons — and other agrumes — and there’s every variety of citrus-themed food and drink that you could possibly imagine. 

Valentine’s Day — Surprisingly, given that France is often thought of as the country of love and romance, and Paris routinely tops lists of the ‘best places to visit for Valentine's Day’, it’s not really much of a thing here — although you will see an uptick in jewellery, chocolate and flower shops adverts. If you are of the romantic kind, it might be an idea to book a restaurant table sooner rather than later.

Sunday

Census — France starts a month-long census data-collecting process from February 15th. In smaller communities, the entire population is counted, while in larger areas the census operates on a rolling five-year system, surveying about eight percent of residents each year.

Should you spit or swallow at a French wine-tasting?

A drinker tastes wine in a cellar in Beaune, central France. Photo by JEFF PACHOUD / AFP

You may have heard that real wine experts spit out each wine after tasting it, but if you're at a French wine tasting event you probably won't see a lot of spitting.

For those of us who are not professional sommeliers, wine tastings (dégustation) will generally be low-key events held either at a bar or wine cave, or hosted at the end of a vineyard tour.

The exact format varies, but you will usually be poured a variety of different wines to taste, while either the vineyard owner or a wine expert will talk to you about each wine and explain its properties and the tastes and scents that you are likely to experience.

Although some are very serious, most of these events are relaxed and friendly and it's all about enjoying yourself while learning a few things - so there's no need to feel intimidated if you are not a wine expert.

But to come back to the question - spit or swallow?

At most tasting events there will be an ice bucket or similar container in the middle of the table.

This, however, is not for spitting - so please don't make it like you're in a Wild West movie and start gobbing out jets of wine in the rough direction of the bucket.

The bucket is for dregs and leftovers - at most tastings you will be poured between six or eight different wines, and it's likely you will get a full glass of each.

The reason that a full glass is poured is to allow the scents of the wine to breathe and fill the glass, so you can fully experience the aroma, and then the taste.

You don't however, have to drink the full glass of each wine, and unless you have a very strong head for alcohol you're likely to end up quite drunk if you do.

What most people do is take a couple of sips and then pour the remains into the bucket.

If you take a couple of small sips of each wine you will usually end up drinking the equivalent of 1-2 glasses of wine - enough to render you jovial but not drunk.

The usual format is to have the best wines at the end, so you want to ensure that you can still appreciate the flavours when you get to that point.

If you want to drink them all, however, there is nothing stopping you since you have, after all, paid for it. Provided you're not driving or operating heavy machinery that's entirely a personal choice.

So where does the spitting come in?

If you don't want to drink at all - perhaps because you are driving - you might choose to spit out each wine. If that is your choice, you either spit it back into your glass, or request an extra glass to spit into.

People who almost always spit are professional wine judges - this is mainly a practical thing, since judges at a competition might be tasting dozens of wines in a single afternoon and need to retain their highly-trained critical faculties right until the end.

Ultimately it's a personal choice which no one should judge you for, provided you remain discrete.