Day 3210 (Monday) 23rd March 2026

This is Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild

and this is the Hotel Negresco on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. 

After a miserable weekend it was lovely and sunny today but Huw had to go to Ken’s house to do some work. When he came home we went down to the square for a coffee and enjoyed some sunshine. 

 

Town was very busy with lots of people eating their lunch, which is unusual for a Monday so maybe spring has really sprung.

As always on a Monday here’s What changes in France this week. The Local France.

The clocks go forward an hour at the weekend. (Photo by Jeff PACHOUD / AFP)

MPs head back to the Assembly, there's a big G7 meeting in Yvelines, and the clocks go forward for the summer.

Monday 

Politics — MPs return to the Assembly after a break for the municipal elections.

Court — A money-laundering trial involving the Congolese president’s niece begins.

Thursday 

International Politics — In what could be an interesting couple of days in Yvelines, given the state of the planet right now, foreign ministers from G7 countries are due to meet at Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay.

Travel — Paris-Berlin night trains start running again, via Brussels.

Sport — France’s footballers will take on Brazil in Foxborough, Massachusetts, as part of a brief US tour ahead of the World Cup later this year. The match kicks off at 9pm France time.

Strike — Education unions have called on school staff in Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres, and Vienne to walk out on strike in protest at working conditions, and planned class closures and staff reductions for the start of the 2026/27 school year. Demonstrations are planned in Angoulême, La Rochelle, Niort, and Poitiers.

Friday 

Rugby — New France coach Francois Ratier is due to announce the 32-player squad for the first round of the Women’s Six Nations at the end of a three-day training camp at FFR headquarters in Marcoussis. Les Bleues kick off their tournament against Italy at Grenoble’s Stade des Alpes on April 11th. 

Food and Drink — The four-day Foire Internationale aux Fromages et aux Vins takes place in Coulommiers, Seine-et-Marne, featuring the expected array of food and drink, as well as producer competitions.

Saturday 

Religion — Pope Leo XIV becomes the first sitting pontiff to visit Monaco since Paul III in 1538 — and the first to arrive in a helicopter. He will celebrate a public mass at Stade Louis-II.

Time — We all lose an hour’s sleep as the clocks go forward during the night of Saturday, March 28th, to Sunday, March 29th, 2026, at 2am.

Sunday 

New flights - Air France will launch twice-daily flights between Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle and London Gatwick from March 29th.

Sport — The second and final match of France senior men’s football team’s brief pre-World Cup US tour sees them take on Colombia in Landover, Maryland. The match kicks off at 9pm France time.

I found this website about what the French government advises us to eat.

French menus.

A menu in a canteen in the French city of Lyon. Photo by ROMAIN LAFABREGUE / AFP

Want to fully integrate and eat breakfast, lunch and dinner like a French person? The French government's health ministry will create for you a weekly menu of three-course meals - so we tried it out.

French cuisine is delicious and justifiably famous, but do French people really eat rich, heavy classics like boeuf bourguignon, potatoes dauphinoise and croissants every day? Is a daily cheese course and glass of red wine still a habit in the 21st  century?

We turned to the French government's officially recommended weekly menus to find out how to eat like a French person.

The public health body Santé Publique France has a long-running campaign called Manger Bouger (eat and move) which you will doubtless have heard on TV, or as part of the compulsory health warnings that follow adverts for junk food.

As part of this campaign, it has created the Manger Bouger menu planner, which will create tailored weekly meal plans, complete with recipes, for optimum healthy eating, in the French style.

For the purposes of this test, we told it to create meals for a single person, with no dietary restrictions, who has a reasonable amount of time for cooking (a 'no time' option for quicker recipes is also available).

The menu created is in the classic French entrée-plat-dessert format (starter-main course-dessert), although there are options for only entrée-plat or only plat-dessert, but no options for either lunch or dinner consisting of only a single course.

It also doesn't offer an option for breakfast - but a classic French breakfast would be either bread with jam (tartine), a pastry (croissant or pain au chocolat), or a yoghurt or cereal.

As you would expect from the public health body, the recipes are on the healthy side with plenty of fruit, vegetables, and whole grains - but also plenty of cheese, pasta and dessert options. We opted for the meat-eater's menu but there are plenty of vegetarian dishes and veggie-only days, reflecting the French government guidance to people to eat less meat.

It covers only food, not drink, but when it comes to wine, the French official guidance is that you should have no more than two glasses of wine per day, not exceed 10 per week and should not drink every day. We've therefore added a couple of (optional) glasses of wine to reflect the government advice.

Here's the French government approved weekly menu - you can find the menu and each dish comes with a menu that you can alter for the number of people you want to cook it for.

Monday

Lunch - Salad of bulgar wheat, goat's cheese and beetroot. Onion quiche with a side salad. Cheese course.

Dinner - Potato salad with leeks. One-pot wholewheat pasta with spinach and mushrooms. Yoghurt or rice pudding.

Tuesday

Lunch - Mushrooms stuffed with sardines. Turkey à la Provençale (cooked in tomato sauce with vegetables). Cheesecake with fromage blanc and speculoos biscuits. (Speculoos is a traditional biscuit with brown sugar (or "vergeoise"), originating from the County of Flanders,  historical territory now shared between Belgium , France and the Netherlands.) Glass of wine.

Dinner - Coddled eggs (oeuf cocotte). Spiced Egyptian-style rice with lentils. Greek yoghurt with honey and nuts.

Wednesday

Lunch - Chicory salad. Chicken filet with couscous. Greek yoghurt and fresh grapefruit.

Dinner - Potato salad. Falafel with quinoa. 

Quinoa

Cheese course. Glass of wine.

Thursday 

Lunch - Curried eggs mayonnaise. Brown rice pilaf with turkey and peas. Fruit compote.

Dinner - Lentil salad. Salmon fillet with pasta and mange-tout peas. Cheese course.

Friday 

Lunch - Gaspacho soup. Rabbit tagine with dried fruit and couscous. Baked apples.

Dinner - Green salad with Emmental, bacon and croutons. Ham and cheese omelette. Fresh grapefruit. Two glasses of wine.

Saturday

Lunch - split pea soup. Cod fillet with mushrooms and brown rice. Cheese course.

Dinner - Pasta salad with peas. Sausages (pork or poultry) with carrots and onions. Mango and coconut Sabayon (baked custard). Two glasses of wine.

Sunday

Lunch - Chicory, beetroot and walnut salad. Chicken with brown rice and leeks. Chocolate mousse. Glass of wine.

Dinner - Baked chicory and artichoke. Chicken with a mustard sauce. Greek yoghurt. Glass of wine.