Day 3357 (Monday) 17th August 2026
This is the airport in Nice
and this is Villefranche and Saint-Jean Cap-Ferrat.
It was slightly cooler today, not much, but a little and Huw had few jobs to do so we stayed at home ready for tomorrow’s adventure when hopefully we’ll go to the crypt in Nice.
There was yet another cruise ship in the bay today and it was huge.
As usual on a Monday here’s What’s happening in France this week. The Local France.
A French astronaut makes history, the President and Prime Minister visit wildfire-hit areas of France, school aid payments arrive, and the domestic football season kicks off - here's what is happening in France this week.
Monday
Cool down – Storms over the weekend brought the official end of the fifth heatwave of France’s gruelling summer. We are now due a period of – relative – cool.
Wildfires – France’s Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu will head a delegation of high-ranking ministers to visit megafire-hit areas in the the Gironde. He will speak to local elected officials “and those involved in the reconstruction” after the fire that ravaged 42,000 hectares, the largest in area in France since 1949.
President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, will meet mayors and firefighters involved in tackling the Gros Bessillon wildfire in the Var.
Strikes – The first one-day walkout by easyJet staff in an ongoing dispute over working conditions on Sunday forced the airline to cancel dozens of flights – but the strike notice covers the entire period up to September 2nd, so more disruption is possible this week and throughout August.
Traffic jams - the Assumption weekend was one of the busiest on the French roads, and some travel warnings are still in place for Monday.
The heaviest traffic in the direction of holiday resorts is expected on the routes linking the Île-de-France and Bordeaux, via Toulouse, to the Mediterranean, as well as on roads in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.
Tuesday
School aid – Millions of parents are expected to receive a one-off means-tested government payment (allocation de rentrée scolaire) to help cover the cost of the numerous items that they need to purchase before children head to school.
Space – French astronaut Sophie Adenot will perform the first spacewalk by a French woman. She is expected to spend 6 hours and 30 minutes working in the vacuum of space carrying out a repair on the transmission system of the International Space Station.
Thursday
Caberet Vert – Deftones, Underworld, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Sparks and Theodora headline this year’s festival in Charleville-Mézières, which runs from August 20th to 23rd.
Fêtes de la Saint-Louis – It’s been going since the port at Sète was inaugurated in 1666 – so this summer festival must be doing something right. There’s water-borne jousting, and swimming, entertainment, shows and fireworks in store for anyone visiting the Hérault seaside town between August 20th and 25th.
Friday
Traffic jams – The penultimate weekend of the summer holiday traffic trouble on France’s arterial routes, with roads watchdog Bison Futé predicting heavy traffic – now mostly heading back to main cities from holiday destinations – from Friday all the way through to Monday.
Football – France’s top-flight men’s football league, Ligue 1, returns on August 21st, with Olympique de Marseille hosting Strasbourg kicking off the season on the league’s own pay-TV channel – which will stream nine games weekly.
How many boulangeries are there really in France?
For many people living in France, a nearby boulangerie (bakery) is an essential part of daily life - but exactly how many does the country have, and are they really dying out?
So how many are there in the country?
Well the answer is a bit more complicated than you would think.
The figure most often quoted in reports is around 30,000 boulangeries. But according to the latest official figures from France's national statistics agency, INSEE, there are actually 50,122 bakeries and pastry shops across the country.
So which figure is correct? The answer is both - they're simply counting different things.
More shops than businesses
The larger figure comes from INSEE's Base Permanente des Équipements (BPE), an annual inventory of facilities and services available to the public.
Rather than counting companies, the database counts physical locations. If a bakery chain operates five branches, each branch is counted because it is a separate place where customers can buy bread.
That means France, including its overseas territories, had in total 50,122 bakery and pastry shop outlets in the 2025 edition of the database.
By contrast, the smaller figure often quoted by industry organisations generally refers to artisan bakery businesses or bakery enterprises, not individual shops. In other words, one business may own several bakery outlets.
Is the number growing?
In 2015, there were 30, 491 bakeries total.
In 2024, the BPE recorded 50,106 bakeries and 50,122 bakeries in 2025. The latest figures suggest the overall number of bakery outlets has changed very little.
This shows an increase of just 16 outlets nationwide, suggesting that the total number of places selling bread has remained broadly stable.
That does not necessarily mean the bakery sector itself is unchanged. Independent artisan bakeries may close while chain bakeries expand, meaning the total number of outlets stays roughly the same even as ownership changes.
Cities are also seeing an increase in boulangeries due to the increasing popularity of sandwiches and other takeaway items for lunch - leading to places that focus less on delicate pastries and more on sandwiches, cookies and meal-deals.
The numbers from INSEE also show that around six in ten communes have no bakery.
However, France has about 34,800 communes, and many are tiny rural villages with fewer than 500 residents. So it's entirely possible that the vast majority of French people still live within easy reach of one, because most of the communes without bakeries are sparsely populated.
Data from Paris city hall shows that 94 percent of Parisians live within a five-minute walk of a boulangerie.
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