This French Life

Brittany boost from flights

BRITTANY and the Loire valley are the major winners after two airlines announced their summer timetables.

Next year Flybe is to begin flights from Manchester to Brest and Rennes, Belfast will also have a link to Rennes.

French Motorail bookings open

The Motorail service that allows travellers to take their cars to the south of France has opened for summer 2007 bookings.

The train service leaves Calais in the evening and provides passengers with couchette accommodation, whilst their cars are loaded up on special carriages.

Disability party to field candidates in Presidential Election

Life in France as a disabled person is, at least, difficult.
Access, services, employment and independence are all things that are taken for granted in everyday life but for the disabled they are almost exclusively denied.

Banks that have no disabled access, lack of disabled parking spaces, few shopping trolleys that attach to wheelchairs, restricted checkouts in supermarkets and the lack of dropped kerbs are just a few obstacles that make life for the disabled frustrating and humiliating.

Eric Taffoureau-Millet has first hand experience of the problems disabled people face, being the victim of a cycling accident at the age of 17 which left him in a coma. Two further accidents compounded the problems he faced. As a previous top class cyclist he knew that he had to move on and his change of direction empowered him to take up the fight.

Operation Stack at Dover in place

THE Highways Agency has put into place Operation Stack and closed junctions 11 to 12 on the M20 for Dover.

Strike action in Calais means good vehicles heading for France have been parked up and diversions put in place, it is hoped the restrictions will be lifted by midnight.

UPDATE 29/11/06
The strike action at Calais has continued into Wednesday and the M20 is now closed from junctions 8 to 12.

More: Industrial action at Calais

Related article 15/04/09:
French fishermen block Channel ports

Air France targets low cost

AIR France is to begin a low-cost service next summer that will be based out of Paris Orly and fly to Spain, Italy, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt.

It will be possible to book flights through the Transavia website, which the airline owns with its partner KLM, and one-way tickets will start from €50.

Around the internet

ANOTHER quick trip around the internet pointing out interesting news stories covering street cleaners, how the woman who received a partial face transplant is doing a year on and the benefits of red wine.

Oh, to be a collector of garbage in Paris (NPR)
Report from Paris on the surprisingly coveted job of garbage collector in the City of Light (via Gadling).

Face transplant woman can smile (BBC)
Isabelle Dinoire has told her surgeon she can smile and looks like herself again.

It's a diet- but not as we know it (Telegraph)
Thanks to a new book, red wine and chocolate are set to become the toast of dieters.

Air travel update

TWO quick pieces of air travel news, the first of which is that easyJet will begin three flights a week between Bristol and Bordeaux in June, later increasing to daily.

And Phil Voice writes about how changes to the 'long stay' parking option used by many Brits at Bergerac Airport, will also see the closure of the adjoining small bar.

Slow Food in France

YOU wouldn't have thought that France would need to campaign to ensure quality food is available in its towns and villages.

But I noticed a news article recently highlighting the work of the French branch of the Slow Food movement, and the group has a video of the piece on its website.

France through expat eyes

ALWAYS keen to point out some interesting reads, I thought I would send you over to a handful of sites from our friends across the Atlantic.

The world of blogging is a little more advanced in the US and Canada than elsewhere and this is reflected in the number of sites being run by expats from the two countries.

Birmingham link to Marseille

LOW cost airline bmibaby is to operate four flights a week between Birmingham and the new mp2 terminal at Marseille Provence airport.

The new service begins on May 25 with one-way tickets starting from £19.99, inclusive of taxes and charges.

Related article:
Marseille opens low cost terminal