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9 French expressions to use when there is hot weather
From 'the sun is like lead' to 'cooking like a pancake', here are some phrases to use as the temperature soars across France
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Meet France's great garden acrobat
With its bright yellow and blue plumage, the Eurasian blue tit is easy to spot in the garden.
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Petit lapin, coup du lapin: 6 commonly used French rabbit expressions
A potential new penalty for missing a doctor’s appointment has also been nicknamed la taxe lapin - we explain why
Natural Interests
Natural Interests, Caroline Ford, £39.95, Harvard University Press ISBN: 978-0- 674-04590-3
LOOKING at recent concerns over the widespread use of neonicotinoid pesticides across much of the French farming industry it seems hard to believe that environmental consciousness here dates back to the early-1800s.
Today it is farming’s effect on the bee population – without which many farms would have little or no produce to sell – but back then it was the damage being done by deforestation that started a new look at how the natural world should be managed, if at all.
In Fontainebleau, the Barbizon school of artists became some of the first environmental saboteurs as they tried to protect the forest from being destroyed by ill-planned pine plantations. People could only attend their dinners if they arrived with recently-uprooted pine saplings: pine to dine.
This interesting and thought- provoking book looks at the start of environmental awareness with innovative legislation to protect the Fontainebleau landscape and its oak trees.