-
How to protect France’s endangered plant varieties
More than 400 plants are protected in France – but more must be done to educate the public about them
-
Tax questions, boiler grants, May changes: 5 French practical updates
Our round-up of practical articles you may have missed
-
Fee to visit Mont-Saint-Michel rejected for other ways to ease crowds
‘People forget that it’s a commune; it’s a village. We can’t just introduce limits and stop citizens from coming and going,’ says the director
Website helps you rent out your pool
Swimmy has 16,000 subscribers and allows private owners to rent their pools
An online service that allows homeowners rent out their swimming pools for a few hours has picked up some 16,000 subscribers in France.
Swimmy - www.swimmy.fr - has been described as the Airbnb of pools. It allows subscribers to rent the pools of private homeowners for several hours at a time.
One user from Paris told news website Franceinfo that she wanted to celebrate her birthday with friends in a private pool and found one quickly via the site after entering 'pool for rent' into a search engine.
The couple from whom she hired the pool have been renting it out regularly for a year - for a rate of €27 per person per half-day - other owners rent their pools at different rates. They said that groups have sometimes been noisy, but there has been no trouble - and the money they have earned allowed them to buy a new heat pump for the pool.
The biggest problem, they said, was not being able to use their pool as often as they would have liked during the summer heatwave because it was in use.
Stay informed:
Sign up to our free weekly e-newsletter
Subscribe to access all our online articles and receive our printed monthly newspaper The Connexion at your home. News analysis, features and practical help for English-speakers in France