WHEN a group of friends from Brighton decided to leave the rat race behind they found themselves a place in the foothills of the Cévennes mountains.
And that place has become The Dharma House, a centre for people to study ecology, undertake meditation and learn how to lead a more sustainable life.
LET’S see how good your knowledge of France really is with the latest quiz covering both events from the present day to those from the past?
Here are ten questions posed by author Andrew Whittaker, who compiled the book Speak the Culture: France, so see how much you really know.
The list of questions are below, alongside a .pdf that you can print off and take away with you, which you could hand out at a get-together or similar event.
A SERIES of maps have been released by the civil aviation authorities charting the noise levels of aircraft around the major airports of France.
The maps from the Direction Générale de l’Aviation Civile outline current levels, but also cast an eye forward to the future and estimate the areas around airports that may be affected by increased flights.
The airports concerned are Bâle-Mulhouse, Bordeaux Mérignac, Lyon Saint Exupéry, Marseille Provence, Nice Côte d’Azur, Paris – Charles de Gaulle, Paris – Orly and Toulouse Blagnac.
OUR ancestors ate, drank, made merry – yet lived almost as long as we do, writes Verite Reily Collins.
Every year some went abroad to ‘take the cure’, and Edward VII was a frequent spa visitor, accompanied by Caesar, his dog. The Duke of Westminster would take his Duchess, install her at Brides-les-Bains, then rush across France to join Coco Chanel in her spa holiday at Biarritz.
French cancer survival rates are far higher than ours, so when my cancer specialist’s only suggestion to treat nasty side effects from treatment was, “do you want to come off the drug”, I decided to follow celebrities like Kylie Minogue.
Tapping into French after-care I was helped to stay on the drugs, and will hopefully live a lot longer, although sadly, in Britain, over 50 per cent come off these life-prolonging treatments because the NHS does nothing to help.
THE past few months has seen a number of airlines and travel firms close down, often leaving holiday makers stranded far from home.
And with the growing appeal of booking separate parts of a holiday to France to cut costs, difficulties can arise if one part of your trip goes astray as the knock-on effects on the other sections of your holiday can see you out of pocket.
Some simple tips offered by Consumer Direct, which is part of the Office of Fair Trading, may help you decide on the best travel plans as well as holiday choices so that you are not still paying for your trip long after you have returned.
THE inequality that the French inheritance tax system has towards same-sex couples from outside France could see many people face bills totalling 60 per cent of the value of their assets.
At present the French system does not recognise couples who have registered under civil partnership arrangements in their own countries, so on the death of one the surviving partner is treated as an individual and will be charged inheritance tax.
Campaigns have been started in both the French parliament and Europe to change the current set up, but surviving partners have already faced tax demands at a time when they are still grieving.
HOW many times have you gone completely blank when searching for a word in French?
There are many words that can trip up someone learning French as they look or sound like English words and there is also the temptation; if in doubt say it with a French accent.
I have friends who have committed howlers when it comes to getting things wrong and I will admit I too have made errors, so I now keep a little book featuring some of the words that are known as ‘faux amis’.
ALTHOUGH many children when moving to France with their families take well to the language and new surroundings, the same questions still arise about growing up.
There is a telephone service that offers young people health advice and support, anonymously as well as online, through the Fil Santé Jeunes website.
The telephone service recently changed its number to 32 24, it is free from home lines as well as telephone boxes, and is available seven days a week from 8am until midnight.
Related article: A helping hand for teenage expats
THE period of ‘education’ on new rules covering the need to carry a warning triangle and high visibility jacket in your car comes to an end on October 1.
From that date the gendarmerie will begin to enforce the regulations, failure to have a triangle or jacket in your car will mean a fine of €90 for each offence, and the equipment has to meet EU standards.
Also on the same date rules requiring cyclists to wear high-visibility jackets will be enforced, requiring jackets to be worn when outside towns, at night or when visibility is poor during the day.
I’VE got Irene Nemirovsky’s Suite Francaise, which tells of her experiences in France under German occupation during the 1940s, next on my reading list.
But Irene Nemirovsky’s story didn’t come to light until 60 years later when her daughter published the manuscript that was found in a suitcase, and it is these papers that form the centrepiece of an exhibition in New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage.