Bonjour/hi!
Oohh, what a time to be a person involved in a transatlantic lifestyle! Before sharing the news from France, a poll — if you will, I’ll share the results next week.
1. Putting aside the bulk of the political and economic news, the US dollar is currently in crisis for vArioUs r3as*ons, which means traveling overseas has become about 10% more expensive than it was six weeks ago (to say nothing of a year ago, RIP my rent). Here, I’m tracking how a French vacation basket of goods (from a one-week stay in the Marais to an Uber to the airport) are changing price, simply based on a euro-to-dollar conversion. On January 1, it would have cost us about $2575. Now, it’ll cost us….
(I note I have literally never spent that much personally on a week’s vacation — hostels! buses! walking! grocery stores instead of restaurants! That is how I travel!)
2. France and Madagascar are arguing over sovereignty of the beguilingly named Scattered Islands (Îles Éparses).
3. Camille Razat is commenting (in a very PR way) about her exit from Emily in Paris.
4. The FT has ideas for anyone who wants to be a digital nomad in Paris. As a former digital nomad, I would actually say Paris is one of the harder places to do it, as the government bureaucracy is firmly francophone (as it obviously should be) and France just doesn’t need the hassle, while other destinations will compete for their patronage — meaning more accommodations, relaxed viass, etc. But there are some good ideas in the article for where to set up a laptop for a couple hours without irritating literally everyone.
5. Will the de minimis loophole come for French retailers as well? An examination (factchecked by my finance bro bff).
6. Speaking of: Some, like Sézane, have pledged not to pass along higher costs, but we’ll see if their prices go up nonetheless. By the way, their new summer collection is up? Buy now, avoid those higher prices later? IDK?
7. An interesting look inside the process to obtain French citizenship, and why it’s increasingly regarded as “a favor not a right.”
8. The Independent is sharing Paris’s most beautiful sights — no real surprises here except for #5, rue Crémieux is so un-Parisian that I always think it’s weird when it’s singled out.
9. I’ve somehow never seen this, though it’s an iconic element of my favorite park in Paris: the Dodo Ménage, a carousel featuring extinct animals like “a woolly mammoth, a saber-toothed tiger, a horned turtle and, of course, the famous dodo, the bird emblematic of extinction.”