by Anne Swardson | Oct 26, 2020 | covid, France
I bought a bicycle so I could move around Paris without risk from COVID-19. A month in, I’m not sure the safety tradeoff is working in my favor. Paris, it turns out, is no Amsterdam. While Mayor Anne Hidalgo has opened many new bike lanes and so have surrounding... 
by Anne Swardson | Oct 15, 2020 | covid, France
President Emmanuel Macron announced a new set of COVID restrictions last night that took aim at one of the most sacred French traditions: dinner hour. Macron imposed a curfew in Paris and other large cities from 9pm to 6am in an effort to reduce the soaring number of... 
by Anne Swardson | Oct 3, 2020 | covid, France
I just found a spark of joy from an unexpected source: a French civil servant. Not only is my native country a mess, France isn’t filled with joy these days. Cases of COVID-19 are on the rise, about 12,000 a day on average. As a proportion of the population,... 
by Anne Swardson | Sep 19, 2020 | covid, France
How do you say mixed messages in French? On the one hand, the government here, desperately concerned about a record surge in COVID-19 cases, is telling older people to, in the words of the health minister, “protect yourselves even more.” Parisians should “rethink... 
by Anne Swardson | Sep 7, 2020 | France
The autumn return to school and work in France is famously known as “La Rentrée,” when vacations are over and real life resumes. Stores fill with school supplies, bookstores with newly published works and the Assemblée Nationale with politicians finding new ways to... 
by Anne Swardson | Aug 23, 2020 | France
Thomas Jefferson is teaching me about French bureaucracy. In a few days I will attempt to fly back to France from the U.S. When I left, I had every expectation of an easy return, immigration-wise, even during this time of pandemic border restrictions. French citizens,...