The BBC's Caroline Wyatt:

This one small town (Donzy) still had a butchers, three bakers, two doctors' surgeries, several hairdressers and two beauty salons. Yet unemployment was the same as most similar French towns, hovering around 10%, far higher for the young.

And all here wondered if there was some magic middle way that France can find to keep its way of life, and the things that matter here: family, friends, good food and enough time to enjoy them all ... to keep them and yet put France back to work without turning into Britain or the US (a prospect quoted at me in horror by many on my recent travels).

Human side

Before I moved here I had assumed that the French were rather like the British, although with nicer wine and food, more mobile faces and a better class of shrug.

But I have come to realise just how Mediterranean France really is, far more like Catholic Spain or laid-back Italy than its work-obsessed northern neighbours, where time is money and time is to be raced against rather than savoured slowly.

From the BBC:

The Italian Academy of Cooking has launched a scathing attack on the standard of Italian restaurants abroad.

It says two-thirds of the restaurants they reviewed mistook the ingredients or the preparations.

Boris Yeltsin, the former president of Russia who died earlier this week, leaves a decidedly mixed bag behind for his legacy.