I sent you a very intelligent and pertinent letter which explained in detail why everyone here should be instructed to vote Conservative in the next general election. You didn’t print it and I want to be told why.

J.K. Mayes, Monaco

It was the hysterical media coverage of the funeral of the Pope Jean Paul ll three years ago that stimulated my interest. The whole thing made me feel alienated, more and more at odds with the millions of people who could obviously see something important in the Papal system. 
...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

I am no admirer of Riviera Radio's Elizabeth Lewis' presentation style or idea of humour, but her comments on Wednesday morning, 28th November, plumbed new depths of bad taste and poor judgement.

I refer to a piece about twins being born from different fathers. This type of...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

Thank you for your note on Sunny Bank in your last issue. I would like to spell out that our goal is to ensure that, in the spirit of Sunny Bank over more than a century, no people in need are excluded for lack of means from a secure retirement in an Anglo-friendly environment. So “Sunny Bank...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

MONACO OPTS IN
I note from your last issue that Monaco remains on the OECD list as an “uncooperative” tax haven. I’m not clear what the official reaction is to this, given Prince Albert’s commitment to reform in this area. Name and address provided, Monaco

In your last...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

I have read in your magazine that some EU citizens are having problems obtaining resident cards. My experience at the prefecture is that they refuse to issue them to EU citizens as we are meant to have an automatic right to reside here and don’t need a card. On the other hand, I am sometimes...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

I notice that in your list of consulates you ascribe the US consular agency in Nice and consulate in Paris to “America”. This will irritate those of us from the continent named after Mr Vespucci who do not believe words like “America” and “American” are to be used exclusively of US citizens....
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

"Warm beer and boules": That was a recent headline in the UK Independent. It summarised in four words the possible cultural mix that would have emerged if, a half century ago, Britain and France had merged or if France had joined the Commonwealth. Too crazy to think about? Well,...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

A while back I wrote under that title a brief item pointing out why I wouldn’t want to join the 250,000 Brits who’ve opted for year-round residence in the South of Spain. Now I’ve noticed in the newsletter of the British Association in Cannes an account – again headed by those three words – by...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

1) Anyone who has lived here long enough knows that communication in the public sector is a luxury. Once more I was 'had' by lack of information.

Waiting for a sum of money which was likely to take more than a month to arrive, my girlfriend in England offered to help with a small...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

For some time now it’s been evident that there’s a migratory movement in the other direction with French citizens opting to live and work in the UK. This has produced what demographers call a lop-aged situation, well described by Jean-Pierre Raffarin when he remarked to Tony Blair that “we send...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

Many years ago, and after the final departure from the scene of Jacque Médecin, we remarked in these columns that, “Nice’s gravy train has slowed down and some passengers have been forced to get off but sooner of later others will climb aboard and it will pick up speed again.”
This...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

Reader George Renfrew looks at whether the British example is one President Sarkozy should follow and why the French should be careful of what they wish for.

I am struck by the number of Britons who want to leave Britain. Ten per cent have already done so and the flow...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

I attended the Nice Jazz Festival this summer and was appalled at the state of the public loos there. Unclean, poorly signposted and too few. What a disgraceful example to visitors. There were no extra portable ones to handle the big crowds and of course there was the usual old person collecting...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

In response to your article of some time back on alcoholism which I’ve just caught up with. “We live among a drinking people” you say – dead right and it’s very easy to get sucked in.

I only intended to stay in France ten days but one Stella led to another and I ran out of money. In...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

Since January I’ve learnt of dozens of marginal driving offences that cause doubt as to the true motives of the police purge for better road safety.

I was detained for almost 40 minutes by the Gendarme National (Grasse) roadside check in Mouans Sartoux at midnight at the...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

There is a paranoid impression in most expat communities that local opinion and practices are somehow skewed against “us”. But after almost four decades of observation I find that, on the whole, “the locals” tend to treat us better than they do their own brethren. Nevertheless I’ve had a...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

According to the London correspondent of the New York Times, Kate Middleton’s mum upset the Queen – I don’t believe this, actually – by asking for “the toilet”... instead of “the bathroom”. That just shows you, by the way, how hard it is for a foreigner to get a grip on British English. If that...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment

Sorry Joan but what you’re saying is just plain silly

Last summer actress Joan Collins allowed herself this outburst in the UK Spectator: “We’ve had, by law, to install four hideously ugly alarm posts on each corner of our gorgeous infinity pool in the South of...
Read Discussions... Add a Comment