A Portuguese-run stall on Champigny market last year

I miss the markets. On a normal Saturday I would either be taking the bus down the road to Joinville-le-Pont or trailing my wheely-basket over the bridge to […]

The Cour St Jean, Champigny-sur-Marne

Philippe had the virus. He was exposed to it because he does an indispensable job, even if that job is poorly paid and commands little respect.

Philippe is a dustman, […]

France’s lockdown is to be extended, to nobody’s surprise.

The president is to tell us how long we must remain in our homes on Monday when he will make his third televised address since the start of the cri […]

Over 10,000 people have now died due to the Covid-19 epidemic in France. But the rate of admissions to hospital and to intensive care is down.

The death toll is grim but the admissions figures are the ones to […]

Our neighbour Marianne was cutting forsythia at her end of the courtyard when I put my head outside the door yesterday. She said it was to prevent it blocking another neighbour’s windows. I begged her not to t […]

The curve is beginning to flatten in France, it seems. That is to say that the rise in numbers of Covid-19 cases admitted to hospital is beginning to go down, as is the rise in the number in intensive […]

France’s poorest département, Seine Saint Denis, has seen a leap in the number of deaths from Covid-19 – up 63% between 21-27 March.

It is not the worst hit, that’s the eastern département of Haut Rhin, b […]

Paris’s top cop has told us that if we catch Covid-19 it’s all our own fault for not listening to the wise counsels of the government.

In a video filmed on Friday, Paris Préfet de Police Didier Lallement, a ma […]

Spring is here – but we can’t go walking in the woods Photo: Tony Cross

The US government has denied reports that its representatives bought millions of face masks as they were about to be flown to France, […]

Here’s what happens if you report severe coronavirus symptoms – high temperature, headache, breathing difficulties and extreme weakness – and you call health services in Paris now.

Ian Noble received a tex […]

So it turns out that migrants have their uses! Faced with a shortage of labour in the market gardens of Seine et Marne, which provide much of Paris’s fruit and veg, the authorities have appealed to refugees to g […]

If you live with an elderly person, coughing and spluttering or other unusual sounds coming from their bedroom are worrying. But so is silence because … well, you know.

No sound from Mum’s room when I wok […]

A blind
woman was begging outside the bakery this morning, right up by the door so that
everyone had to pass close to her as they entered.

As we were waiting, she advanced towards the queue, squawking […]

I know
this feeling, that your dancing on the edge of disaster, that there’s danger
outside, that you’re living through a moment of history, but not a good one.

It’s the feeling we had driving through Kabul […]

The season’s blossoms bring the Season’s hay fever, which is worrying in a time of coronavirus

France’s lockdown has been extended until 15 April. But, let’s face it, it could well be longer than that and wit […]

The police are on France’s streets and they’re moving in packs.

Yesterday evening
I took a stroll to the bottom of the courtyard where I live – it’s private, so
I assume I can do so without a signed declara […]

Our
neighbour, Marianne, is touched by a gesture of her friend Michelle, who has recovered
from the virus. Michelle is making Marianne face masks.

Coffee
filters sewn into tissue are the best way to improvise, […]

What
about the shopworkers? Our neighbour, Marianne, chatted with a checkout
operator at the supermarket yesterday. Despite her mask and gloves, the woman
was in a state of some anxiety. She said she hoped […]

Queueing across Champigny’s Place Lénine on Monday

‘’Have you tasted this tea?’’ my elderly Mum asked when I took her breakfast.

We’re fussy about our tea in this house but lockdown has forced us to chan […]

Dr Jean-Jacques Razafindranazy has died as a result of Covid-19 at the age of 67. He is the first health worker in France to do so.

As the Le Pens
and their admirers would say – in other circumstances – t […]