There are two big markets a week in Nantes, and they are both very busy. French do love food after all.
Fruits and vegetables are not always cheaper than at the supermarket but people have their “petites habitudes” (customs) and they enjoy shopping at the same stalls weeks after weeks. They joke, taste the fruits, complain about the price and happily bag a few pounds of this and that. So-and-so has the best meat, so-and-so has the freshest bread etc.

We all have pick-up lines — mine was that I grew up nearby a castle. You know, so that North Americans could fantasize about my “oh-so-French” background. Nah, just kidding. It’s just that Nantes happens to have a castle in the center and since the city is fairly compact, well, downtown is very residential so about 50,000 of us “grew up by a castle”.

Contrary to popular belief, French generally don’t just demonstrate for the sake of it. However, if protests have a main focus point, they also embrace a few broader issues or concerns. Case in point, this demonstration was initiated by civil servants’ unions because the government is trying to push for a pension reform to raise the retirement age to 62.

In case you didn’t know it, France is out. Dehors, rien à voir. The country which won the World Cup in 1998 was eliminated very early in this year’s World Cup.
French don’t seem surprised nor particularly angry but rather generally accepting. It doesn’t mean they aren’t complaining though. The loss of the French team, “les bleus” is seen as another symptom of how bad France is doing these days, both politically and economically.

“Justice palace”, this is how French call courthouses. The junior high/ high school I attended for 6 years from age 12 to 18 was located in the center of Nantes, stuck between the main courthouse, the police station and the jail where suspects were held by the police before their trial. The Banque de France was in a nearby street and the back of the building was facing our schoolyard.