French and Riviera News Tuesday 30th August 2022

Local News

Workman electrocuted in Pierrefeu - An employee working on the electricity network Enedis has been electrocuted during an intervention in Pierrefeu in the Var. The accident occurred on Monday afternoon when the man came into contact with a partly bare cable, which had fallen to the ground. An investigation has been opened.

Pedestrian seriously injured - A pedestrian has been seriously injured after being hit by a vehicle in Les Arcs. The incident occurred on Monday evening shortly after 9pm. The motorist fled the scene, and the victim was airlifted to hospital. An investigation is underway to determine the exact circumstances of the accident.

Gas leak in Nice - Emergency services have intervened following a gas leak in Nice on Monday. More than 1,200 customers found themselves cut off on the Rue Pégurier following the incident. A security perimeter was set up while agents intervened.

Nautical Stadium of Antibes making waves - While 93 departments, including the Alpes-Maritimes, are on a drought alert, including 62 in a state of crisis, it’s been reported that the nautical stadium in Antibes last week emptied and filled its pools. The city of Antibes renews the water each year and last week, the oldest 25-meter indoor pool was emptied and filled. The city council have said that the “pools were emptied for sanitary reasons” and that “recycling the water, for the time being, is not possible” however, many regulars think that the emptying “could have waited for example, until the Christmas holidays”.

Detection of undeclared swimming pools - Tax authorities have confirmed that the use of aerial images to detect undeclared swimming pools, will be expanded to all of France from next year. Since the system was trialled in nine departments, including the Alpes-Maritimes and the Var, over 20,000 pools have been detected, raising an additional 10 million euro in taxes. According to the government the proportion of more or less voluntary omissions in the declaration of swimming pools is not at all uniform. It is much higher in the departments of the Ardèche and Morbihan than on the Côte d'Azur: with 1 in 8 swimming pools not declared in Ardèche properties compared to only 1 in 40 in the Alpes-Maritimes.

Protest in Marseille of contract workers for schools - About fifty people have gathered in front of the education board in Marseille in protest against the recruitment of contract workers while trained teachers remain unassigned. Three days before the start of the school year, there is great concern from both teachers and union representatives. Nearly 56 trainee teachers in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, holders of a master's degree and having passed the competition for school teachers find themselves without a position. In France, the National Education is struggling to recruit candidates and has done so via Pôle Emploi (employment agency) to contract workers by job dating. These new recruits spent 30 minutes in a job interview and complete four days of training before finding themselves facing a class of around thirty students. This year 3,000 contract workers have been recruited. Nationally, contract teachers have gone from 43,000 for the 2010-2011 school year to 63,000 for the 2019-2020 school year.

Over 30 million visitors to the PACA region - Over 30 million people visited the Provence-Alpes Cote d’Azur during July and August according to tourist figures released. The numbers exceed pre-Covid figures from 2019 which was already a record year for the region. The surge has resulted in 20 billion euro in tourist spending for the area. 40% of visitors came from France, followed by holiday-makers from the UK and in third place visitors from the United States.

National News

Defence Council meeting devoted to the supply of gas and electricity - French President Emmanuel Macron is to hold a Defence Council this Friday morning. It will be devoted to the supply of gas and electricity, in view of the increase in energy prices and in anticipation of this winter. Initially reserved, as its name suggests, for defence subjects, the Head of State had held this type of meeting a lot at the time of the Covid crisis. He had also chaired it on the ecological issue. But this is the first time that this Council has dealt specifically with the theme of energy. At European Union level, an emergency meeting on the issue will be held between the energy ministers of the different member states on September 9th.

Prime Minister calls on companies to establish “sobriety plan” - Meanwhile faced with the risks of power cuts or rationing this winter, French Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, has c