As winter sets in here in Europe, there are lots of reports of spikes in Covid case numbers and deaths, and it is a reminder that even as vaccination rates increase, the disease will be with us for a long time.

There have been notable upticks in Greece, Russia, the UK and the Netherlands, and in France, they recorded a day of 10,050 new cases in early November, which is almost double what it has been averaging since we arrived.

The figures for our region (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur) are stable, fortunately, and I’m sure that is at least partly explained by the warmer weather in these parts. Although it is quite a bit cooler than when we arrived, and we have had a week on persistent rain, we are still talking daily temperatures in the high teens/low twenties, and the nights rarely drop below about 14C.

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The biggest Covid-related news in France at the moment is the decision by the government to extend the requirement for the use of the pass sanitaire until July 31, 2022. This means that the state of emergency (health) is also extended, as the pass saintaire can only be enforced if the state of emergency is in place. (I talked about this in an earlier post, but the matter was confirmed last week.)

Macron has also announced that those over sixty-five will need to have a third booster shot for the pass sanitaire to remain valid:

He also announced that the possibility of being injected with this booster dose will be extended to people over 50 from next month, and urged French people who have not yet been vaccinated to do so "in the face of the resurgence of epidemic ”.

This doesn’t seem to have sparked any extra protests in these parts, though our local square, Place Garibaldi, which hosts lots of such activity, has had its fair share of gatherings devoted to the COP26 meeting in Glasgow.

Speaking of which, the contretemps between Macron and Morrison has made the news here, but has been handled in a fairly straightforward way, without the histrionics typical of the Murdoch coverage back home. This piece from Le Monde is typical, though they were happy to use Malcolm Turnbull’s comments as a way of framing criticisms of the Australian PM.

Nonetheless, as these articles indicate, the matter is getting a reasonable amount of attention, and Australia is very much presented as being in the wrong.

To finish off, some photos. We took advantage of some glorious weather and climbed the western headland here in Nice (actually, there is an elevator, believe it or not), and spent hours wandering around up there. It’s like Narnia or something, a whole other world of walking tracks, playgrounds, cafes, Roman ruins, reminders of ancient Greek visitors, areas bombed by Germany during the war, and of course, views out over the beach, the port, and the city itself.

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The beach, La Promenade des Anglais, and the airport out there at the end of the curve

Steps decorated with images from the Odyssey.

Surprisingly hard to buy white wine here. Rosé is much more popular.

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Just when you thought it was safe