Local environment

Shopping local: France's AMAP farm basket scheme explained

Each month, we take a selection of reader questions and answer them. One of July's questions is about France's AMAP scheme and whether it is good value.

Entrepreneur steps up to save his village’s shops in France

Claude Bellessort is being hailed as a Father Christmas figure after saving his village cafe, boulangerie and hairdressing salon from closure in Centre-Val de Loire

Green is buzzword for France’s local elections

Green issues have taken centre stage in this month’s local elections in France – including for the mayor of Paris.

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Group calls for “1,000 village cafés” to revive France

A social and environmental enterprise is calling on 32,000 communes across France to create or re-open 1,000 rural “village cafés”, in a bid to revive the sense of community in small towns.

Provençal town signs saved after locals fight back

What's in a name? Enough to spark a war of words between mayors and a departmental council over whether they can continue using old Provençal names on road signs.

Secret history of French villages - May 2019

The carpenter’s tales that laid open village’s secrets - or what a 19th-century artisan’s diaries, hidden under the floor of a Hautes-Alpes château, said about rural life