{"id":603462,"date":"2026-08-24T20:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T20:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/603462\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T20:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T20:42:08","slug":"french-sunday-and-the-italian-month-off-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/603462\/","title":{"rendered":"French Sunday and the Italian month off | France"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I write this, I\u2019m enjoying my French Sunday (Polly Hudson, 23 August<\/a>) with a croissant from the local bakery \u2013 open, of course \u2013 and a coffee. I\u2019ll meet friends for lunch in a local riverside restaurant, then travel a few miles to a wonderful cafe, for even more coffee and their homemade cakes. Relaxing? Of course it is. It\u2019s a much-needed antidote to a French Monday, particularly in rural France, where 80% of businesses, restaurants and public bodies remain closed all day in order to recover from the excesses of a \u201cdo nothing\u201d Sunday.
Roslyn Lockhart
Montmorillon, France<\/p>\n

I enjoyed James Mackay\u2019s article on villeggiatura, the Italian tradition of taking August off, which is shown to help rather than hinder economic output (17\u00a0August<\/a>). As he says, though, the point is \u201creclaiming life from the totalising logic of the market\u201d. For an expansion of this idea, I recommend the work of Amintore Fanfani, Luigino Bruni and Stefano Zamagni, who deserve\u00a0to be better known in Britain. Like Pope Leo, they put human dignity and flourishing at\u00a0the centre\u00a0of\u00a0economics.
Catherine McLoughlin
London<\/p>\n

Many problems have an easy solution that is wrong, but I suspect that including food standards in Ofsted results would fix this one very fast (Most English secondary schools are breaking healthy food rules, finds report, 24 August<\/a>).
Brian Fish
Leeds<\/p>\n

In Elgin in the 1960s, if you were caught snogging in the Two Red Shoes dance hall, a spotlight would be shone on you to kill the moment (Letters, 20 August<\/a>).
Mary McMurran
Lancaster<\/p>\n

Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please email<\/a> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As I write this, I\u2019m enjoying my French Sunday (Polly Hudson, 23 August) with a croissant from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-603462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}