La Belle Vie is our regular look at the real culture of France – from language to cuisine, manners to films. This newsletter is published weekly and you can receive it directly to your inbox, by going to your newsletter preferences in “My account”.

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games are upon us, and the opening ceremony is promising to be a historic event, the first to be held outside a stadium. 

As Olympics fever mounts, the little red Olympics mascots are everywhere – on signs, posters, the official apps and in person at Games venues. They might look like hats, but in reality, they are meant to represent ‘phryges’ – the traditional headgear of a French revolutionary known in French, known in English as a Phrygian cap.

Why France chose red hats as the Paris Olympics mascots (and are they really hats?)

France is a big fan of its own history, so I was not surprised when they picked a historical symbol to be the Olympic mascot. 

President Emmanuel Macron also recently inaugurated a new museum, one that celebrates the history of the president’s residence, the Elysée palace.

You’ll be able to learn about the current and former occupants, check out some of the original furniture that decorated the Elysée, as well as tableware from state dinners and diplomatic gifts received by French presidents over the years.

Paris opens new museum of French presidents

While Paris is bound to be crowded this summer, there are plenty of parts of France to escape to that are rather empty. 

You could, for example, take a trip to the Lozère département in southern France, which has a population density of just 15 people per square kilometre. Though, if you were hoping to be alone, be aware that you might run into some cows and sheep.

REVEALED: Where are the most remote parts of France?

There are some towns in France that are entirely vacant, like the village of Oradour-sur-Glane near Limoges, which has been left intentionally empty as a memorial to the massacre there during World War II. 

There are also six towns near north-east France which were all destroyed during the devastating World War I Meuse-Argonne Offensive, and were never rebuilt due to the significant number of corpses and munitions still present in the ground.

Did you know? There are six towns in France that have mayors, but no residents

When visiting a (populated) French town, there are some steps to be polite. As many are aware, greetings are crucial to French politesse.

But there are some greetings and farewells that you may have learned in French class, but they do not really work in day-to-day conversation. If you walk out of a café and say adieu to your French friends, they might be a little surprised, thinking that you are announcing your permanent departure from France.

The French greetings and farewells that foreigners commonly get wrong

There are some other sayings that are better left in the classroom. One example would be ordering food – you may have learned to say something like je voudrais une baguette/une glace/ un billet simple s’il vous plaît (I would like a baguette/ an ice cream/ a single ticket please).

But while teaching a few basic tourist phrases is a good place to start, in reality je voudrais (the conditional tense of the verb vouloir – to want) is rarely used by French people in the boulangerie, café or train station as it’s very formal.

6 things I wish my French teachers had told me