From France’s love affair with roundabouts to the country’s attempts at a reckoning with its slave-trading past, via the latest presidential candidate announcement and a look at Marseille’s train station, Inside France is our weekly look at the news and talking points from France.
Tackling the big questions
I think this is my favourite Local article this week – Is it true that half of all the world’s roundabouts are in France?
This is one of those France ‘facts’ that gets trotted out every so often – in fact, full disclosure, I might have even mentioned it myself over a beer. But while France does indeed have a lot of roundabouts (so many, in fact, that it’s quite hard to count them all) it no longer has half of the world’s entire supply.
French road builders are very keen on them, though – in fact, one of the reasons that it’s hard to count is that, according to the business daily Les Echos, France builds an average of five new roundabouts per day.
Whatever the traffic management advantages, roundabouts have become a favoured place for protests since it’s guaranteed that every town in France has at least one.
Bring me sunshine
Sticking with things road-related, and you might have also noticed a building programme in car parks, especially large supermarket car parks, which are increasingly being fitted with solar panels.
Environmental legislation stipulates that all car parks of 1,500 square metres must have solar panels added – initially the target was that 50 percent of the space had to be covered in solar panels, but after some predictable lobbying from supermarkets, that has now been watered down so that 50 percent of the space must be shaded, but only 17.5 percent needs to be solar panels.
Having some shade in a car park on a hot day makes life considerably more pleasant for drivers, meanwhile, the solar panels are helping France to forge ahead with its solar programme, which started late and small but has seen extremely rapid growth over the last five years.
READ ALSO: How France is forging ahead with solar power
Talking France
We discuss the solar rollout on this week’s Talking France, as well as French laws on sexism and a look at how the country is attempting a reckoning with its history of slavery and the slave trade – listen here.
If you’re ever in La Rochelle, I really recommend the Musée du Nouveau Monde – it’s housed in the gorgeous former home of a prominent local merchant, and the ground floor has wonderfully preserved period furniture, art and china. The second floor then looks at the source of the wealth that bought all this beautiful stuff – the slave trade.
Meanwhile, the third floor zooms out and looks at France’s colonial adventures in the ‘new world’ and the Caribbean.
I think it strikes the perfect balance between not erasing history – the beautiful house with its historic art and furniture is still there and well preserved – but putting it into context and also acknowledging the suffering of the people behind the amassing of this incredible wealth.
Election latest
Of course it wouldn’t be a week in France without the announcement of another presidential candidate, bringing the total number of people running for president next year to 10,000 (approximately).
READ ALSO: ANALYSIS: Who’s who in France’s 2027 presidential election race
The latest candidate is Anasse Kazib, a former union official and radio host who will be standing for the Trotskyist party Révolution Permanente. That brings the number of Trotskyist candidates back up to a reassuring two, after a moment when it looked like there would only be one option for the roughly one per cent of the French electorate who vote Trotskyist.
Regular presidential candidate – and high school teacher the rest of the time – Nathalie Arthaud had already announced that she is standing for the Lutte Ouvrière (workers’ struggle) party, but Philippe Poutou has decided that three presidential runs is enough, and had instead opened a bookshop in Bordeaux. It’s called Le 400 Coups, and it’s at 36 Rue du Maréchal Joffre if you want to pay it a visit.
This presidential election is unusual in that it seems to have about a zillion candidates representing the left, centre and right, but the somewhat wacky minority candidates are a regular feature of French elections.
Back in 2022, in addition to the two Trotskyists, we had monarchist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan and Jean Lassalle who ran on the ticket of ‘putting a shepherd in the Elysée’.
But if you will allow me a brief spasm of national pride, I don’t think any of them can compare to the UK’s Count Binface, who regularly contests elections with a joke manifesto and always wears a bin on his head. I think we need Le Comte de Tête de Poubelle in 2027…
C’est Marseille, bébé !
And let’s finish with the epic grandeur of the entrance to Marseille’s train station (including the many, many steps which provide quite the workout on a hot day with a heavy bag).
There is really no earthly reason for the terrace at Marseille train station to go this hard.
— Jessica Kiang (@jessicakiang.bsky.social) June 2, 2026 at 1:16 PM
This is purely a guess, but I would not be at all surprised if during the design meeting, they took a look at the Paris train stations and decided to simply go one better – a sort of ‘fuck you, Paris’ through the medium of public transport architecture.
Indeed, Marseille’s enthusiastic disdain for all things Parisian is one of my favourite things about the place.
Inside France is editor Emma Pearson’s weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.
