Day 1,824: backwater, lycée, grimy

Once in danger of becoming a backwater with some good museums but dated cuisine and a lot of graffiti, Paris is now a hub for tech companies and a banking centre that is starting to rival London as it draws talent and capital across the channel. Fusion food, bike lanes, international lycées, startup spaces, pop-up fashion: Paris is cool again. And not just Paris. Urban renewal, driven by a good mix of public investment and private enterprise, is sprouting in Lyon, Dijon, even once-grimy Lille.

Macron has done well by France. But he risks throwing it all away

Artwork of the day 
Spassky backwater on the Volga
Aleksey Savrasov
Original Title: Спасский затон на Волге
Date: 1893
Style: Realism
Genre: landscape

Word of the day 
backwater: a part of a river where the water does not flow:
lycée: a French school for older children, either in France or for French children living in other countries
grimy: dirty:

Quote of the day
“Giordino...simply sighed in resignation. "Who else," he asked no one in particular, "but Dirk Pitt could tramp off into a blizzard on an uninhabited backwater island in the Antarctic and discover a beautiful girl?”

― Clive Cussler, Shock Wave