France seems to be shaking off the sacred blues! Three in four people think the country is in decline – but the new trend of celebrating the country with French food and wine festivals is a big hit – even with the British

From sex scandals that reached the president’s office to political violence by increasingly unhappy citizens suffering from the cost of living in the country, it is no wonder that French citizens have become largely disillusioned with the country.

Recent survey data shows that three in four French citizens believe the country is in decline. A group of social media influencers have set out to change this by promoting the country’s once internationally acclaimed cuisine and culture.

With hundreds of thousands of followers on social media platforms, they have sought to combat the growing anti-French malaise plaguing the nation. And for now, the movement appears to be working, both at home and abroad.

Pierre-Alexandre de Boisse, an influencer and businessman who left a lucrative finance job to set up and run Le Canon Français, a company that organizes traditional banquets across France, said his company’s parties are a hit with locals. population and tourists.

‘We have had British, Swiss, Belgian and Spanish guests. It’s about enjoying the best that France has to offer, its art de vivre. Everyone is welcome,” he said The times.

The influencer, whose company has almost 200,000 followers on Instagram, said that despite political criticism from both the left and right, he only wants to promote French cuisine.

‘Some left-wing people don’t like us because we eat too much meat and we are old-fashioned French, but the people who attend our events are usually in their thirties.

‘Some people assume that we are right-wing because we choose French food and wines, and we promote the love of our terroir, our country, but we are not at all interested in getting involved in politics. We do not want to have any ties with any political party.”

Simon Vasseur, another influencer, believes that appreciating architectural heritage is the key to combating social malaise.

He said: ‘People are sometimes completely cut off from their country and its traditions, wondering who they are and where they come from.’

The influencer, who has more than 174,000 followers on Instagram, said he wants to “prove” that French traditions still have a place in modern society.

He believes this works: ‘There is a ‘back to the roots’ dynamic. Parallel to the bling bling culture of mainstream influencers, young people are discovering that Paris is just as cool as Dubai, and Aveyron (in the south of France) is just as cool as Miami.’

France is still the most visited country in the world, with over 80 million tourists in 2022 alone, while it is estimated to have welcomed over 100 million tourists in 2023.

Although France is a large nation, government figures show that 80 percent of annual tourism is concentrated in just 20 percent of the country.

It is therefore not surprising that officials, like its other Mediterranean neighbors, have been looking for ways to limit tourism, make it more sustainable and encourage visitors to discover parts of France that are less known.

In June last year, Tourism Minister Olivia Gregoire unveiled plans to regulate visitor flows at some of France’s most popular attractions.

This includes a tourism observatory to measure flows and identify overloads.

“France is the world’s largest tourist destination, but we have a serious lack of data to help manage crowds,” the government has said in the past.

She said France must better deal with the high-season influx that threatens “the environment, the quality of life of local people and the experiences for its visitors.”

As pandemic restrictions were eased and lifted, many of France’s most famous landmarks, such as the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy, said they were overwhelmed by the sheer number of visitors.

One famous town and nearby beach – Etretat – is home to 1,200 people, but saw a rise of 10,000 daily visits after being featured in the Netflix detective series ‘Lupin’.

“This huge influx is trampling and eroding the cliffs and endangering the beach cliffs,” Shai Mallet, co-chairman of the local residents’ association, told AFP.

Elsewhere limits have already been imposed, with officials limiting daily visits to Brehat Island to 4,700 in the summer months.

And officials at the Calanques national park near Marseille in southern France have introduced a booking system during the Covid-19 pandemic that it plans to maintain for another five years.

The park – accessible by an hour’s walk – now admits just 400 people per day, down from 2,500 in the past.

Like many cities in Europe, the French capital Paris is facing a housing shortage, something many blame on short-term rentals.

It is believed that more than 36 million people will have visited the city in 2023 alone.

One suggestion from officials is to ban key boxes on the outside of buildings to discourage people from listing their homes on Airbnb.

Six French cities – including Nice, Lille and Annecy – already have such rules.

In Nice, a local artist installed giant rat traps – using a giant ice cream cone as bait – ‘to eradicate and eliminate the tourist scourge’. FranceInfo reported at the time: ‘To curb mass tourism, street artist TooLate offers a radical solution.’