French word of the day: Hiver
Published: 13 February 2026
Mid-February, and you know what that means: no, not Valentine’s day but rather Chandeleur (Candelmas)! Yes, this may not be the most well-known of religious events, but in France this is the great excuse we come up with every year to serve some crêpes and cider.
North Americans have the groundhog, the French have crêpes. (I know which one I prefer.)
The days are finally getting longer here in la région Parisienne, which is fantastic because pitch-darkness at 6pm is not my favorite thing in the world.
I don’t mind the mornings so much, (in the deep of December it remains darkish till about 8:15am). But in the evenings with kids still doing their extracurriculars, it just feels unnatural. Where are we all globally on eliminating Daylight savings, anyone?
P.S. there is no French version of the expression “spring forward, fall back”, we just pedantically call it “changement d’heure”.
All these early sunsets also lead to an additional driving quirk that I like to call “the standoff”.
If you live in a smaller town or village in France like I do, most of the residential streets have two laneways. But with the peculiarity that cars are allowed to park in certain spots in the middle of the road.
This effectively turns the 2-way into a 1way, where only one direction can pass through. Time for a “headlight staring standoff”.
The idea here is to use the parked cars to force drivers to slow down as they can’t simply accelerate the motor on residential streets.
In theory, genius. No need for street bumps. In practical terms though, a somewhat stressful situation. Two sets of headlights facing each other in the same lane, wondering who is going to back down and reverse and/or find some empty space to move to so the other car can advance.
You can see the potential for conflict here. I’ve never seen this in North America, but maybe you can tell me if I just haven’t gotten out as much?
And if you are doing it at nighttime rush hour, the blinding headlights mean that the two drivers can’t make eye contact and so are even less inclined to be friendly.
Not to mention this all falls apart if more homes and apartment buildings are built along that road. (In case you are wondering, the Official commission for the French language says that the NIMBY should be translated to NAPI for “non au projet ici” and NINA for “ni ici, ni ailleurs“.)
It is a good thing the Olympics are on for the next couple of weeks, no need to venture out and do the “headlight stare” too often. Allez les sportifs!
In the news:
- France TV says the French is be aiming for an “ambitious total of 21 medals”, so good luck to them.
- I haven’t really followed ice skating in years, but I fell down the rabbit hole of the French ice dance couple at the Olympics. There is apparently a Netflix show too?
- After the drama in Italy, the organizing committee of the next Winter Olympics in 2030 in France is also a soap opera. Yet another executive is leaving, which I think that makes 4 departures in total. Or is it 5? Probably need a scoreboard here too…
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