As you cannot have failed to have noticed there are 500 days to go to the Paris Olympics.

Surely it’s no coincidence that the Olympic mascot – les phryges – are popping up in shop windows.

The phryges is a symbol of the French revolution and it is worn by the national symbol of France – Marianne.

However some people have asked questions about them, wondering if rather than phryges they look like something else.

Ça ne mange pas de pain – I’m guessing it means that isn’t expensive.

It’s taken me more than a year to realise but I have finally noticed that you can see La Basilica de Fourviere from the Green Cube.

I have always thought one of the nice things about Lyon is that you can almost always see the upside- down elephant from anywhere.

And so, it turns out, you can from Euronews HQ.

The bits of paper that serve as my temporary driving licence have gone missing. It forced me to think about how to get another one – or more importantly – to find out where my application for a French driving licence has got to.

I logged on to one of the many French bureaucratic websites to try and track some information down but failed.

But when I checked the address on record for me I saw it was my old address – at the Old Folks Home.

So after work, I headed round there to see if they still held on to any post for me. But after seven months my hopes were not high.

I was right – it wasn’t there.

So back to the Agence nationale des titres sécurisés website for some answers.

But when I logged in, there was no outstanding application registered there.

There was no other choice but to ring them. They explained that I needed to log in using the same method as when I first logged in. So I got some password reminders and tried that – still nothing.

So another phone call and it transpired that I might have created two accounts. So after some more password reminders for a different email address – bingo! There was a demand for proof of my visa again.

My old visa wasn’t good enough apparently- so I uploaded my new one and it was accepted.

And then I got an email saying I should have my licence within 14 days. I’ll believe that when I see it.

I even managed to print out a new one of these:

Remember this?

Well here’s another example/counting competition.

The announcements of the changes at Euronews are getting more column inches.

This one in Le Monde answered a few questions for me about some French acronyms that I have been hearing and using in the last few weeks and months.

The CSE union meetings I have been going to for many months and many hours. CSE stands for Conseil Social et économique (CSE)

And the social plan that everyone is talking about that means they get some redundancy payout when they leave – a PSE – stands for Plans de sauvegarde de l’emploi (PSE).

Some other useful vocab from my French lesson this week on a similar subject:

• postuler – to apply
• une formation de reconversion – training
• des perts d’emplois – job losses
• s’en faire as in ne t’en fais pas – don’t worry
• Les choses vont se tasser – things will calm down

Il faisait beau aujourd’hui alors Cath et moi avons fait une promenade au centre ville.

Il y avait beaucoup de monde qui prenait le soleil Place des Jacobins.

Il y avait aussi un tour de Lyon en velo.

In 1949, the city of Lyon was awarded the legion d’honneur – an award created by Napoleon Bonaparte.

According to the sign, in World War II, it became one of the main centres of resistance against the Nazis.

It says Lyon paid a heavy price with many people killed and suffered many bombardments and reprisals.

It was awarded by former French president Vincent Auriol.

There are constant reminders in Lyon about its history in the war. Good to see that it was recognised in this way.

Today there was a big announcement at Euronews about the future of the company.

You can read about it here but basically the company is ending its operations in Lyon and moving a lot of staff to Brussels and the language teams to six European capitals.

There are lots of jobs being closed – mine included – although not til March 2024.

Needless to say the last couple of days have been very difficult with a lot to take in and there is still a lot more information to come.

But it is a drastic change to Euronews’ operating model and an end to the company’s 30 years in Lyon.

So the question now is – ThrowntoBrussels? Brussels(Spr)outing? There is a lot to think about.