France is teeming with affordable respite options from incredibly glamorous to back-to-nature bliss. There are plenty of jewel-box thalassothérapie centres dotted along France’s rugged coastlines, and Paris’ unique wellbeing scene – with its traditional beauty and massage parlours, hammams and more recent urban spa retreats – offers something for everyone and for all pockets.

As many students returned to the crowded amphitheatres, a number of die-hard protestors still piled up chairs and tables and padlocked themselves inside the faculties.

Every day, heated meetings discussed the pros and cons of Valérie Pécresse’s reform against the need to get on with the academic year. For many, the second consideration outweighed the first because striking for more than five weeks a year invalidates that year of study. The main student gripes against the reform are:
• The five million euros allocated to subsidised student accomodation amounts in theory to 40 centimes extra per head.
•Handing over the control of its own finances to each university, with reliance on funding from private enterprise, will it is feared lead to ‘two-speed’ universities, favouring the science subjects to the detriment of social sciences and the arts.
It will also leave the direction of research too vulnerable to market forces and vested interests. The academic principle will be at risk.
• Cutting student representation in decision-making processes by half or more, with far greater powers devolving to the rector himself, will exclude them from their say in who is hired and fired, at every level, from professors to maintenance staff.