If you were hoping to fly into or out of Carcassonne last weekend, you were out of luck. The airport was closed to all commercial traffic yet the city was still expecting up to 50,000 people or about 2 month’s worth of passenger traffic in just two days. Why the crowds? It was the 5th annual “Meeting Aérien Des Etoiles et Des Ailes” that we would just call the Air Show that in previous years had been held in Toulouse, an hour west of here. Given that we live about 40 minutes by foot from the airport or perhaps 40 seconds in a plane that’s landing, we even had part of the show overhead.

Earlier this year, the French newspapers that we read regularly were filled with articles about the long-debated immigration bill. Comments from the extreme-right included, “We can rejoice…progress…victory…national priority” while others said, “a shift in (this country’s) fundamental values” and, “the most regressive bill of the past 40 years for the rights and living conditions of foreigners.” These were all in reference to the bill’s points about migration quotas, benefit limits, family reunification, medical care and amnesty for undocumented workers, among others. While those points didn’t directly affect us, one provision of the bill could, or at least it could for some of the readers of this blog: language level requirements for residence cards and citizenship.