Congratulations to Stephen Saunders B.E.M. who completed the London to Brighton Bike ride today. Was it memory of General de Gaulle’s broadcast on June 18th 1940 or a celebration of today’s second round of the French General Election? Either way, good to see a French flag fluttering in Brighton. Thank you Stephen.
This is Alexandre Holroyd, potentially the new M.P. (député) who will represent French nationals living in Brighton and Hove – as well as those across a vast swathe of north-west Europe. Continue reading
Last month (May 2017), this stencilled message (The National Front shall never pass in Brighton) adorned the pavement around the Mercure Hotel on Brighton seafront. The hotel had just been used as the polling station for the French presidential election. Next Sunday (4 June) will see the same hotel used for the parliamentary elections for French nationals in Brighton and Hove. Continue reading
French voters living in the United Kingdom came down firmly in favour of Emmanuel Macron as their next President. The French community in Brighton and Hove did not buck the trend.
No official separate figures exist for the Brighton bureau de vote (polling station) held in the Mercure Hotel on Brighton seafront on 7 May 2017. However, the Honorary Consul for Sussex, le commandant François Jean, is reassuring that the Brighton figures reflect those of the UK as a whole. Continue reading
On the 4th June (premier tour) and the 18th June (deuxième tour), French voters in the Brighton area will converge on the Mercure Hotel to vote, not for their president, but for their M.P. (député).
In France, a constituency (circonscription) is formed of an area with about 125,000 registered electors. French nationals who live overseas, do not have quite such a fair crack of the whip … but at least, since 2012, they can now vote for an M.P. of their own. Continue reading
(c) Suzanne Hinton
It is well known that all that glisters is not gold. In Brighton, it is also common knowledge that all that is seems to be French is not French. Here’s a case in point.
From 1926 until about 1956, 26 Western Road in Hove was ‘Maison Francis’. Francis was Thomas Francis, hairdresser and ‘cosmetologist’ (according to Kelly’s Directory in 1931). By 1956, perhaps things French had become less fashionable and ‘Maison Francis” was replaced by hairdresser “Lawrence of Mayfair. Fortunately, the beautiful threshold mosaic still survives in 2017.
Consul François Jean (left) and John Loveridge.
(c) Cercle Français de Brighton et Hove
Sunday 23 April 2017 will be an important days for French nationals in Brighton. Under the aegis of the French Honorary Consul, Captain François Jean, they will be going to vote in the first round (premier tour) of the French presidential elections. Their ballot boxes (urnes) will be at the Mercure Hotel in Brighton. Continue reading
Source The British Newspaper Archive
Morning Chronicle 29 October 1817 (and widely syndicated in other newspapers).
Prince Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord stayed at 9 Old Stein in 1831. True. But for how long? Was this information any more than a piece of nineteenth century PR by a lodging-house keeper? Continue reading
A wonderful pun for a wonderful small shop, alas now no longer in existence. Ray Ager, co-owner, recounts the genesis of the shop Continue reading
