Paris:- Saturday, 18. January 1997:- They said it after last summer and they are saying it again: there are more visitors to Paris - but they come less often, stay a shorter time, move around more, and keep their wallets in their pockets and plastic out of sight.

What is particularly annoying it seems, is that visitors are actually haggling about prices too. Per visitor, it appears that they have spent 30 percent less in 1996 than the year before.

This is all sort of sweet and sour for the Parisian visitor industry, because much of the slack - say, lack, of foreign visitors - has been compensated by visitors from - Paris! - and the surrounding Ile-de-France.

One of the first Salons of the year is aimed directly at the consumer for leisure week-ends in the Paris region - and trips to artist's houses and colonies, such as at Auvers-sur-Oise and Barbizon, are big hits. This year, various sorts of multiple-reduction cards to multiple sites are being offered as well.

Check it out: the Salon Week-end et Loisirs - or is it Salon des Vacances en France? - either one, at Paris-Expo down at the Porte de Versailles; from Friday 31. January until Sunday, 2. February.

If not the Ile-de-France, where do the French go? A poll, based on a list of six important criteria, found that the top choice of the French for a vacation area - is La Bretagne - Brittany. It beats out obvious favorites such as the Provence-Alps-Côte d'Azur and Midi-Pyrénées. But polls are odd; people may vote for an ideal and in the end, pay for reality.

Ladies! Free Men Available in France

All week long Le Parisien has been running a series of articles about personal solitude. Apparently, of the 60-odd million inhabitants in France, about 10 million of them do not know anybody else.

According to Tuesday's installment, particularly hard-hit are farmers and other men living outside urban centres. In the critical age group from 30 to 34, three out of ten men are single, and this figure has doubled since 1979.

Young farmers in the age group of 20 to 29 outnumber women by a ratio of 140 to 100. The article also says that conditions in the country may not be wonderful for people who like to go out dancing every other night - farms in the high Alps get snowed in - the nearest village may have no discotheque; but perhaps worst of all - some farmers insist on milking their own cows, and this is necessary 365 days a year.

One consequence of this necessity to stay near the barn results in some single farmers resorting to the services of 'introduction bureaus,' to which they may pay - in advance - as much as a $1000 a year for likely contacts.

As old as France is, as urban as France seems to be; there still is a lot of lonely and remote countryside - and before going out to live in it one should have a clear idea of how quiet and peaceful it can be. Some people are looking for this; but most people are not.

If you are in the former category, check France out - there's plenty of room for you. Some young ladies from eastern Europe are already doing this.

Phoney 'Retire at 55' Debate

Since the trucker's got the government and their employers to agree to setting the driver's retirement age at 55, all sorts of other drivers have been sporadically engaging in labor actions in attempts to gain the same rights.

Some bus riders have been inconvenienced and continue to be so - but for some otherwise unknown reason the French political class has decided that the country requires a 'great' debate on the subject of early retirement - and so they have been doing this to equally great ho-hums of the general public.

In the preceding piece I mentioned the 10 million solitary residents in France, and it seems to me that general retirement at age 55 will only make this particular problem worse.

State pensions for workers, even if they are full, are not great - and the idea that everybody can have a fine time from 55 onwards with one of these pensions for pocket money, either can't count or do not know what a membership fee at a golf club costs these days.

Digital TV Offer Explodes in France

I'm giving a fair shot at myself from techno-freaks with this report - for all I know this 'news' is common as mud everywhere. France's third satellite-digital-TV operator has just started operations; and I was not aware that the two others were already in the air, or is it, 'on the air?'

When 'high-definition' TV, 'D2-MAC-Packets' and 'digital television' fell off the news pages, my interest turned to zero on the subject - so the arrival in France of 'digital' TV has caught me by surprise.

Newcomer TPS joins Canal Satellite and ABSat in the race to provide oodles of new TV channels, withsuch names as 'Fun TV,' 'Télétoon,' 'France Courses' (racing), 'Météo Express' (weather), and 'TV7,' which is supposed to be Tunisian.