Never on a Sunday or, in France, any other day either

Nicolas Sarkozy's latest grand plan for his rebellious subjects is to encourage them to work on Sundays. It is hard to get the French to work any day of the week, never mind at the weekend.

The French president Nicolas Sarkozy's latest grand plan for his rebellious subjects is to encourage them to work on Sundays. This will require a Herculean effort from the little man, because it is hard to get the French to work any day of the week, never mind at the weekend. Not that there is any need to work in a country where the state looks after you so well. The problem is that it is hard to make a living in the place. This did not seem to bother the holidaymakers on the terrace of our lakeside hotel, most of whom didn't look like they had worked for years. Every day they were tucking into a three-hour lunch with gusto, then taking a little siesta before attacking the serious business of the day: dinner.

Life is always agreeable in France and after eight months' absence, I was looking forward to renewing friendships I had made during eight years of living there. The problem is that most of them have left, except of course the artists, who make a better living from not selling their watercolours than anywhere else in the world. I called Raphael. "Not here," came the reply. "Gone to live in Portugal." I rang Nick. "No chance. Now living in Australia." I had no idea things were that bad. My final call was to Tony, an architect who planned a few years ago to build an eco-friendly house in the woods of the Savoie. "No longer here. He's in Abu Dhabi."

Despite the mass exodus, the diners on the terrace only showed concern when the food took a while to arrive from the kitchen. The economic storm seems to have passed France by. The pound sterling may have collapsed - another reason why the Dordogne is no longer a British outpost - and Gordon Brown may soon be calling on the IMF for an emergency bailout; while Spain, with an unemployment rate hitting 20 per cent, is enjoying a spate of bank robberies. (For once it is the customers and not the directors who are making off with the swag.) But France, in August, remains serene.

It also remains a frustrating place to operate. We wanted to bank a cheque. When we told the bank cashier this, she asked if this was our branch. "No," we replied. "Our branch is in the Languedoc. But this is the same bank." In that case, she told us, we must either drive the cheque there, or send it by post. A few days later, we went to the same bank to try to take some of the said money out. "Did we have an account here?" asked the same woman. "No," we replied. In that case we must drive to our branch in the Languedoc. "Could we not take some money out with a cheque?" That would not be possible, she explained. The only solution would be if we had a friend in the neighbourhood. That way they could withdraw some money, and we could give them a cheque. When we explained that even if we had a local pal with a chequebook, this person would be unlikely to want to do such a transaction because they could be liable for tax, she looked at us and shrugged.

I should warn France's plucky citizens that the storm clouds are gathering. Two days into our stay, and the proprietor called my wife aside. "Madame," he said. "I see that you are from abroad and drive a Mercedes. Keep this to yourself, but we are thinking of selling the hotel. It is impossible to make any money here. We have run the place for five years and are exhausted." Just as in the film Withnail and I, I wanted to startle the denizens by shouting: "We are multimillionaires. We are going to buy this place and shut it down." There are only two problems with this plan. First, I am not a multimillionaire; second, I don't know the word for multimillionaire in French. Maybe there isn't one; if you were, you wouldn't tell anybody because the government would soon be knocking on your door and you'd be penniless along with everybody else.

However, these problems aside, this would make a lovely private house. There are lots of bedrooms for the children, a private beach and an enormous kitchen. We would have to employ at least one of the chambermaids, but the rest we would sack. Everything in the country is for sale, or about to be laid off. People are exhausted from toiling for as much as 35 hours every week with nothing to show for it apart from the best health care in the world, free education and a transport network that is the envy of the planet.

Soon there will be nobody working in the place at all on any day of the week, never mind Sundays, except perhaps the hyperactive president, assuming he recovers from his collapse in the Bois de Boulogne. France will cease to be such a pleasant place to go on holiday if you have to catch your own fish and then cook it. The only possible solution is to allow massive immigration from eastern Europe - key criteria being a certain arrogance, a definite je ne sais quoi, and the ability to talk with a cigarette clamped to the lip.

When this happens, I shall be willing to take my holidays in France, and even contemplate living there again, for it remains the most lovely country in the world. Obviously, though, this will have to wait until I have retired and hidden all my money in a Swiss bank account. [e-mail]