A deep frost in the winter of 1821–22 killed the orange trees in Nice. The Anglican minister to the English colony, the Reverend Lewis Way, appealed to his congregation for relief funds to provide work for redundant orange-pickers. The money raised was spent on the construction of six miles of coast road, the redundant orange-pickers were employed as navvies, and the completed road became known as the Promenade des Anglais. On 14 July 2016, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian bisexual gym bunny, drove a 19-tonne truck into a crowd assembled on the Promenade des Anglais to watch the Bastille Day fireworks, killing 86 and injuring 450. On 13 February 2017, Front National leader and presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen visited the Promenade des Anglais to pay her respects to the dead and say a few campaign-defining words. I toddled down to the seafront after breakfast to see her.
She was due to arrive at 10.15.
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