by Madeleine McMullin
News from around the region, collated from local sources.
P-O new car sales up
There has been a 20% rise for the month of October in sales of new cars in the departement compared with October last year. 1262 new cars were sold in total, 290 of which were Renault, 206 Peugeot and 87 Citroën. Since the beginning of 2017, 12,295 cars have been registered which is a 16.3% rise on the same period last year.
Tous nous sépare
This film starring Catherine Deneuve has just been released. It was filmed in the region with scenes in Canet and Perpignan as well as Sète and Port-La-Nouvelle. Billed as a “film noir au soleil”, it is currently playing in local cinemas.
Catalans among the heaviest smokers in France
November is being promoted as the “moi(s) sans tabac” or the month/me without cigarettes to try to get French people to stop smoking as heavily. The P-O is one of the departements with the heaviest smokers at 40% of the population. The national average is 34.5%. The reasons seem to be a combination of the social make up as people on low income tend to smoke more than others and the proximity to Spain and Andorra, giving easy access to cheaper tobacco.
P-O earnings survey
Insee has just published the stats for the salaries of the 79,000 of the 92,600 employees in the P-O in 2014. Women earned on average 11.58% less than men, or put another way €1.90 per hour less. They were also less likely to be permanent, full-time employees or in management than men. Apart from that the salaries here are 18.7% less than in the rest of France, an engineer will earn 17.3% less, an unqualified worker 12.2% and someone in insurance 23.3% less. Only sales assistants earn slightly more than the national average at 0.77%. We also have more than the national average of “non-salaried workers” at 15.5% or 23,600 making us 6th in mainland France. 29.9% of these are auto-entrepreneurs, 22.7% own their own business, 22.1% are professionals/freelancers and 25.3% are company directors. On average auto-entrepreneurs earn €310 per month, professionals in the health sector €5310, entrepreneurs offering services to companies €4140, and €2370 for those selling and in trades, €1960 for building and €1320 for home helps.
