Quotes of the Day

A collective groan of despair seemed audible Monday as millions of Parisians, freshly returned from sunny summer vacations, threw open their shutters to find the same unrelentingly leaden, dripping skies they'd fled just weeks before. The annual post-holiday "rentrée"— or September return to work and school — is always bad enough, but many of the Parisians setting off on that initial commute Monday looked oddly ashen under their tans as they cursed autumn weather that has plagued the capital all summer. "This had to be the crappiest summer in the history of weather," spat Lionel Martin, a 33 year old salesman taking the last drag of a cigarette before darting into the Metro to escape the chilly drizzle. "Look at this — more clouds, more damp, more cold, just like it's been since June. Talk about an été pourri!"

Few Parisians would take issue with Martin's disgusted description of the city's été pourri — or rotten summer — except perhaps to contest the notion that the capital even experienced one. Indeed, 2007 will be remembered as the year without a summer — the pourriest in 30 years, and second dreariest in the past half century. Monday's forecast (rain, highs of 63 degrees) was rather typical of the season, which dumped down nearly three times the amount of rain as you'd expect to find during an average June-August period. According to French press reports, temperatures only reached seasonal averages around 10 times during those same three months, with highs frequently 10 to 20 degrees below normal. Little wonder the Seine-side version of a Potemkin beach — the annual Paris Plage — drew less people and shorter visits per person this year, or that its food, drinks, and ice cream vendors shut up shop reporting disappointing sales. And these weren't the only merchants affected by the weather.

"We've sold far more umbrellas than usual — even to Parisians," said Vincent, an attendant in a souvenir shop near Notre Dame who didn't want to give his last name. "But the stuff that usually sells best in summer — T shirts, tank tops, lighter stuff — didn't do as well as usual."

Vincent says visitors to the shop frequently asked whether the dismal climes were usual for Paris — a question he ironically heard not solely due to the weather. Interestingly, by mid-August, tourism officials were already reporting the highest number of foreign visitors to Paris since 2002, and hotel occupancy rates were also above normal. The area is expected to get an additional boost through September and October, meanwhile, as rugby fans flock to France to watch matches in the sport's World Cup.

And while it won't do much for Parisians bundled up against the early September rain and low temperatures, they may take some consolation in knowing the summer was just as bad in other parts of France. Normandy and Brittany experienced wet, cold weather, while the Atlantic coast from the Bordeaux region down to the Spanish border was doused by record-setting volumes of rain. The impact of that went beyond slumping tanning lotion sales. Between cold demis of beer that never got ordered to ice cream that stayed unscooped; from crops that didn't ripen enough to cultivate into summer fruits like tomatoes and watermelon, French economists say the cold and wet cast a direct, shrinking chill on 30% of the nation's seasonal economic activity.

Parisians and other French holiday makers who played the safe card by opting for the sunny Riviera were not disappointed, however. Vacationers in Nice, Saint-Tropez, Marseille and other Mediterranean coastal spots were treated to the heat and sun usually associated with summer. The downside of this, returnees from the Côte d'Azur still bitterly complain, was that the crowds were horrendous this year. You really can't please all the people all the time.

• Bruce Crumley
• While Labor Day traditionally signifies the end of summer in the U.S., many in France are complaining that they didn't even get to experience the season in the first place