I asked François, the man selling soft serve from one of those little pointed huts along the Croisette, who I walked past every morning and ended up having a daily little chat with, which became, somehow, my favourite part of the trip. François has probably handed a coffee or an ice cream to half the people who’ve ever come to Cannes. He’s also, by some distance, the festival’s most devoted fan: day one he sent me away with a stack of brochures about the area, day two with an official merch cap. He felt like part of the whole thing. And he was.

I asked the flâneurs, of which there are many in Cannes during the festival, drifting up and down the Croisette with the kind of slow, deliberate walk of someone who very much hopes
to be looked at, and who, you suspect, planned the outfit for exactly that. And I asked the ones who weren’t walking at all, who had claimed their spots along the Croisette, watching the spectacle unfold and quietly enjoying being part of it.