French Riviera the weather between various locations. Strong winds such as the Mistral, a cold dry wind from the northwest or from the east, are another characteristic, particularly in the winter. Nice and the Alpes-Maritimes département are sheltered by the Alps. The winds are usually gentle, from the sea to the land, though sometimes the mistral blows strongly from the northwest, or, turned by the mountains, from the east. In 1956 a mistral from the northwest reached at Nice Airport. Sometimes, in summer, the sirocco brings high temperatures and reddish desert sand from the Sahara. (See Winds of Provence.) Rain can be
Jacques Mistral the French presidential election of 2012, Mistral endorsed Socialist Party candidate and eventual winner François Hollande. Jacques Mistral Jacques Mistral (born September 22, 1947) is a French economist and professor. He is a member of the Council of Economic Analysis ("Conseil d'analyse économique") in France, a member of the Cercle des économistes, and as of October 2009, a member of the scientific council of the center-left think tank "Fondation pour l'innovation politique". Mistral was born in Toulouse, France. He graduated from the École Polytechnique in Paris in 1967 and earned his Ph.D in Economics from the University of Paris I