A play on words substituting "faim" or hunger for "fin" which means the end, caught our eyes when passing by a local covered market in Cannes. The market place seconds as a parking lot on non-market days. La fin des haricots roughly translates to "it's the end of the line" or "all hope is gone."
There are various explanations of the origin of this French idiomatic expression ranging from its 18th-century use in the context of sailors' consumption of the last dried food stuffs onboard ships to its 20th-century use in parlor games where family members played for dried beans rather than money.
©2017 P.B. Lecron
