Oh la la! Your island of dreams

From chic Riviera retreats to secret specks in the Atlantic – Anthony Peregrine reveals 12 fabulous French escapes

Crikey, but real islands are exciting. You’re on the big bridge across or, better yet, the ferry, and already two things happen: the pulse quickens and yet calm descends.

Mainland worries – mortgage, disease, the future of Matt Hancock – drop away. You’re going beyond their reach to self-contained worlds that run to more timeless rhythms. (That may not be how it seems to islanders – but you’re not an islander. You’re on hols.)

This is particularly true of France’s best islands, which, circumscribed and easy to control, have generally not submitted to rampant development or the raging demands of 21st-century entertainment. If you need a 25th-floor penthouse apartment or to groove through to dawn amid cod tropical decor, you’re going to have to be somewhere else.

Instead, we have a great deal of nature, and people who live and work with it – fishermen, oyster producers, salt workers or descendants of stout women farmers. Within living memory, certain of the bigger Atlantic islands boasted residents who had never seen any reason to visit the mainland. These sorts of people are not big on discos.

Here, instead, be headlands, forests and outstanding beaches – including, on Porquerolles, my candidate for the best in France. The elements may cut up rough, notably on Ouessant, where the wind might blow your legs off. But they also bring calm and beautiful moments – often enhanced by the discreet hand of man.

And the fish! I once ate so many scallops and assorted shellfish on Breton islands that I was reclassified as an aquarium. I wish you such happiness.