This might have been about a single store of the American fast-food chain, which is quite popular in France, the land of haute cuisine — as well as more than 1,300 McDonald’s stores.

But I think it’s more than that.

In a more working-class neighborhood of the Cote d’Azur … McDonald’s is not necessarily where you go to eat, it’s where a wide variety of people go to pass an hour or three.

Over the span of two afternoon visits we saw …

–Two men, one about 50, the other perhaps 35, playing Scrabble on a miniature game board. The competition was interrupted only when they stepped outside for cigarettes.

–A mother with a newborn and two small children, feeding the two older kids, and herself, while she spent more than an hour in a corner booth, quietly singing along to English-language audio. A little boy, about 4 and clearly dealing with pent-up energy, was allowed to go outside and play on the gym equipment.

–A father and his two daughters setting up in the booth next to the other family, and while the teen daughter amused herself on her smart phone, the younger daughter seemed happy when her father broke out a deck of cards and dealt two hands. They played for most of an hour.

–And two visitors from the U.S., experiencing continued internet difficulties with the local telecom, set up shop in another booth, with their laptops, taking advantage of McDonald’s free wifi.

The American visitors each had a McFlurry, so as not to be complete freeloaders, and on another visit each had a large drink … and they never kept someone else from being able to sit.

McDonald’s is a fine place, in southern France, in January, to spend some time. It’s warm when it’s 50 and blowing outside. You’re out of the house. It is kid-friendly. You can have ice cream or a Coke and no one rushes you to leave. It has a clean bathroom.

It has free wifi.

I don’t advocate that people with nothing to do descend on McDonald’s, not here in France or back in the States … but the fact remains that it can be a welcoming place for those who want to get out of a stuffy apartment, especially with kids in tow.

And France has plenty of places were this can be done — the 1,300-plus outlets rank it fifth, in the Golden Arches empire, behind only the U.S., China, Japan and Germany.