|
The Sunday Times articles over the past two weeks in “CULTURE” have been most amusing, although I can’t help thinking that de Monplaisir’s criticism of Britain and its way of life was just a little tongue-in-cheek, perhaps to counter Helena Frith-Powell’s series.
Equally interesting are the many and varied responses from the British public published this Sunday. You get the very strong impression that in Britain there are at least two snapshots of France and that these two snapshots are diametrically different.
*French people are slovenly dressers: French people are the best dressed in Europe.
*French food is the best in Europe: French food is tasteless and crude.
*The French are great lovers: the French are terrible lovers.
And so it goes on. Which is the true picture? Well, they’re both true.
You have to understand that as a country France is much less homogenous than Britain – logically so considering its land area is almost three times that of Britain.
 Let’s start with geography. Most French will admit that France can be divided into two parts and the most popular dividing line is the Loire. When you drive across the Loire, at Nantes, Saumur, Angers or Tours, the sun suddenly appears: more practically, an unsolicited message will mysteriously arrive on your Orange mobile phone – “Welcome to the South of France.”
But a more accurate way to divide France into two pieces is that part no.1 is Paris within the Périphérique and part no.2 is all the rest of the country. (We bought our house in Languedoc from a restorer who had been born in Paris. When we told him that as foreigners we planned to be quite careful in our relations with the villagers he replied “Don’t worry, I come from Paris and I’m considered more of a foreigner than you.”)
Then there is food. True, the best of French food can be the very best in Europe: but this is really only true in several limited pockets of the country. In central Paris (the Périphérique again!), around the city of Lyon and in the Périgord centred on Périgueux. Breton food is fine if you’re mad on tripe and the much-touted Brioche Vendéene is a soggy bun. Choucroute garnie is German and Cassoulet (fought over between Carcassonne and Castelnaudary) is Spanish.
In the appearance of the citizens. A thin veneer of, maybe, 5% of French people are svelte beautiful and handsome. The other 95% are indistinguishable from Newcastle or Milton Keynes.
And the language. For at least a century a battle has raged in France between the two halves of the population on the question of what is good French. On the one side you have les Puristes, supported by L’Academie Francaise, who insist that French as defined in the time of Louis XIV is the only way to speak and on the other les Modernistes who believe that French, like any living language, evolves and that it is perfectly correct to put up notices saying “Les Parkings” in place of “Stationnement”. (I’m a moderniste and have decided to ignore the subjunctive - I'm always understood.)
In homogenous Britain you can quite reasonably ask of a stranger in a hotel “Can you tell me if this is the Guildford TravelLodge or the Leeds TravelLodge?” – in France you get two countries for the price of one.
|
