La Vie Française
Easter marks the midpoint of our time in France, and a third of the way through our 9-month adventure. As good time as any for a bit of reflection on life in France.
We’ve been having a wonderful time as a family, and very glad to have chosen Paris as our base for the first part of our time. We’ve tried our best to immerse ourselves in French living – renting an apartment in a residential neighbourhood where we’re the only non-French people in the building, and spending our time walking, shopping and schooling locally during the weeks, and exploring a good part of the Paris environs on weekends..
Our primary goals of spending time as a family and immersing ourselves in a different culture are definitely being fulfilled. And of course, the latter comes with its fair share of oddities and curiosities…
l’école
Both Charles and Aisling are having very multi-cultural experiences in school, which we like a lot. Turkey, Russia, North Africa, Portugal. Aisling’s international day at school (see future blog) could just as easily have been called UN day.
Both schools have no uniforms, kids from all over, lots of French being spoken all around, and are co-educational. The kids have gone to school in the dark and in the snow, on foot and on scooter.
Younger kids are mostly dropped at school in person, via public transport. A small handful arrive by car, but is the exception. It seems normal and accepted that parents will walk or bring kids to school and get to work when they can afterward. Hence the business hours in France where nothing much happens before 10 in the morning, there is a long lunch break, and then businesses and shops typically stay open an hour or two later than they would in Australia.
In terms of food, most children eat at school, though the lunch break is long enough for a good number to go home for their lunch and then come back. Charles eats at school and chooses what he likes in the cafeteria, with predictable results – followed by an extended lunch break for racing around with (very) minimal supervision.
There is a short morning recess (except for the days they have PE), although with no food – just a chance to run around. We do not eat between meals in France (see below!).
School work has an unusual emphasis on things like copying geometric structures, and time for free drawing on most days. Surprisingly they don’t study music in the early years, so that has to be done outside school hours, although the school has an extremely extensive after-school program you can sign up for each day of the week.
There are lots (and lots) of holidays, and perhaps as a consequence very little tolerance for any time time away during normal hours.
They expect a high degree of independence at an early age. Many surprisingly young kids walk to school on their own. If there is homework to do or things to buy or study, the teacher writes this on the board in French, and assumes all the 7 year olds will dutifully comply without having to be reminded. This results in a comical weekly pattern of furious messages amongst the parents’ WhatsApp group every weekend, trying to decipher from the various 7 year old hieroglyphics what the homework of the week might be, or books that need to be purchased.
The kids do their work in a series of large-format colour-coded graph-ruled notebooks, and everything done at school is dutifully glued in, and parents are to open the books each night and sign every page of their child’s work. Failure to do so will result in a red pen note (to the parent, not the child) in the book the next day!
Speaking of independence, where for most schools an excursion for 7 year olds might be to a local museum, at Charles school they have “classe verte” week where they all go several hundred kilometres south to Provence by train for a week with their teacher to explore the sights and broaden their minds! An idea Niamh has yet to really get her head around. She may be the one needing comforting…
There is also a dose of reality of the world we live in today in Europe. They had a minute’s silence for a police officer killed during a terrorist siege, and they do siege drills periodically.
Aisling’s school is all in French every morning and all in English every afternoon, with two different teachers. Turns out her English teacher is Irish, so that was off to a flying start. She took some time to warm to la moitié française, but got there after a few weeks – kudos to her lovely French teacher. And while she still doesn’t understand all of what’s said in her French periods, she’s getting more and more comfortable.
The school is intimate and friendly and they use the highly international clientele as an excuse to study different parts of the world each week which is wonderful. They also don’t mind if we want to take her out of school a couple of hours early from time to time, by contrast with the rather more serious approach up the road!
Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin
Not too many people drive in Paris if they can avoid it. The metro is packed at peak hour of course, and buses well frequented.
But most of all people walk a lot (see section on staying fit in Paris below). Not at pace mind you – we do not hasten in Paris, we stroll – much to Niamh’s frustration at times.
But if we you do need to get somewhere in a hurry, pretty much any form of transportation is acceptable. Large numbers of motor scooters and motorcycles of course, but these days everything in between as well.
For example, it is perfectly acceptable to wear a suit and ride a scooter along the footpath to work (preferably one that folds if you have to dash into the metro), a hoverboard, an electric monocycle (often without a helmet, weaving between traffic), or to zoom at high speed along footpaths on a motorised foot scooter…
All about the Food
Too much is already written about French food and eating for us to delve too deeply here.
Suffice it to say that while we still think the Spanish and Italians are doing more interesting things with food these days, you can eat extremely well in France with a bit of care, and we have generally found the service attitude in restaurants to be on the up and up.
One thing that’s for sure is that the French take their food very seriously,
The markets are still an opportunity to study 25 varieties of tomato, 20 types of egg and 100+ varieties of cheese.
In France we shop every day for food, buying what we will eat that night for dinner and not stocking up. Lots of fresh ingredients, and just what will fit in our little fridges and kitchens.
You can find shops dedicated just to different types of honey, and there are still butchers on most corners in residential neighbourhoods receiving (very!) fresh deliveries daily.
Quite the sight on an early morning walk to school.
Oh, and did we mention that if you have a delivery to make in a one lane street you just stop and do whatever you need to do for as long as it takes while the traffic piles up behind you.
But we are all patient as it is in the name of fresh meat…
Food is treated with respect and frequently beautifully packaged, whether a box of chocolates or ordinary yogurt, which may come in a beautiful clay pot.
This may of course just be an expression of the yogurt worship that seems to go on in France, as evidenced by the dairy section of even a small supermarket stocking at least 120 varieties…
What perhaps sums up the differences in approach to eating most succinctly for us however are the two photos below – one from our local Starbucks showing their US-style delicacies, and the other from the french patisserie next door with the French version of the same.
vs.
Sometimes, comfort food can come from anywhere however…
Le Métro
What Paris blog could be complete without a 5 memorable metro moments list?
#5: Cabaret Slave
That’s Slav, not Slave (in English).
Ukrainian band who have been busking in the métro for more than 5 years!
They play at Concorde station where we often change trains or jump out to walk in the Tuileries gardens.
Kids love them every time. And seemingly they’re there every time…
#4: What the emergency handle is for
You get a lot of people asking for money on the métro. Mostly they move from carriage to carriage, swapping at each station and telling their story.
At one station a slow moving man got on with a backpack, an array of other bits & pieces and a thick rope wound several times around his body. He got on just as the buzzer for closing doors was sounding, at which point the doors closed on the rope.
Problem was, turned out on the other end of the rope was a large german shepherd, and the train was now moving out of the station…
The guy suddenly became quite lithe, making us suspect this wasn’t the first time – jumping over to pull the emergency brake handle. Luckily he grabbed it in time, and to our surprise the driver was quite forgiving of the whole episode. We still worried for the dog…
#3: When to eat & how to dress
Not only does the métro get you around, it can take care of you in many other ways.
For example, consistent with our national health plan goals, the metro tells us how to eat. Any ad for food needs to have one of three health warnings appended at the bottom – to avoid too much sugar and fat; to get enough exercise; and of course: not to eat between meals, which is a health hazard (see school recess above)!
Or if you’re waiting for your train and wondering how to spend the time – no worries!
You can update your wardrobe right there on the platform!
Just try on your top behind the little black curtain and you’re good to go.
#2: Back flips at speed
In addition to those telling their stories to ask for money, there’s no shortage of buskers on the métro. Usually a guitar or harmonica, occasionally a song.
Our favourite though was a guy who came on, started playing some rap music, sang along for a while then started rap dancing on the train.
Asked a few passengers to make a bit of room and then … started doing full back flips in the passageway while the train sped between stations! Quite a stunt for a random busker on a random Wednesday afternoon.
#1: Sleeping standing up
Well, we’ve already mentioned this one but sleeping upright is usually confined to horses.
Unless you’re on the métro, that is… This guy snoring loudly as we rattled along 🙂
Pirates in the city
Yes, we have pirate warnings in the city – “Vigipirate” is the name of the vigilance assurance system in Paris, with ubiquitous warning signs around all popular monuments and locations.
And no, they haven’t conscripted pirates for defence of the city, it’s a weird and wonderful acronym: vigilance et protection des installations contre les risques d’attentats terroriste à l’explosif (“vigilance and protection of installations against the risk of terrorist bombings”).
While it’s true there are soldiers in the streets, they are restricted to a very few locations like the louvre, champs elysées and other major museums and government buildings with public entrances.
Living as we do in a residential part of Paris we never see signs of increased security on a day to day basis.
Vive la Différence
What we do see on a day to day basis is lots of weird and wonderful sights.
From pedal monocylcists to 1800s vintage horse-drawn carriages, to pet walkers who are just as happy to take your parrot for a stroll as your pooches…
And the local magazine and paper seller on the corner would be delighted to sell you a little pamphlet summarising the thinking and main theorems of (say), Euler, Gauss or Laplace, should you want to pick one up on your way home from the metro of an evening with your evening newspaper.
Now be honest, couldn’t you benefit from a bit of a brush-up?
And of course there is fashion. Particularly as a man in France, it is important to be comfortable in your skin.
A man bag? No problem.
Stuck for what to get the man in your life who likes to keep in shape?
How about a Louis Vuitton backpack gym bag for his towel and water bottle?
Parfait!
Nevertheless, we do still try to kids ourselves in France from time to time, as this T-shirt on sale in the Invalides musée clearly demonstrates.
Unfortunately the computer definitely still says no pretty often in France…
La Grève
And of course one of our particular specialties in France is going on strike. An art perfected over many decades, and still practiced today.
We are here during a very interesting time politically, and while politics is far from our focus, we’re very aware of being here at a time of substantial social change. Macron is attempting (and so far mostly succeeding) at driving through a set of labour and fiscal reforms that most have known are necessary for a long time, many before him have tried, but none have succeeded.
Right now it is the turn of the SNCF, the major state-owned railway that runs between the big cities in France, including the TGV.
Les cheminots are on strike at proposed reforms that would phase out for new hires the age-old benefits harkening back to the bad old days when a steam train worker could not look forward to a long life – early retirement at 52 on a highly generous pension that the country can no longer afford, as they move to make the SNCF and the whole economy more competitive.
A drama playing out daily and weekly, with rolling strikes as far as the eye can see. Mostly on weekends and in good weather, mind you.
We even got a taste of the action close up as there was a gathering of striking workers right outside our place a short time ago – more on that in an upcoming blog.
We’ll see what happens, but it certainly seems as though the winds of change are finally blowing in France.
Keeping fit in France
Can it be done????
With a bit of effort, yes.
For starters, the French themselves (at least in Paris) aren’t bad role models.
First, they walk a lot. The old ladies in our apartment building almost always take the stairs. Everyone walks to the supermarket (there is no parking of course), and carries their shopping home, if needed in a wheely bag. We walk our kids to and from school, and even if taking the metro, have a walk at both ends.
Then in France we look at home a lot. We go out most days, but it is for a coffee or a glass of wine after work. And it does generally amount to one glass, whether wine or beer, which might be nursed for 30-45 minutes. Dinner out is much less often.
While there is no shortage of rich food, the French generally consume small portions of it, and of course there are the metro reminders about no snacking in between :-).
In practice, we find that a bit of intermittent fasting (eg 8/16) goes a really long way. Skip food in the mornings, and you can make up for a multitude of sins!
This, combined with a liberal dose of walking each day, and an active gym routine (4/week for Simon) means you can eat well in France without taking on the Michelin man physique 🙂