Talk to the Snail

TALK

TO THE

SNAIL

Ten Commandments for

Understanding the French

STEPHEN CLARKE

BLOOMSBURY

To the French, with my sincerest apologies

DON’T GET ME WRONG – FRANCE IS A GREAT PLACE to live. It’s a country devoted to pleasure. And pleasure is one of my hobbies. No, it’s all of my hobbies.

But gaining access to that pleasure can sometimes be as fiddly, painful and ultimately frustrating as eating a lobster. You use a hammer, nutcrackers, surgical probes and a laser-powered meat detector, and you can still end up with lacerated fingers and a mouthful of lobster claw.

Many people visiting France, or coming to live here, get stranded in the pre-pleasure and partial-pleasure zones. They get little further than the moody waiter or the rip-off estate agent. They need advice on how to break into the total-pleasure zone. Because living in France is not a gift that you’re born with. Lots of French people never learn to do it properly. That’s why they’re known as a nation of complainers.

Living in France is a skill that you have to work at. I’ve spent half my adult life here, and I’m still learning.

This book sums up what I’ve learnt so far.

STEPHEN CLARKE, Paris, 2006

CONTENTS

1 THOU SHALT BE WRONG (if you’re not French)

Why every Frenchman is ‘Monsieur Right’

2 THOU SHALT NOT WORK

Why long weekends are good for the French economy

3 THOU SHALT EAT

Just because it smells of pig’s droppings doesn’t mean it’ll taste like them

4 THOU SHALT BE ILL

Getting the best out of the French national drug habit

5 THOU SHALT SPEAK FRENCH

Fun ways to mispronounce words and offend people

6 THOU SHALT NOT SING (in tune, anyway)

A French artiste says: ‘Pretentious, moi?’

7 THOU SHALT NOT KNOW

Don’t mention the war, nuclear power, tax or structural surveys

8 THOU SHALT NOT LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR

Oui, I am smoking into your dinner, et alors?

9 THOU SHALT NOT BE SERVED

Garçon? Waiter? Bonjour? Oh, forget it

10 THOU SHALT BE POLITE (and simultaneously rude)

Bonjour, Madame, vous êtes une idiote

11 THOU SHALT SAY ‘I LOVE YOU’

The perils of French-style amour

Epilogue

Attentive readers may note that there are eleven, not ten, commandments here. But surely you didn’t think you could fit a nation as fascinating and complex as the French into just ten commandments, did you? Merde alors!

Nude pétanque, a French game that gives a whole

new meaning to the phrase ‘playing with your boules’.

THE

1ST

COMMANDMENT

Tu Auras Tort

THOU SHALT BE WRONG

(if you’re not French)

THOU SHALT BE WRONG

(if you’re not French)

WHEN DEALING WITH A FRENCHMAN, YOU NEED TO BE aware that there is a voice in his head. It is constantly telling him, ‘I’m French, I’m right.’

Even when he’s doing something that is quite obviously illegal, antisocial or just plain stupid, he is sure that right is on his side.

Of course, the French aren’t unique in this. We Brits think we invented Western civilization. The Americans are convinced that they live in the only place on earth where people are truly free. The Belgians are certain that they invented French fries. We’re all sure that we’re right about something. The difference with the French is that they not only think they’re right, they’re also convinced that everyone in the world is ganging up to prove them wrong. Why, they wonder, does everyone on ¹ the planet want to speak English instead of le français? Why does no one else play pétanque? Why does the world prefer Hollywood blockbusters to French movies about Parisians getting divorced? Ce n’est pas normal.

Their reputation for arrogance comes from this. They’re not sure of themselves. They’ve got something to prove to the rest of the universe.

Observe a Parisian driver when he or she comes up against a red light. ‘How dare this coloured bulb assume it knows best whether it is safe to cross this junction?’ the driver thinks. ‘It’s obviously safe to go through, there’s nothing blocking my way except a few annoying pedestrians.’² He ploughs through, certain that the universe is on his side.

It’s the same with much of the French service sector. How can the customers possibly be right? What do they know about the service industries?

The list goes on and on.

Pushing L’Enveloppe

One of the best ways of seeing the French person’s innate sense of rightness in action is to visit a crowded post office. The people who work here have even more reasons to be right than the rest of their compatriots. They have two layers of rightness that they wear like armour.

First, of course, they are French.

Second, they are state employees and therefore impossible to fire. Even if they were to snooze all day or feed all the letters through a shredder, the worst sanction they could expect would be a transfer to some distant outpost of the French empire like Tahiti or Calais.

In a relaxed rural post office, this can be to the public’s advantage, because the people working there will be able to take the time to help their customers (and thereby show how right they are about things).

But if you walk into a busy urban post office at nine a.m., things might not go so smoothly.

There will probably be a long queue of people wanting to withdraw money from their post-office bank accounts, pay their electricity bills in cash, or simply post a letter because they don’t have change for the automatic franking machine.

A post-office cashier who’s just coming on duty will enter the room, sum up the size of the queue, see the urgency of opening another window, and smile inwardly. Or sometimes outwardly. He or she will then proceed to interrupt their co-workers’ transactions in order to exchange good-morning kisses or handshakes.

Any grumblings from the queue will be answered with a look, or an overt comment, to the effect that, yes, we state workers are human beings and we have the right to greet our colleagues just like anyone else, non?

They are in