French, the language of diplomacy

Image via Wikipedia

Talleyrand, nineteenth century French diplomat.

There are certain myths about France.....smartly dressed women, seductive men, good food, good manners....which means that you tell someone you live in France and they go all gooey eyed and start burbling about how lucky you are to live in this earthly paradise.

A quick look round la France Profonde might disabuse them somewhat.....the local notaire's wife in the dressing gown and slippers in which she passes her morning would be a good shoo-in for Mrs. Proudie at the breakfast table in 'Framley Parsonage' while her husband's seductive powers appear to be limited to seducing the folding stuff from your wallet to his.
Good food......no, don't let me get started on andouillette and food poisoning from fruits de mer again .....here.....and as for good manners! I have never been on the receiving end of so much rudeness as I have experienced in France.

I used to like going to the big vide greniers...the ones involving a whole suburb of a big town...as for the investment of time and petrol there was more chance of finding something among over a hundred stalls than at a village one of twenty.
Accordingly, we were heading for one that had been advertised, when we ran into signs for another on our route...that had not been advertised.
Experience had told us that even if an event had been advertised, there was no guarantee that it would be held so, just in case the one we were heading for had been cancelled, we thought we'd try the one we'd found.
By this time we had passed the designated parking area and were driving into the town.
The streets were full of parked cars, but we found a spot by the river which still had space and pulled up.

As we walked away a band of young men with red and white striped tape appeared and started marking off the river bank in front of the cars.
One of them called out to us to get our car shifted....this was a no parking area. There was to be an event with boats which would be arriving in four hours' time.
My husband replied that there were other cars there, and that, when we parked, there had been no tape...neither were there any 'no parking' signs, even on the crayon on cardboard variety.
In any case, we would only be about half an hour.

Now for what follows, a little explanation is in order.
This was a group of four young men.
My husband is a pensioner and at that time had not long come out of chemotherapy...so he even looked frail.

One young man ran over to us and shouted
'Do as you're told!. The parking area is over there.' Indicating the signs we had passed on the way in.
'Can't you read? Ignorant as shit! Get out of here!'

My husband repeated that we would only be half an hour, so we wouldn't be in their way and, besides, he wasn't up to the long walk from the designated parking area.

The other young men came up and one said that if we didn't move the car they would push it into the river.
My husband said that in that case the organisers would be hearing from his insurers and turned to walk away.

At that moment they made a rush for him and jostled him, shouting abuse...until a woman on the bank called them off...and they left us alone, threatening to report us to the gendarmerie!

Well, we had come to see what was on offer, so we carried on towards the stands....somewhat shaken up...only to see the gendarmerie van pulling up at a signal from the young men, who gathered round it, pointing towards us.

We went over, to find that we were accused of attacking them after deliberately parking in a no parking area.

Now, the gendarmerie does not like trouble.
Trouble involves returning to the station and unearthing the typewriter, so on that ground alone there was no chance that they would take up the complaint.
I am not so sure that the absurdity of four young men complaining of being attacked by a couple of pensioners would have saved us...this is, after all, France.

The young men were sent about their business, we explained what had happened and the gendarmes kindly suggested that they could best solve the problem by guiding our car into a spot reserved for handicapped drivers right alongside the stands.
The which they did.

'You don't want to make a complaint, do you?' asked one, with the air of a dog who sees the prospect of being back on the lead after a wonderful run in the park, and, so as not to spoil his day, we agreed that we did not.
There would have been no point to it, as the only people who would have been inconvenienced were ourselves and the gendarmes.
The louts would have gone untouched.

That's an extreme example, but it's not an isolated one.

I've had abuse from the counter staff of France Telecom....abuse from the driver of a car who was blocking my exit from my own house....abuse from young men in kayaks on the river which runs through the garden....abuse from the hunters busy shooting my rooks on my land - I've even been abused by a notaire! Twice!
And that's just the stuff that comes to mind.

Didier complains bitterly about the lack of everyday manners.
Gone are the days of the automatic 'Bonjour' on entering a shop.....the polite recognition of other people's existence.
Gone the polite 'Bonjour' from children to adults they encounter.
'It's everyone for himself, these days,' he grumbles. 'And they don't bother to hide it.'

I just wonder about this streak of rudeness in French society....it doesn't seem to me to be just a recent phenomenon, more a manifestation of the nature of French society, where you spend your life making sure that you don't annoy anyone with influence.....and working off the resulting stress on anyone you perceive as being weaker.