It is now even expected that by 2020 France might catch up to the United States in terms of the percentage of its population that is obese.
While undoubtedly these new eating habits highlight drastic changes in the way the French eat, they also signal the beginning of a completely new France: one inhabited by a population that has, over the past decades, grown impoverished financially, socially, and culturally.
Useful tip: If you go for a run in France, be prepared to be considered with amusement by some passersby.
Sound like a French person: “Pff . . . j’ai pris là, faut qu’j’ fasse un peu gaffe!” (Pff . . . I put on a little weight . . . Gotta start being a little more cautious.)
LA POLICE
In France, several official groups are in charge of peacekeeping:
la police nationale: active in urban environments
la gendarmerie: active in rural environments
les polices municipales: active within the towns that created them
les CRS (compagnies républicaines de sécurité): protest police
Overall, a vast majority of French people have a positive image of the country’s peacekeeping forces.* Unlike their counterparts in many other countries, the French police at large are not overtly corrupt, arbitrary, or violent. French people approach law enforcement officers without fear of dishonesty or brutality.
When it comes to law enforcement in France, the uneasiness is primarily felt within the ranks of law enforcement. While French society is becoming more violent (as in many other countries), French police officers are, as a group, particularly depressed. One of the main causes for this change is the growing disconnect between the police and the judicial system. In short, police officers understandably bemoan the clemency of French courts. In France, it is possible for a police officer to arrest the same individual several times in one month, for that person to insult the officers, and yet for that person to be released every time without serious sanctions.* With mild impunity becoming the law of the land, policing the streets does seem to lose much of its meaning.
On the other hand, while police officers see that their actions against criminals are being undermined by overly lenient courts, they are being asked to harass and fine law-abiding citizens on the roads.
Ultimately, police officers are the first witnesses of the degradation of the social fabric. Most feel stressed and tired, many to a tragic degree: in France, a police officer is five times more likely to die of suicide than from being killed in action.*
This phenomenon highlights the fact that, while France surely has become a more violent society, most of the violence imposed on the French police is not physical, but psychological.
While in the United States many people fear the police, in France the reality is the exact opposite: outside the annoying speeding fines, very few people actually fear the police, particularly criminals who have grown to learn that their unlawful actions will typically go vastly unpunished. At the end of the day, French police officers suffer from their work not being valued.
Given that their missions consist of enforcing the frequently iniquitous rules dictated by a power most French people have grown to despise and view as illegitimate, it does make sense that pride and a sense of importance in the world may not be a French police officer’s bread and butter.
Useful tip: Things are not as likely to escalate with French police officers as they are in the United States.
Sound like a French person: “Regarde moi ces cons de flics, ils en foutent pas une!” (Look at these idiot cops. Always slacking off, aren’t they?)
ENGLISH WORDS ON T-SHIRTS
Passing as a French person is easy: just wear a T-shirt with an English word or two emblazoned across the chest.
Needless to say, specific words will convey a specific message about who the wearer is deep inside, but there are a few main categories into which these T-shirts tend to fall:
OPTION 1: TEES BEARING THE NAME OF AN AMERICAN TOWN OR STATE
This is your typical gift from the uninspired mother or wife. Meeting a Frenchman with a T-shirt that says Boston, Chicago, Indiana, Baltimore, or California is simply a testament that a Frenchwoman loves him.
These T-shirts are usually sprinkled with an extra mention—also in English—that passes to the French gift giver as a sign of genuine American authenticity: “Sacramento, Since 1925.” Bingo! “Nevada, Original Trademark.” The extra mention does not need to make any sense in proper English. Shirts that say things like “Philadelphia—Vintage Authentic Flight Action” or “Jacksonville—Force Size Official Republic” are everywhere.
It is of paramount importance to realize that the wearer has no knowledge of what that actual city or state is like. No one is claiming anything here. The piece of clothing will always be referred to by the name of the location, pronounced with the Frenchest of accents:
T’as pas vu mon T-shirt Florida? (Have you seen my Florida T-shirt?)
OPTION 2: TEES WITH A MESSAGE
These tees appeal to a different category of French people—starting with young Frenchwomen.
Profound messages like “Fashion Victim,” “I Love to Dance,” or “Beautiful Vintage” flourish on French girls’ clothes. The lower-class the wearer, the closer you are to a fantastically wrong statement or an act of glorious treason against the English language: “What doesn’t killed me make me stronger,” “Ocean, Bitch and Sunshine” . . .
As usual, hipsters break the mold in a spectacular manner: no more of that silly city thing or empty-message idiocy. Hipsters are above that. Instead, they’ll sport T-shirts stating things like “Williamsburg” or “Dance till You Drop” or of course my personal favorite, “Be Different.” French hipsters obviously command the delicate art of irony.
Useful tip: Relax—French people are not that classy!
Sound like a French person: “J’sais pas trop ce que ça veut dire, mais c’est classe, c’est stylé . . .” (Not really sure what it means, but it sure is stylish . . .)
FRENCH COMMENTS SECTIONS
The surest way to fall out of love with French people is to read the comments section of any French Web site. There, you can fathom the abyss of negativity that the average French soul has grown to harbor.
Each category of Web site displays its very own form of French negativity.
Sports sites specialize in French athlete bashing and proud défaitisme. A French tennis player has just won a game: comments will generally state either that he will lose the next round—guaranteed—or that the win was lucky because the other player was having a bad day. If one commenter happens to post an encouraging comment, several others will typically respond with a comment belittling that win or putting that victory in perspective with the career of Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal. It is generally understood that all French athletes and teams are terrible. It is of paramount importance to repeat it in every comment. Empty criticism shall remain the law of the comments land (the terrific neologism rageux applies to those practicing constant and blind criticism).
If facts are stubborn and one rare French athlete or team is successful, comments will stress that they are probably tax dodging, doped, or overpaid. In short, a successful French athlete is not a good French person.
Comments on political or news Web sites offer another interesting—but less specifically French—spectacle: people taking the bait presented to them by corporate media. Frustration and rage galore. Any dissenting opinion will either be “moderated” (read: deleted—usually by underpaid employees working for “moderation” companies in French-speaking third-world countries) or vigorously punished by other commenters.
The comments sections of open sites like YouTube are probably the most interesting in that they offer no real moderation. There, one can see the abysmally low standards of the everyday commenter. Offensive spelling, tragically m
ediocre command of the French language, and the reasoning capabilities of a shrimp, combined with the aggressiveness of an obnoxious small dog, are the norm. These sections will leave you somewhere between mildly heartbroken for all this sad humanity and worried for the future of France.
The only positive aspect of these black holes of negativity is that they will make any foreigner feel better about both their own country and their own command of the French language.
Useful tip: Skip them!
Sound like a French person: “Quand tu lis les commentaires, tu sens que les gens en ont vraiment marre!” (When you read the comments, you can tell people are really fed up!)
THE UPS AND DOWN OF WINE CULTURE
With friends like the French government, wine culture surely doesn’t need enemies. French authorities for the past decades have indeed been championing an antiwine campaign that is just as fierce as it is incongruous.
Since the early 1990s, it has been illegal to advertise wine through most main media channels in France. In those where it remains possible, no reference may ever be made to the fun or pleasure associated with wine drinking. Any time wine is to be mentioned publicly, the person talking is to remind everyone, “L’abus d’alcool est dangereux pour la santé” (Too much alcohol is dangerous for your health). Since then, the antiwine lobby has picked up more speed. Over the past decade alone, its track record speaks for itself: strong lobbying against online advertising for wine, full-on abstinence recommended to “combat alcoholism,”* studies and reports fed to the press, wine presented as carcinogenic from the very first glass,* and a pregnant-woman logo imposed on every French wine label.
What’s even more frustrating is that the statistics issued by the very official and very public INSEE on French wine consumption do not take into account tourists, who buy and drink wine during their holidays in France (that is eighty million people every year vs. sixty-five million French people) and inhabitants of bordering countries who cross the border just to fill up their trunks with wine (English, Belgians, German, Luxembourgers, Swiss, etc.). A direct consequence, of course, is that the official figures become artificially inflated and make the French seem like they drink much more wine than they actually do.
The brilliant logic that compels the French government to fight an industry that generates over a billion euros a year in taxes, plus even more less direct, but no less quantifiable, benefits in terms of image, tourism, employment, and exports is rather obvious. The French government, never short of bold ideas to plunge the country into more distress, naturally chose to become the champion of the antiwine movement. Successfully so. In France, since the 1970s, both wine consumption per capita and the number of wineries have more than halved.*
Here are five wine facts you’d never suspect about France:
Percentage of Frenchwomen who never drink wine: 45 percent.*
Percentage of the French population who drink wine every day or almost every day: 21 percent.*
Average budget spent on a bottle of red wine in France: three euros.*
Percentage of still wines bought in France for less than six euros per liter: 91 percent.*
Younger French consume three times less wine than their elders.*
Ironically enough, one thing the French government did not foresee was that, as French young people are influenced by America and American youth culture, a new American habit is slowly starting to become more hip in Gallic land: wine drinking. Consequently, on Parisian terrasses these days, though most clients may be drinking coffee or beer, you will find two categories of people drinking wine: Americans trying to act French, and French trying to act American.
Useful tip: Recommended read if you’re interested in learning more about wine: Into Wine by yours truly.
Sound like a French person: “Moi, j’achète un excellent Gaillac à €3.50, j’peux te dire qu’il fait le boulot.” (I buy an excellent Gaillac for €3.50. Let me tell you, it does the trick.)
LA BIEN-PENSANCE (FRENCH P.C.)
Twenty years back, it was customary for the French to mock America’s political correctness: “Mais les Américains, ils sont politiquement corrects.” Oh . . . the sweet feeling of intellectual superiority. Twenty years later, it is safe to say that France has caught up with the United States.
While for most French people the phrase politiquement correct still remains primarily associated with the U.S., France has developed two phrases of its own to refer to the French manifestation of the phenomenon:
la bien-pensance: literally, “the well thinking”
la pensée unique: literally, “the only way of thinking”
It is interesting to notice that the French language stresses that the limitations imposed by this new ideology are not related to the language as much as they are to the thinking. However, don’t let that linguistic cuteness fool you: the speaking too shall be muzzled.
La bien-pensance establishes that one’s actions, words, or reasonings should not be clogged by reality. In place of reality, there is the official narrative. Actions, words, and justifications should have no other basis than the official narrative. All observations and facts that contradict it are dangerous seeds that will lead to the rebirth of Nazism.
In short, if you disagree with the official narrative in France, you are either a Nazi or well on your way to becoming one. Your pick.
Never short of a contradiction, les bien-pensants like to take the moral high ground. What is true matters far less than what is (presented as) good. Truth and common sense in France have thus become suspicious. More or less obliviously so, bien-pensants seek to impose and legitimize a repressive, Big Brother–ish, metacommunist society* in which citizens all think and act uniformly, within the ever-thinning path allowed by the proponents of political correctness.
While French people generally consider la pensée unique as contemptible, most have to cope with their daily dose of it distilled generously through the media. Journalists are viewed as the main proponents of this ideology and widely despised for it.
Surely, daily exposure is pervasive, and as much as some French still claim to want to oppose la pensée unique, they ultimately internalize most of its views. This is particularly noticeable among a certain younger generation of French people who hardly know any better.
Like a dying animal on its last breath, freedom of speech and freedom of thought sometimes cause people to launch into the occasional diatribe against le terrorisme intellectuel (intellectual terrorism), l’Inquisition (the Inquisition), or la guerre contre la réalité (the war against reality). While others in attendance will agree to an extent with the person making such statements, they will secretly view the person voicing these opinions as a potential extremist.
The ever pervasive and ever-pernicious bien-pensance has slowly shaped a new society in which words and thoughts are suppressed from within.
However, some choose to resist: resistance leads to being politically incorrect—it almost requires it. Political incorrectness is therefore not merely the silly provocation it is presented to be. It is actual dissidence. It is peaceful noncompliance.
But ultimately, today’s France struggles with dissenting voices. The French regime fights hard to condemn dissidents by any means possible. From passing laws of exception that criminalize questioning official history—like the Gayssot Act, which makes it illegal to question the war crimes prosecuted in the Nuremberg Tribunal (a law Noam Chomsky himself disavowed)*—to Soviet-like attempts to harrass politically incorrect intellectuals, comedians, or even children,* today’s France sure starts to resemble the brave new society, devoid of deviant thinking, the proponents of bien-pensance hope to establish.
Try to mention that this new France has every characteristic of a tyrannical regime and . . . surprise, surprise . . . you’ll be pinned as a Nazi extremist!
Useful French adjective for you these
days: Orwellien!
Useful tip: Resist!
Sound like a French person: “On peut plus rien dire, c’est dingue!” (It’s nuts. You just gotta keep your mouth shut these days!)
YOGURT
People think of France as the country of cheese. Really, it’s the country of yogurt.
Indeed, yogurt has become a consistent landmark in every boring French meal. As much as foreigners like to imagine the French feasting on delicious home-cooked meals all day, every day, realistically, in France like anywhere else, your typical eating day resembles the following: sleepy breakfast, speedy lunch at work, and tired dinner with the kids.
In all three instances, yogurt might pop up on the table. There is no guarantee of a yogurt-free meal in France. It simply does not exist. With French parents usually insisting on their children having at least one form of laitage (dairy product) per meal, you know you’re in for some cheese or yogurt.
Consequently, while your typical American family always has pickles and ketchup in the fridge, your typical French fridge is always home to some supermarket cheese and a few cups of yogurt. Just in case.
The quality and variety of yogurt in France is rather high. Some yogurt is deemed healthy and light; some is so delicious you know it’s actually dessert (Danette, anyone?). Some types have morceaux (fruit chunks); some don’t. The yaourt nature (plain yogurt) is a beautiful classic: before you eat it, you get to add powdered sugar. You know you’re having a sophisticated meal when the brick of powdered sugar ends up on the dinner table. Try to play it cool and not add sugar to your yaourt nature? You will most likely regret it.
WTF?!--What the French Page 14