by Carolyne Lee, an Australian Francophile

I’ve written before about how French customs help to generate social capital, a term from sociology, signifying interaction among individuals who are friendly towards one another, and who give each other mutual assistance, such as conversation, company,  or congenial contact of any type.

This concept has really been brought home to me again since I arrived in Toulouse just over a month ago. Although I’ve visited this city a couple of times before, and know a handful of people here, I’m still a stranger, and have to spend long hours alone slaving over a hot keyboard, in order to get my work done, although I’m not complaining as that’s the reason I came here in the first place. Very different from my busy life in Melbourne, where I often long for enough solitude to get my research and writing done, my lifestyle in France gives me a little glimpse into what it must be like for people who are socially isolated or have few friends—no matter what country they live in.

In France, however, there are numerous markets, and I always make this one of the centres of my life, shopping each day for the few things I need, deciding what to cook based on what looks good and affordable that day.

In Toulouse the historic Marche des Carmes is a few steps down the road from where I am staying. Apart from the comforting sights and smells of markets, they are also wonderful places for social interaction.  And in France, the most important place in the market is arguably the cheese stall.  On my first day there, faced with the bewildering array of French cheeses, I asked the fromager for some recommendations, and he gave me tastings and also advice about the different cheeses. He focuses on a different two or three types each time I go there, and I’ve come to refer to these sessions as my ‘cheese tutorials’.  I excused my ignorance of French cheeses to him by explaining that I was Australian. In turn, he told me how he learned about Australia in the English courses he took at university, and also how his business was originally owned by his great-grandparents.

On one occasion during my ‘tutorials’, when he was giving me two morsels to taste and compare—one of one-year old Comte, and the other aged for two years, I noticed in my peripheral vision that the queue  behind me was quickly lengthening. I turned apologetically to the woman next to me, although my mouth was too full of cheese to do much apologising, but she was smiling and nodding — probably in approval that a foreigner was interested enough in her culture to learn about this important part of it.

As for the Comte, I prefer the older of the two, and when I bought more of it this morning, I was informed that this particular one was aged ’26 months’!  To complement it I bought a creamy mild cheese, and a blue d’Auvergne, as this gives a good contrast of cheeses to follow after the main course and before the dessert. But I’m not going to give you any more details than that. You’ll just have to ask your fromager yourself.

I’ve mentioned before how Melbourne must surely be home to the highest per capita number of Francophiles in the world, and therefore has the highest number of French-themed shops, or shops selling French-themed items. Usually, the items are genuinely French, and of a good quality, even if they can be obtained more cheaply in Paris. But the other day, I found some funky French-themed cushion covers that were better than any I’ve seen in Paris. Admittedly, I have not spent much time while I’ve been in Paris shopping for cushion covers.

But last time I was there, in January and February this year, I did decide I needed a few covers to bring home, and went searching in a fairly large homewares shop in the rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine, near where I stay in the 12th arrondissement.  Their range was not large and rather underwhelming, but it was my last day in Paris and so I quickly purchased three of them.

But when I saw some much more interesting cushions in my local vintage shop  Memoirs, and for a reasonable price, I decided I would put my authentic Paris ones away and replace them with these. My French-named. Pomeranian-Chihuahua, Louis, agreed to help with the modeling. Yes, he is wearing a hand-knitted tuxedo, and if you look closely you can see the bow-tie.

For readers who remember Memoirs being  just near the corner of Victoria and Errol Streets, in North Melbourne, it has recently moved a block east along Victoria Street, and is now at no. 422.

Yes, I know this is in Venice, but it was the best picture I have of my French coat.

As our winter in Australia is quite short (even here in Melbourne!) if compared to that of Northern European countries, our winter coats spend a lot of time in spare-bedroom wardrobes, or in storage in garages or attics. So if you buy a coat in France and bring it home (and there are gorgeous coats and fantastic bargains to be had in the sales), you’ll need to be careful or you may be unwittingly providing a wonderful feast for the Australian ‘clothing moth’, and ruining your beautiful coat at the same time.  I found this out the hard way…

When I retrieved my beautiful French winter coat (bought from Boutique Betty in the Place d’Aligre in the 12^th) out of storage in January to take on my trip to France, I was devastated to find it had been damaged by moths. I had stored it, along with several other woollen coats, in a wardrobe in my garage. The garage is weatherproof and dry, but possibly humid after the many storms of last summer and the long unusually wet Melbourne winter that preceded it. The damage was not extensive—and mainly looked like small tears around the sleeve cuffs, with a little less-noticeable damage on the collar.

What I could not understand was why the other wool coats and jackets had escaped any damage at all. One of them even had some evidence of the moths’ eggs, but no damage, which was quite mysterious. The only common factors of the undamaged coats were that they were all made in Australia, had not been used as much as my French coat the previous winter, and had each been dry-cleaned at least once.

When I went to research the clothing moth, correct name Tineola bisselliella, I found that although introduced at some time in the past to Australia, it has not been recorded in France. This would suggest that our wools here are possibly pre-treated to be moth-repellent (an assumption that the CSIRO fact sheet would seem to support), which they are probably not in France; the previous dry-cleaning of the other coats might also be a factor in their non-infestation, as this apparently dries out the fabric, reducing the attractiveness to moths, who like moisture. They also like any presence of human sweat, which would explain why my coat was mostly damaged around the collar and cuffs. It is quite light-coloured and certainly did not look dirty to me, but a few molecules of sweat are probably a feast for a moth caterpillar!

I promptly had the coat dry-cleaned, bought some thread of the exact colour, and mended the tears as invisibly as I could.  I also transferred all the coats to a wardrobe inside the house, which I filled with mothballs. I have since found that lavender bags will do the job just as well and smell much better, so I will be getting some of those (they can refreshed with lavender oil).

So for anyone bringing a coat home to Australia from France, I would recommend getting it dry-cleaned even if you haven’t worn it, and then keeping it in the wardrobe with your current clothes even if it’s high summer here. Oh, and put lavender bags in the pockets and on the coat hanger.

I will be back in Paris in September, and then on to Toulouse where I will be spending a few months working with a research team at one of the universities there, so thought I would ask guest blogger/photographer Macondo to share some of his insights into Toulouse…

Carriera Tripiera is Occitan for rue Tripière, in the city of Toulouse, which has maintained its Occitan heritage and language by having street signs and all signs in its Metro system in the two languages, and reflects the very individualistic nature of France’s fourth largest city, with its strong Spanish influence. Friends in Toulouse told me that very few people speak the language in the street, however.

An earlier photo, uploaded in 2009, from ‘The Pink City’ was taken while standing in the popular and trendy shopping street, Rue de Saint-Rome. A few metres away from that location I found the tiny street of rue Tripière, almost mid-way between the Pont Neuf and the large Capitole square. This year I took my camera into the narrow lanes which wind their way around this area.

According to Wikipedia ‘the name Occitan comes from lenga d’òc (i.e. òc language), which comes from òc, the Occitan word for yes.’ It is still understood in much of southern France, Catalonia (where it’s an official language) and even Calabria in Italy. In the mid-19th century about 40% of the French population were Occitan speakers, but that proportion has dwindled to about 6% today. One of the many descendants of Latin, it is well over 1000 years old and most closely related to Catalan among existing Romance languages.

I normally find the journalism in the UK Guardian quite acceptable, and often stimulating, so was pleased to note the other day that they were about to run a series of articles on France: ‘Welcome to France The Guardian’s four-part Europe season leaves Germany and continues this week with an in-depth look at France’.  Readers were exhorted to ‘Stay with us on this month-long journey. Get to know your neighbours a bit better’.

The first article was anything but in-depth, although to be fair, it was titled ‘At-a-glance Guide to France’.  If I had been the sub-editor, I would have chosen something like, ‘Stereotypes of France 101’.

I don’t wish to give this sort of thing more oxygen than it deserves, so I won’t be doing a detailed analysis, but will instead take a quick look at the stereotypes that say more about the English who continually perpetuate them, than they do of the French.  The tone veers from flippantly insulting—‘Charles de Gaulle, the Fifth Republic, bye bye Algeria, a leader among European nations. Cheese-eating surrender monkeys. What more is there to say?’—to the grudgingly envious when speaking of the geographical richness: ‘France just about has it all. This explains why it remains the most visited country in the world, and why the French are so infuriatingly proud of it’.

So when I reached the section on Food and Drink and read that ‘this remains a country where you can walk into a small-town provincial restaurant and confidently expect to find half a dozen men in builders’ overalls sitting down to a three-course lunch, which says something about the importance of food to France’s popular culture’, this didn’t sound to me like a neighbourly celebration of France’s égalité.

Indeed, anyone with a genuine appreciation of France would barely register such a restaurant scene. It would not even show up on the radar. But to the English, it is nothing short of heresy, hence the need to mention the men’s occupation and attire. In England, presumably, ‘men in builders overalls’ are part of the lumpen proletariat, and know their place, whatever that is, but certainly not in any decent restaurant where three-course lunches are served.  In England, builders or their labourers would be calling it ‘dinner’ for a start (the classes are so separate they even have their own vocabulary—whole books have been written on this), and should eat it in the corner pub (providing it hasn’t been gentrified and adopted a ‘dress standard’), or better still a greasy workers’ café. The mention of the number of courses seems to suggest that such people in England very likely wouldn’t have any idea that there should be three courses, unless the third was an extra pint of ale.

Two other sections made me see red. One was Entertainment, which offered this gem of high-class insightful journalism: ‘French television is, for the most part, unmitigated crap: game shows, variety shows, reality shows, debate shows.’ Debate shows! Now there’s an oxymoron. I watch quite a lot of television when I am in France, mostly France 2 and 3 (state-owned, so a bit like the ABC), and have watched some of the most stimulating debates I have ever seen. They make our (Australian) Q&A program look very tame, especially those endless puerile tweets. I have watched debates on relationships, on architecture, on music.

During the 2007 French presidential election campaign, there were many televised debates of the leaders of the 12 parties that were contesting. Most of them spoke eloquently and clearly. All had Ideas, and Things To Say, which may sound as odd to the English as it does to us in Australia. More recently, in February this year, I watched a 2-hour program, ‘Paroles des Francais’, in which a number of French people, chosen from many walks of life, debated with Nicolas Sarkozy.

Now I am no fan of Sarkozy, and the people were very likely hand-picked, with their comments vetted in advance; Sarkozy certainly answered every point readily, as if he had done his homework, and perhaps was even using an autocue. But he talked at length, and I did not hear one mention of the opposition. If this had been an Australian ‘debate’, his responses would have only been about the opposition.  Yes Sarkozy responded to his interlocutors’ concerns in what appeared to be an egalitarian fashion, with ideas and measures that he said he would implement. Of course, whether or not he does is another matter. But it was a style of debate of which we see very little in Australia.

But the absolute worst part of this article was the last: Love and Sex. Here we learn that: ‘French men and women are permanently engaged in the great and grim Gallic game of seduction. Flirtation is the norm, infidelity accepted and very much expected, at least in certain circles’.

This turned my thoughts to French films which, as with films of many countries, deal extensively with relationships and infidelities. Yet in these films, infidelities are not in any way ‘expected’ or ‘tolerated’ although, as everywhere, they do occur.  When betrayed, a partner is usually devastated. These films wouldn’t make any sense to their primary audience, the French, if infidelity was ‘accepted and expected’.  Even in the few movies I’ve just managed to see as part of the French film festival here in Melbourne this point was borne out in films such as Blind Date, Beautiful Lies, and the most exquisite Women on the Sixth Floor.

I have been visiting France since 1968 (admittedly, I was too young then to judge how much seduction was going on), and in recent years have spent an average of three months there each year. I have among my French friends singles and couples ranging from their 20s to their 70s.  Among my friends and acquaintances, I see no more ‘seduction’ and ‘flirtation’ than I see in Australia, which is to say—very little.

With friends in town who are Francophile but NOT Francophone, where can one take them for a night out? After a little googling, I discovered Olivier Giraud’s one-man show ‘How to become Parisian in one hour’. Even better, the event was at a little theatre about a five-minute walk from my apartment in the twelfth, Theatre de la main d’or, right across the road from Metro Ledru Rollin.

One can learn a lot about a culture from its humour. Think of Little Britain, or The Office (UK) or, in Australia, Kath and Kim, or Summer Heights High. But humour is often the hardest thing to ‘get’ in another language as it’s so idiomatic. So when French humour, directed against the French, is delivered in English, it’s not to be missed.

But first, fast-forward to the end of the show when Olivier Giraud explained that when he had had the original idea—stand-up comedy about the Parisians, delivered in English—theatre managers in Paris thought he was crazy. Finally he persuaded Theatre de la Main d’Or to put it on, and he’s been performing his show to 250 people several times a week for two years!

There is a cosy bar at the theatre and we arrived early and sat and eavesdropped, and were surprised to find that about 90% of the audience seemed to be local Parisians. We wondered if foreigners  were going to be dragged up on stage, and so decided to keep our heads down and pretend we were French.

Sure enough, not far into the show, Olivier asked if there were any non-French in the audience, and various people were only to happy to call out that they were from South America, Scandinavia, Rumania, USA, and so on. No one called out ‘Australia’, and although I wanted to, my son gave me a stern look, so I didn’t dare.

It was just as well, as ‘volunteers’ were called up and taught to ‘dance like a Parisian’, or ‘kiss on both cheeks’ etc, but it was all done quite gently and the volunteers seemed to be extroverted types who were enjoying themselves.

American tourists were certainly lampooned, but so too were French people. One of the main points was that American tourists smile a lot and think everything in Paris is just magnificent, but often don’t bother to learn any French. Olivier taught us to pout and look haughty, shrug and yell ‘putain’ a lot.

There were sections that were definitely NOT for children, about which he did warn us, and one woman who had brought her two children quickly left. But I was there with my son and daughter in law, and am old enough to be a grandmother, and I wasn’t embarrassed!  In fact a lot of the time I laughed till it hurt.

At the end Olivier said he plans to take his show to other countries including the USA, but I’m not sure it would have the same resonance that it has in Paris. If he does go elsewhere, though, I hope he comes to Australia, where I’m certain we have the highest per capita number of Francophiles in the world.