Never let it be said that France Telecom is unfair. Inefficient, greedy, expensive, yes, but unfair...no.
It has been the objet of press speculation recently as there have been several cases of suicide by employees of the institution, suffering from stress at work, apparently from the pressure to meet targets as the giant of telecommunications has faced the task of losing its' comfortable monopoly and keeping pace with its' competitors. It has a problem...telecommunications have changed radically in France, people moving from fixed line to mobile deals, but France Telecom, needing to cut costs, cannot shed employees. From its' days as a state institution, it has inherited staff with the right to a job for life, and all it can do is to try to retrain these people for the new business world in which they find themselves, or bribe them to leave, with offers of financial support to set up their own businesses. Should these businesses fold however, France Telecom will take back the people involved and find them a job again! As I have had cause to remark before, the French love to have their cake and eat it too.
Apparently, even the staff union admits that the rate of suicide is 'normal' for France Telecom and is inferior to the national norm, but the phenomenon has been brought to public attention as part of an attack on management practices at FT. Now, if I had been a lineman for years, stuck out on a pole in the middle of the countryside, I think I might find it difficult to adjust to working in a call centre with targets to meet, and, in general, even commercial staff, used to a captive clientele whom they could abuse at will, must find it difficult to find themselves obliged to coax rather than command, but why would one resort to suicide if one was sure of a job for life?
The answer seems to be in part that FT did not anticipate that there might be a problem in changing the mode of work of their employees, and, in fact, announced earlier this year that the old culture would have to change without doing anything to facilitate that change. Only now that the matter has reached public attention has management installed processes of dialogue to defuse delicate situations. The root of it lies in the underlying culture of France, where the state embodies the will of the people. When FT was part of the state apparatus, its' employees could feel superior to their clients...they were part of the governing caste, even if very low down in the food chain. Suddenly, they find themselves in the position of having to conciliate their clients, attract them to what FT has to offer, instead of depriving them of access if not of good behaviour as in the good old days.
France Telecom has only itself to blame for the flight of clients to its competitors...a history of high prices and poor service is difficult to overcome, and changing its name to Orange was clearly not the answer.
The task of the outdoorsmen in the call centres will not be made easier by the latest headline.
A gentleman living near Valenciennes, near the Belgian border, subscribed for an internet and telephone offer at a fixed fee of 95 Euros per month. Figure his surprise to receive his first monthly bill for 45,000 Euros, give or take a sou or two.
He refused to pay, FT...or Orange, rather...is already sending reminders, and he discovers that
a) the offer he subscribed to is not the offer he was given
and
b) he is being charged for international calls at a rate worthy of a business class hotel.
The former point is sort of admitted by FT, while the latter remains mired in mystery, although it has been suggested that, as he lives so close to the border, he has been routed via the Belgian network, which would reconcile the volume of international calls with his claim that he has made none whatsoever.
So, as I say, never claim that France Telecom is not fair....evenhandedly, it drives both its employees and its customers to thoughts of suicide.
Monday, 16 November 2009
Sunday, 15 November 2009
Sarkozy's season of illwill is upon us
The summer switched itself off dramatically into frosts, then rain, and now gales.....and the leaves started to fall. As did the bills.
This is the time of year when I keep a bottle of whisky and a comfortable chair by the back door, for emergency aid when opening the daily post, which seems to to consist solely of demands for money which I would rather spend on other things...like whisky and comfortable chairs.
I have recovered from the income tax bill....I will never recover from the bill for paying off the various deficits undertaken by successive French governments - the CSG - which just about doubles the income tax bill....the taxe professionelle taxes me considerably in every sense of the word, but, at least, they all come in the good weather. The taxe fonciere, the taxe d'habitation, the water bill, the electricity bill and the house insurance renewal all arrive in the dead season of the year, when the days grow rapidly shorter.....as does, I feel, my life expectancy. I suppose that in summer I am busy, warm and relatively optimistic, while at this time of year the bills are just one other indication that life feels nasty, brutish and short.
Still, worse is about to befall me. President Sarkozy has decided to alter the way in which local government is funded. At the moment, the greater part of local government revenue comes from the tax on business, the taxe professionelle, and, as part of his reform package, he wishes to lighten the burden on the productive part of the French economy by reducing the taxes to which it is subject. Wonderful, one might think, but there is a downside. How is local government to react?
Faced with the loss of revenue on one hand, and growing responsibilities on the other, local government is looking about itself to find another source of revenue to replace the business tax and has, as always, lighted upon the obvious source of revenue, one which cannot, by its' very nature, be hidden. Property.
It is proposed to undertake a re-evaluation of property with a view to increasing the revenue from the taxe fonciere, the property tax, which already reaches obscene proportions. Last undertaken in the 1970s, I believe, this re-evaluation exercise will no doubt be an opportunity for dubious gradings and inefficient adjudication, which will further depress the property market just as it starts to pick up again.
To sweeten the pill, the tax hike will not be visited upon current proprietors, but will come into force when a property changes hands, so that prospective purchasers, already burdened by the exorbitant costs involved in buying a property, will find themselves facing a potential property tax well above the amount paid by the vendors.
All this begs the question of what local government is to do to fill the 'hungry gap' between the demise of the business tax and the realisation of the new property tax. No one seems to know.
The proposal has further divided the ruling right wing party, the UMP. Sarkozy, for all he is a product of the Paris microcosm, needed the support of the rural right wing vote to be elected, and the rural right wing deputies and senators are deeply opposed to proposals which weaken their power base in local government. Further, these representatives are of the Chiracian persuasion - cattle shows and wine fairs rather than the culture of the capital - and Sarkozy, with his recent history of blunders in respect of the Clearstream case, his culture minister's proclivities and his son's abortive ascent to power, is seen as vulnerable to pressure from the old guard of the UMP.
General Cambronne, when called upon to save the lives of his soldiers of Napoleon's Old Guard after Waterloo, announced - it is said -
'The Guard dies, it does not surrender.'
What he actually said is more in tune with the view currently taken by the old guard of the UMP.
'Merde.'
This is the time of year when I keep a bottle of whisky and a comfortable chair by the back door, for emergency aid when opening the daily post, which seems to to consist solely of demands for money which I would rather spend on other things...like whisky and comfortable chairs.
I have recovered from the income tax bill....I will never recover from the bill for paying off the various deficits undertaken by successive French governments - the CSG - which just about doubles the income tax bill....the taxe professionelle taxes me considerably in every sense of the word, but, at least, they all come in the good weather. The taxe fonciere, the taxe d'habitation, the water bill, the electricity bill and the house insurance renewal all arrive in the dead season of the year, when the days grow rapidly shorter.....as does, I feel, my life expectancy. I suppose that in summer I am busy, warm and relatively optimistic, while at this time of year the bills are just one other indication that life feels nasty, brutish and short.
Still, worse is about to befall me. President Sarkozy has decided to alter the way in which local government is funded. At the moment, the greater part of local government revenue comes from the tax on business, the taxe professionelle, and, as part of his reform package, he wishes to lighten the burden on the productive part of the French economy by reducing the taxes to which it is subject. Wonderful, one might think, but there is a downside. How is local government to react?
Faced with the loss of revenue on one hand, and growing responsibilities on the other, local government is looking about itself to find another source of revenue to replace the business tax and has, as always, lighted upon the obvious source of revenue, one which cannot, by its' very nature, be hidden. Property.
It is proposed to undertake a re-evaluation of property with a view to increasing the revenue from the taxe fonciere, the property tax, which already reaches obscene proportions. Last undertaken in the 1970s, I believe, this re-evaluation exercise will no doubt be an opportunity for dubious gradings and inefficient adjudication, which will further depress the property market just as it starts to pick up again.
To sweeten the pill, the tax hike will not be visited upon current proprietors, but will come into force when a property changes hands, so that prospective purchasers, already burdened by the exorbitant costs involved in buying a property, will find themselves facing a potential property tax well above the amount paid by the vendors.
All this begs the question of what local government is to do to fill the 'hungry gap' between the demise of the business tax and the realisation of the new property tax. No one seems to know.
The proposal has further divided the ruling right wing party, the UMP. Sarkozy, for all he is a product of the Paris microcosm, needed the support of the rural right wing vote to be elected, and the rural right wing deputies and senators are deeply opposed to proposals which weaken their power base in local government. Further, these representatives are of the Chiracian persuasion - cattle shows and wine fairs rather than the culture of the capital - and Sarkozy, with his recent history of blunders in respect of the Clearstream case, his culture minister's proclivities and his son's abortive ascent to power, is seen as vulnerable to pressure from the old guard of the UMP.
General Cambronne, when called upon to save the lives of his soldiers of Napoleon's Old Guard after Waterloo, announced - it is said -
'The Guard dies, it does not surrender.'
What he actually said is more in tune with the view currently taken by the old guard of the UMP.
'Merde.'
Saturday, 14 November 2009
Transport of delight
I have been in the UK, visiting mother....for the first time since I moved to France, she has not been well enough to visit me, so the mountain went to Mahommet, and, surprisingly, enjoyed the whole trip. I might want to lie down for a few days to recover from it, but I enjoyed it.
Firstly, I didn't have to take a French train. Kind friends took me to the little one horse airport whence Ryanair flies to Stansted, whose cafe seems to attract a lot of local lunchtime custom, and left me to my own devices.
Noting the cost of checked baggage when I booked online, I took only hand luggage, and did not book priority boarding. I was flexible about dates and got a super cheap fare...so far, all positives. At the airport, I was processed without having to queue, the staff were far from draconian about the hand luggage regulations, security was fast and efficient and there were so few people who had booked priority boarding that it would have been a meaningless expense.
The 'plane was on time and I enjoyed the freedom of being able to board at either end of the plane, unlike the regular airlines' practice of making cattle class customers board through the first class and business class section, where I am forced to observe people on expense accounts lolling at their ease with free newspapers, while I struggle through to the lairage at the back. Why, when we have video conferencing, do these people need to travel the world? Why does no one seem to realise that we, customers, citizens, mugs, are paying for their comfort, whether through our taxes or in the price of the products their firms produce? Never mind taking the drinks trolley round....wheel on the portable guillotine and let the cabin crew have some fun for once. It would perk up the flight watching that being trundled down to the first class section. I'd even take up knitting if necessary.
Still, on my short flight the cabin staff were pleasant and efficient, and although they were constantly trying to sell me something it did not bother me as I go deaf in 'planes , nor would it have done if I had retained my hearing as I have also retained the power to decline what I don't want. Ryanair has a bad press, but it was all right by me.
Friends met me at Stansted and took me home for a super evening of good food, many laughs and a chance to investigate the Italian wines they were starting to import.....then on the next day they took me to the station....to get a real train! One which didn't have steps up into the carriage from the platform. One I could board without fear of splitting my tights. Carriages with proper luggage racks so that I could keep an eye on my baggage.
When I was last in the U.K., everything was still British Rail, so the new company names took me aback, but the trains themselves were reassuringly tatty, even if the London terminals had been alarmingly tarted up. When did Liverpool Street stop being a pit of stygian gloom? I could actually see the other passengers as I walked down the platform...most disconcerting. In the good old days of Liverpool Street I think you could have walked about naked and no one would have been able to spot your Lady Godiva apparel, so dark was the station concourse.
The Underground was unchanged...apart from having ticket machines which took all sorts of money and gave change...clanking and rattling through the bowels of London, and, inevitably, on the return journey, when time was of the essence for catching the 'plane, the Bakerloo Line was paralysed by a signal failure at Baker Street. Ah, the nostalgia! Alternative routes on trains already so packed that you needed Japanese station attendants to shove passengers into the ambulant Black Hole of Calcutta within. Trained on the Boy Scouts' jumble sales in the church hall in the days of my youth, I used my elbows to good effect and was borne away triumphant. It has to be like riding a bicycle, the technique for getting into a rush hour Tube train - you never forget.
Buses, both in London and the provinces, that you enter at pavement height....buses that indicate the next stop so that you are not borne on into the wilds, despairingly looking for the first stop after Kensal Rise station...buses with flat fares so that there are no arguments with the driver when you do overshoot your destination.....absolute bliss!
The whole thing, from start to finish was, to quote Flanders and Swann, a transport of delight. And mother wasn't too bad, either.
Firstly, I didn't have to take a French train. Kind friends took me to the little one horse airport whence Ryanair flies to Stansted, whose cafe seems to attract a lot of local lunchtime custom, and left me to my own devices.
Noting the cost of checked baggage when I booked online, I took only hand luggage, and did not book priority boarding. I was flexible about dates and got a super cheap fare...so far, all positives. At the airport, I was processed without having to queue, the staff were far from draconian about the hand luggage regulations, security was fast and efficient and there were so few people who had booked priority boarding that it would have been a meaningless expense.
The 'plane was on time and I enjoyed the freedom of being able to board at either end of the plane, unlike the regular airlines' practice of making cattle class customers board through the first class and business class section, where I am forced to observe people on expense accounts lolling at their ease with free newspapers, while I struggle through to the lairage at the back. Why, when we have video conferencing, do these people need to travel the world? Why does no one seem to realise that we, customers, citizens, mugs, are paying for their comfort, whether through our taxes or in the price of the products their firms produce? Never mind taking the drinks trolley round....wheel on the portable guillotine and let the cabin crew have some fun for once. It would perk up the flight watching that being trundled down to the first class section. I'd even take up knitting if necessary.
Still, on my short flight the cabin staff were pleasant and efficient, and although they were constantly trying to sell me something it did not bother me as I go deaf in 'planes , nor would it have done if I had retained my hearing as I have also retained the power to decline what I don't want. Ryanair has a bad press, but it was all right by me.
Friends met me at Stansted and took me home for a super evening of good food, many laughs and a chance to investigate the Italian wines they were starting to import.....then on the next day they took me to the station....to get a real train! One which didn't have steps up into the carriage from the platform. One I could board without fear of splitting my tights. Carriages with proper luggage racks so that I could keep an eye on my baggage.
When I was last in the U.K., everything was still British Rail, so the new company names took me aback, but the trains themselves were reassuringly tatty, even if the London terminals had been alarmingly tarted up. When did Liverpool Street stop being a pit of stygian gloom? I could actually see the other passengers as I walked down the platform...most disconcerting. In the good old days of Liverpool Street I think you could have walked about naked and no one would have been able to spot your Lady Godiva apparel, so dark was the station concourse.
The Underground was unchanged...apart from having ticket machines which took all sorts of money and gave change...clanking and rattling through the bowels of London, and, inevitably, on the return journey, when time was of the essence for catching the 'plane, the Bakerloo Line was paralysed by a signal failure at Baker Street. Ah, the nostalgia! Alternative routes on trains already so packed that you needed Japanese station attendants to shove passengers into the ambulant Black Hole of Calcutta within. Trained on the Boy Scouts' jumble sales in the church hall in the days of my youth, I used my elbows to good effect and was borne away triumphant. It has to be like riding a bicycle, the technique for getting into a rush hour Tube train - you never forget.
Buses, both in London and the provinces, that you enter at pavement height....buses that indicate the next stop so that you are not borne on into the wilds, despairingly looking for the first stop after Kensal Rise station...buses with flat fares so that there are no arguments with the driver when you do overshoot your destination.....absolute bliss!
The whole thing, from start to finish was, to quote Flanders and Swann, a transport of delight. And mother wasn't too bad, either.
Friday, 13 November 2009
Healing with herbs
I hadn't met up with Raymond for ages when I bumped into him in the local hospital waiting room.
No he was not ill, he had brought his neighbour for an appointment.
No, I wasn't ill, I was waiting for my husband to emerge from a session of treatment.
We caught up with the news.....
Mme Lebon's alarming baring of her breast in the pharmacy was because she had a tick under her bra and the chemist was going to put ether on the beast to remove it, thus disappointing those agog for tales of illicit lust among the suppositories......
not surprisingly, knowing the maire concerned, the unexpected installation of electricity to a chapel out in the fields had resulted in the land between the chapel and the village, which belonged to a crony of the maire, becoming eligible for construction......
the travellers had elected the field behind the supermarket for their winter quarters with the result that no one wanted to leave their car unattended in the carpark and were decamping to do their shopping at Lidl in the next town.........
in short, life as usual in rural France.
Was Raymond going to have the swine 'flu jab? He gave me an old fashioned look and announced firmly that, as I should know, he did not believe in new fangled remedies. True, he had probably still been using leeches while modern medicine was only just rediscovering their value, and true also, he was a living testimony to traditional medicine, hale and hearty in his mid seventies after a life of hard work outdoors.
Not for him, either, the modern 'bio' or 'natural' products available in the pharmacy.....they cost money which was better spent on other things.
His neighbour emerged, and Raymond rose, ready to leave. We shook hands as he announced
'I'll give you a tip for keeping in good health, and' ....looking around him.....'keeping out of these unhealthy hospitals where you can pick up goodness knows what.'
'Remember, nature is best......just stick to the vine, barley, hops and tobacco and you'll live a long and happy life.'
He made for the exit, supporting his neighbour, a credit to his credo for good health and sublimely oblivious of the outraged expressions of the health professionals in his wake.
No he was not ill, he had brought his neighbour for an appointment.
No, I wasn't ill, I was waiting for my husband to emerge from a session of treatment.
We caught up with the news.....
Mme Lebon's alarming baring of her breast in the pharmacy was because she had a tick under her bra and the chemist was going to put ether on the beast to remove it, thus disappointing those agog for tales of illicit lust among the suppositories......
not surprisingly, knowing the maire concerned, the unexpected installation of electricity to a chapel out in the fields had resulted in the land between the chapel and the village, which belonged to a crony of the maire, becoming eligible for construction......
the travellers had elected the field behind the supermarket for their winter quarters with the result that no one wanted to leave their car unattended in the carpark and were decamping to do their shopping at Lidl in the next town.........
in short, life as usual in rural France.
Was Raymond going to have the swine 'flu jab? He gave me an old fashioned look and announced firmly that, as I should know, he did not believe in new fangled remedies. True, he had probably still been using leeches while modern medicine was only just rediscovering their value, and true also, he was a living testimony to traditional medicine, hale and hearty in his mid seventies after a life of hard work outdoors.
Not for him, either, the modern 'bio' or 'natural' products available in the pharmacy.....they cost money which was better spent on other things.
His neighbour emerged, and Raymond rose, ready to leave. We shook hands as he announced
'I'll give you a tip for keeping in good health, and' ....looking around him.....'keeping out of these unhealthy hospitals where you can pick up goodness knows what.'
'Remember, nature is best......just stick to the vine, barley, hops and tobacco and you'll live a long and happy life.'
He made for the exit, supporting his neighbour, a credit to his credo for good health and sublimely oblivious of the outraged expressions of the health professionals in his wake.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Whatever do you find to do in the country?
The question has been posed yet again by a visitor from the city, brought over for a drink by a friend. Over the years, non country dwellers have come up with this one time after time, probably deluded by the fact that we are all sitting on the terrace with a glass of wine, or by the fire with a glass of whisky, into believing that this is all we ever do. What bothers me is why they should think we would want to do anything other than sit quietly with the glass that cheers and also inebriates. Fat chance to do so in my experience, except when I drop everything when there are visitors.
For a start, there is the never ending house maintenance.....I firmly believe that the French have invented the world's only non stick paint....which in this house always seems to involve putting up a scaffold, or the highest ladder we possess and juggling with paint pot, brush and cloth at altitudes which would affect boiling a kettle. And I'm only just up there when a voice will be heard from the kitchen, or, worse, from outside, demanding my immediate presence to sign for a registered letter, look for a form for the taxman or accept a bucket of snails from my neighbour to pass on with my own collection of said to Didier when he comes later so that his wife can put them in the drum of the washing machine to start purging.
There is the garden....acres of it. Grass to cut with the ride on mower, teetering uneasily round the uneven lip of the pond, careering wildly down the slope to the bottom lawn, panicking at having to come out onto the road on a blind bend to get the thing back to the garage at the end of operations. Veg garden to weed, fruit trees to prune. Fruit and veg to harvest and process, asking oneself why malign fate always brings the strawberries on at the hottest moment of the year for making jam. Bringing the tender plants in at the onset of autumn.....instant hernia, given their size and the weight of the pots. Repeat instant hernia in spring, putting them all out again.
For a start, there is the never ending house maintenance.....I firmly believe that the French have invented the world's only non stick paint....which in this house always seems to involve putting up a scaffold, or the highest ladder we possess and juggling with paint pot, brush and cloth at altitudes which would affect boiling a kettle. And I'm only just up there when a voice will be heard from the kitchen, or, worse, from outside, demanding my immediate presence to sign for a registered letter, look for a form for the taxman or accept a bucket of snails from my neighbour to pass on with my own collection of said to Didier when he comes later so that his wife can put them in the drum of the washing machine to start purging.
There is the garden....acres of it. Grass to cut with the ride on mower, teetering uneasily round the uneven lip of the pond, careering wildly down the slope to the bottom lawn, panicking at having to come out onto the road on a blind bend to get the thing back to the garage at the end of operations. Veg garden to weed, fruit trees to prune. Fruit and veg to harvest and process, asking oneself why malign fate always brings the strawberries on at the hottest moment of the year for making jam. Bringing the tender plants in at the onset of autumn.....instant hernia, given their size and the weight of the pots. Repeat instant hernia in spring, putting them all out again.
Housework.......pass. The annual balancing act on boards between the beams reminds me never again to have a cathedral ceiling and certainly no vantage point from which to see the dust and other objects on top of the bookcases. The hoover is a wonderful tool, but I would love to have one on each floor to avoid the mountaineering feats with the tube coiling round my legs like some degenerate depiction of the fate of Lacoon. If ever I am found at the foot of the stairs it will be no Amy Robsart mystery...it was the hoover wot dun it!
Cooking, eating and washing up. The insistence on three cooked meals per day means that I am very glad to have a good view from my kitchen window, where the battery radio is installed on the sill, ready for Test Match Special, and also ready to be carried down to the freezer lair in the cave when the game reaches some intense moment.......'they're booing Ponting again'....which cannot be abandoned. Washing up can be a refuge when the house is full of guests.....the well trained ones know that I like a bit of peace and quiet and the sink and dishwasher provide just that while the maelstrom rolls over the rest of the house.
The seasonal occupations. Picking sloe shoots in the spring to make epine....making epine, buying wine in cubis and bottling up. Summer, endless jam and chutney, hunting out wild asparagus. Autumn, picking grapes, making pineau, fermenting the plums for eau de vie, going out to look for mushrooms, drying said on return, going to local mushroom exhibition and being convinced that have eaten all those marked with a skull and crossbones. Winter, sneaking out on the byways to distill the plums into eau de vie and bottling up on return, chopping wood and dicing death with the circular saw. Christmas, answering the door to and providing drinks for the postpersons, fire brigade volunteers, dustmen and sporting club presidents eager to present you with their calendars and accept your token of appreciation in return.
Social life. More restricted these days, thanks to age and health, but our circle is one where an invitation to lunch means that you cross out the whole day on the calendar and make a mental note to do nothing strenuous the day after. Weddings, likewise, especially if invited to the ceremony, the vin d'honneur, the meal and then the party in the evening. Nothing strenuous for a week after that. Baptisms likewise, but not quite so heavyweight. Funerals...it all depends. If it's in a church run by the black cassocked fanatic, then it's always worth annoying him by refusing to cense the coffin and just to touch it as a mark of respect together with all the other renegades gathered in the back of the church...if it's run by his colleague, he just beams beatifically whatever you choose to do. The walk to the cemetery following the coffin can be long..but there's always the gossip to catch up on, and the return walk is enlivened by the prospect of a quick one in the bar. Bal dansant.....too dangerous these days with all those whirling bodies. Couscous evening in aid of the local school.....lethal to any swift movement the day following. Fire brigade ball....for some reason, bacchanalia guaranteed, but at least you can lurk behind the tables while the mayhem takes place on the dance floor, and if you don't go they might not be in a hurry to come out to your house fire.
Participative democracy. Meetings in local village halls to tell us what higher authority has decided to do with our taxes. Start time variable, but they won't break up until everyone has had their say and higher authority has replied that it doesn't care what anyone has said, it has already made the decision.
Shopping. Grouping the trips to save petrol, parking in the supermarket car park which has been specially designed to make extracting your car something akin to the dodgems, discovering that what was advertised in the publicity delivered to your door isn't actually in the shop. Queuing behind the deafest pensioner in France in the post office. Braving the tax office only to find that my taxman is on holiday....again.
I've only touched the surface.....contemplating it in detail would be too much to ask...but I would like the visitor from the city to try it and a year later return to hear her answer to her own question...but I have a suspicion that she would have turned tail long before the year was up.
You can laugh, Ayak, I shall understand....
Apologies to the people kind enough to give me blog awards...I have thanked you all at the time, both on mine and on yours, but for the life of me I can't get your names under the appropriate pic alongside....... I shall probably give up and remove the feature altogether before I return to hurling heavy objects, all too appropriate language and head boiling.
However, I would like to pass on the 'The Icing on the Cake' award to
An old Biddie's life
http://trisha-in-france.blogspot.com/
a super read about what is happening in the life and times of a lady who thought she was retiring to France and then found herself in non stop activity with all that has happened in her life since!
However, I would like to pass on the 'The Icing on the Cake' award to
An old Biddie's life
http://trisha-in-france.blogspot.com/
a super read about what is happening in the life and times of a lady who thought she was retiring to France and then found herself in non stop activity with all that has happened in her life since!
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Why don't I want to be French?
A debate is taking place on what it means to be French, inspired by the minister dealing, or not, with immigration, Eric Besson.....whose ex wife's book details his refusal to vow fidelity at their wedding ceremony, a refusal validated by what she has to say about his serial infidelities during the marriage. Perish the thought that a politician could be inconsistent, so one can only suppose that he thinks marital infidelity is one component of the French identity he wishes to promote among native French and immigrants alike. I knew that he opposed women wearing the burqua, but his wife's revelations now lead me to suppose that it might not be a cultural question as such, but more of an objection to an obstacle to his ability to size up the talent.
Wanting to have your cake and eating it might well figure as a more general French characteristic.....contestants in the Koh Lanta television 'reality' show - a designation which has always puzzled me given the nature of these programmes - have claimed that they were not participants, but, get this, employees! Furthermore, a court agrees with them, and they have been awarded their entitlement - a few days paid at the minimum wage, the SMIC, and their social security payments made for the period. The television company concerned has, following the logic of the ruling, decided that as the winner was in fact an employee they don't have to pay him the prize he won by eating beetles and suffering the humiliations inseparable from reality shows, just a few days' pay on the SMIC. Not quite what he bargained for, but then, anything to do with eating cake in France has been a bit risky ever since the days of Marie Antoinette.
As part of Monsieur Besson's campaign to emphasise French identity, it has been proposed that children should sing the national anthem, 'La Marseillaise', at least once a year in their schools. A brief perusal of the words reveals a certain lack of warmth toward those other than the native French.....are the French to support the presence in their country of foreign cohorts who would impose their own laws upon the French? Well, bang goes the European Union then. Impure blood shall flow in the furrows of the fields.....we get the message, thanks. France is for the French.
Which brings us full circle. What is it that makes someone French? Born in France...perhaps, in terms of nationality, in formal terms, but what makes someone shout for the French team in the Six Nations rugby tournament, or for 'les bleus' - the national football team? I don't qualify, that's for sure. In the last rugby world cup, held in France, France beat England in the preliminary rounds.....all around us, deep in the country, the night air resounded to 'La Marseillaise' bawled from every farm - impure blood had appropriately been made to flow, no doubt. When England beat France in the semi finals, no sound whatever rent the firmament, except for 'Rule Britannia' blasting out from the speakers on our terrace. If I'd had 'Hearts of Oak' I'd have played that too. I'd never pass the Tebbit test, any more than would the north african immigrants and their families who whistled down 'La Marseillaise' at a football match between France and Algeria in Paris.
Perhaps we should be posing a different question. Why is it that people who come to France to live and work don't want to identify with the country? Let's start with why I was playing 'Rule Britannia' during the rugby world cup as I am more at ease and, shall we say authoritative, in the examination of my own reactions than in pontificating about others.
I cannot say that I ever thought of myself in terms of my nationality...I had a culture and the associated assumptions and I thought that these were common to Europe....our shared christian, post Roman heritage. Then I moved to France.
I cannot claim either that I swiftly became aware that it was not just a question of language...I was living out in the sticks among ordinary people, learning to communicate, imbibing their customs and adjusting to their mentality. Except that I could not adjust. Why should decent, upright people feel that
'Nous sommes pour rien'........'We count for nothing'?
I began to learn. The French Revolution of 1789 mght have overturned royal power, but it was instigated and shaped by the French middle class, much more adept than the 'aristos' in exacting the last sou from the peasants living on the land these lawyers and merchants bought at the auctions of the property of those who had emigrated from France as the old order crumbled. Nothing much changed in the countryside until the German occupation in the 1940s when the farmers found that they could sell their produce at top prices both to the occupying power and to the starving people from the towns, so that at the end of the second world war, the farmers could afford to buy out the leases from their bourgeois landlords, impoverished by the war, and could become independent. Post war food policy and the Common Agricultural Policy further strengthened their position to the point where their interests began to mesh with those of the bourgeoisie proper, with whom they began to assimilate and to inherit the fruits of 1789. If you're not part of that group then, truly, you count for nothing.
I think that it is this fruit from a rotten tree that sets on edge the teeth of immigrants...the fanatical nationalism, the sense of superiority, the wish to impose, born of an era when the new France was surrounded on all sides by enemies......the vision of the state as embodying the will of the people - and woe betide any sector of the people who disagree........the obscene lust for money and the pursuit of the last brass farthing, the actual religion of the bourgeoisie who came to power at the fall of the monarchy.
As an immigrant, all goes well while you play the game. While you accept that someone incompetent will be appointed because they are French even though your qualifications are superior.....while you see your daughter, with a gift for languages, being directed to a career as a secretary rather than as a graduate level translator, because you were not born in France....while your children learn from newly qualified teachers, sent to the sink schools in the largely immigrant suburbs by an administration that doesn't consider it worthwhile to send in experienced staff to improve the life chances of children of non French parents.....while you accept the third world standards of service.....while you accept the rip offs from French artisans because you bear a foreign name....
When an immigrant doesn't accept his or her lot, the solids hit the fan.
I remember the employee of France Telecom, when upbraided for total incompetence, telling me that if I didn't like it, I could go home - not just to my house, but to my country of origin.
The railway clerk who refused to issue me with my prepaid and prebooked ticket responding to my request as to what I was supposed to do to get home with the lapid statement
'Vous etes foutue, Madame.' 'You're f.......ed, lady.'
The plumber who came in with an estimate for putting in a stop cock that would have paid for a last minute holiday in Turkey who became a red as a Turkey cock when it was queried, announcing that he had had enough of British clients....they shouldn't ask for estimates when they couldn't pay.
I have and have had a number of French friends, ordinary people, just trying to keep their heads above water. I have a few immigrant friends, not all of them British, either working or retired in France. The common denominator is that we all try to see things as they are, not as they are presented, and, in my case, that means playing 'Rule Britannia' when the England fifteen hammer France because I don't appreciate being treated as a second class citizen in a third rate society.
Now........let's just have cricket in the Olympics and I'll have to go looking for a recording of
'Advance, Australia fair.'
Wanting to have your cake and eating it might well figure as a more general French characteristic.....contestants in the Koh Lanta television 'reality' show - a designation which has always puzzled me given the nature of these programmes - have claimed that they were not participants, but, get this, employees! Furthermore, a court agrees with them, and they have been awarded their entitlement - a few days paid at the minimum wage, the SMIC, and their social security payments made for the period. The television company concerned has, following the logic of the ruling, decided that as the winner was in fact an employee they don't have to pay him the prize he won by eating beetles and suffering the humiliations inseparable from reality shows, just a few days' pay on the SMIC. Not quite what he bargained for, but then, anything to do with eating cake in France has been a bit risky ever since the days of Marie Antoinette.
As part of Monsieur Besson's campaign to emphasise French identity, it has been proposed that children should sing the national anthem, 'La Marseillaise', at least once a year in their schools. A brief perusal of the words reveals a certain lack of warmth toward those other than the native French.....are the French to support the presence in their country of foreign cohorts who would impose their own laws upon the French? Well, bang goes the European Union then. Impure blood shall flow in the furrows of the fields.....we get the message, thanks. France is for the French.
Which brings us full circle. What is it that makes someone French? Born in France...perhaps, in terms of nationality, in formal terms, but what makes someone shout for the French team in the Six Nations rugby tournament, or for 'les bleus' - the national football team? I don't qualify, that's for sure. In the last rugby world cup, held in France, France beat England in the preliminary rounds.....all around us, deep in the country, the night air resounded to 'La Marseillaise' bawled from every farm - impure blood had appropriately been made to flow, no doubt. When England beat France in the semi finals, no sound whatever rent the firmament, except for 'Rule Britannia' blasting out from the speakers on our terrace. If I'd had 'Hearts of Oak' I'd have played that too. I'd never pass the Tebbit test, any more than would the north african immigrants and their families who whistled down 'La Marseillaise' at a football match between France and Algeria in Paris.
Perhaps we should be posing a different question. Why is it that people who come to France to live and work don't want to identify with the country? Let's start with why I was playing 'Rule Britannia' during the rugby world cup as I am more at ease and, shall we say authoritative, in the examination of my own reactions than in pontificating about others.
I cannot say that I ever thought of myself in terms of my nationality...I had a culture and the associated assumptions and I thought that these were common to Europe....our shared christian, post Roman heritage. Then I moved to France.
I cannot claim either that I swiftly became aware that it was not just a question of language...I was living out in the sticks among ordinary people, learning to communicate, imbibing their customs and adjusting to their mentality. Except that I could not adjust. Why should decent, upright people feel that
'Nous sommes pour rien'........'We count for nothing'?
I began to learn. The French Revolution of 1789 mght have overturned royal power, but it was instigated and shaped by the French middle class, much more adept than the 'aristos' in exacting the last sou from the peasants living on the land these lawyers and merchants bought at the auctions of the property of those who had emigrated from France as the old order crumbled. Nothing much changed in the countryside until the German occupation in the 1940s when the farmers found that they could sell their produce at top prices both to the occupying power and to the starving people from the towns, so that at the end of the second world war, the farmers could afford to buy out the leases from their bourgeois landlords, impoverished by the war, and could become independent. Post war food policy and the Common Agricultural Policy further strengthened their position to the point where their interests began to mesh with those of the bourgeoisie proper, with whom they began to assimilate and to inherit the fruits of 1789. If you're not part of that group then, truly, you count for nothing.
I think that it is this fruit from a rotten tree that sets on edge the teeth of immigrants...the fanatical nationalism, the sense of superiority, the wish to impose, born of an era when the new France was surrounded on all sides by enemies......the vision of the state as embodying the will of the people - and woe betide any sector of the people who disagree........the obscene lust for money and the pursuit of the last brass farthing, the actual religion of the bourgeoisie who came to power at the fall of the monarchy.
As an immigrant, all goes well while you play the game. While you accept that someone incompetent will be appointed because they are French even though your qualifications are superior.....while you see your daughter, with a gift for languages, being directed to a career as a secretary rather than as a graduate level translator, because you were not born in France....while your children learn from newly qualified teachers, sent to the sink schools in the largely immigrant suburbs by an administration that doesn't consider it worthwhile to send in experienced staff to improve the life chances of children of non French parents.....while you accept the third world standards of service.....while you accept the rip offs from French artisans because you bear a foreign name....
When an immigrant doesn't accept his or her lot, the solids hit the fan.
I remember the employee of France Telecom, when upbraided for total incompetence, telling me that if I didn't like it, I could go home - not just to my house, but to my country of origin.
The railway clerk who refused to issue me with my prepaid and prebooked ticket responding to my request as to what I was supposed to do to get home with the lapid statement
'Vous etes foutue, Madame.' 'You're f.......ed, lady.'
The plumber who came in with an estimate for putting in a stop cock that would have paid for a last minute holiday in Turkey who became a red as a Turkey cock when it was queried, announcing that he had had enough of British clients....they shouldn't ask for estimates when they couldn't pay.
I have and have had a number of French friends, ordinary people, just trying to keep their heads above water. I have a few immigrant friends, not all of them British, either working or retired in France. The common denominator is that we all try to see things as they are, not as they are presented, and, in my case, that means playing 'Rule Britannia' when the England fifteen hammer France because I don't appreciate being treated as a second class citizen in a third rate society.
Now........let's just have cricket in the Olympics and I'll have to go looking for a recording of
'Advance, Australia fair.'
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