French Letter: Staying true to tradition is not always à la mode

Our neighbour, Jean-françois, a 56-year-old mechanic, went to Paris for the first time last weekend. He went with his son, Antony, a handsome fellow who always puts me in mind of the Chilean actor Santiago Cabrera, complete with a shock of black hair and beard like a spear. 

I vaguely assumed that Antony would take his dad to see the sights — the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, the Arc de Triomphe. But not a bit of it. They steered clear of tourist Paris confining their trip to an exhibition of classic cars, styled as the Salon Rétromobile, just inside the Péripherique by the Porte de Versailles. 

Arriving back three days later, Jean-françois beckoned me over to view the many — and I do mean hundreds — of pictures he had taken on his mobile phone. All were of cars. Of people or of La Ville Lumière itself, there was no sign. 

So what did he make of the capital? I asked. A grimace accompanied by a shake of the head. “Too many people, too much traffic.” His wife — who had chosen to stay at home rather than spend two days staring at old cars — rolled her eyes. 

Bretons are like that. Indeed, most of the French outside of the big cities are like that. They go “en vacance” once a year, nearly always to the same place, venturing abroad only when there is no alternative. The picture is changing, but only slowly. The under-thirties are more outgoing than their parents. French students consider a weekend in London almost as a right of passage. And those of all ages able to afford a camping car, or mobeel’ome, increasingly stray into Spain and Portugal, notably during the winter months. 

But the fact is that the French love France. Most of all they feel rooted to the village or commune where they were born and went to school. Like bad wine, they don’t travel well, or perhaps they just don’t like being foreigners. The main reason why houses in rural France sell for less than half what they would fetch in the UK is that they are typically lived in by the same owners throughout their adult lives. 

I would guess that no more than half a dozen inhabitants of our local village (population 533) over the age of 50 have ever been to Paris. Many, like Jean-françois, have yet to make it to Rennes, the lively Breton capital, or to Nantes, just two hours down the road. The exceptions, by and large, are those who went east in search of a career, only to return, aged 55, to live off their pensions. 

Paris feeds off the provinces. Even today, most of the city’s five million residents would claim to be from somewhere else. Regular trips home to visit the parents or grandparents are considered an important part of the calendar, not just acts of filial piety but a means of keeping faith with the culture into which they were born. 

The reality, of course, is that the big cities are like magnets. It is difficult to break their hold. If you are an ambitious university graduate or someone with skills that are in high demand, you will most likely end up either in Paris or in one of the other regional rivals. Back home, unless you are a doctor, a lawyer or a teacher, most jobs on offer these days provide security rather than opportunity. Outside of farming and its ancillary trades, the out-of-town service economy is what keeps the show on the road. Where it used to be that to get anything out of the ordinary, you had to travel miles, now every market town worth its salt boasts its circles of commercial hell. 

I thought America was where everything was the same wherever you went. But standardisation has hit provincial France with a vengeance. The pattern, repeated from Calais to Menton and from Brest to Mulhouse, is the Espace Commercial, with their vast warehouses and showrooms catering to every conceivable need. Don’t waste your time looking for a traditional brasserie serving its plats du jour, the recipes for which have been handed down through the generations. Lunch is provided exclusively by McDonald’s, Burger King, Domino’s Pizza and their bizarrely-named French equivalent, Buffalo Grill, complete with totem poles and feathered headdresses. 

The impact of American culture is everywhere apparent. Go to any Espace Culturel and what are the products that immediately catch the eye? Smartphones, video games and 64-inch (“64 pouces”) flatscreen TVs. The fact that much of what is on sale is in fact made in China rather than the US is only ironically the point. La France Profonde, I must reluctantly inform you, is deep in the merde. 

But not all is lost. A couple of days ago, after our weekly traipse around the village market, my wife and I retired to the Café de la Place, where all was exactly as it should be. Seated at two tables pulled together, as is her wont five mornings a week between ten o’clock and 10.45, was our very own home-grown Hyacinth Bucket, her blue rinse glistening, her grey eyes piercing, her husband and her faithful Scottie dog in their allotted places by her side. Around her, a group of women of a certain age, dressed up to the nines, their walking sticks perched in a row against the wall. They lean in as they talk. With every breath, a reputation dies. 

Over there, next to the radio tuned to the French station RTL, is Jean-Paul, in his sixties, looking like a retired middleweight boxer. Every morning he buys his bread at Intermarché (eschewing both the town’s boulangeries) before heading to the café for a sharpening beer or three. He likes to bellow, and either because they enjoy his company or in a bid to reduce the decibels, other elders of the town are quickly drawn to him, establishing a rival coven to that across the way. 

Sophie and Loic, who run the place, weave in and out of the customers, distributing coffees, hot chocolate, beers and variously flavoured kirs. The two young chefs, dressed all in black, sit at the table du patron gulping down their traditional French omelettes-frites before tackling the lunchtime menu. A little after 10.30, the delivery man appears, with his cases of wine balanced on a trolley that narrowly avoids a collision with the house dog, who has come out from beneath the counter to see what the fuss is about. 

We don’t have to place our order. It comes as it always does, along with a basket of croissants and pains-au-chocolat. “Voici. Oop-la!” On her way out, leading her ladies, Mme Bucket grants me a smile, then turns away. Her husband wishes me a shy bonne journée. One of these days, I must find out her name.