French Letter: the night the music stopped and I befriended the gendarmerie
Walter Ellis’ French Letter – July 2, 2021
For a long time, I have gone to bed early. Even in mid-summer, I am usually under the duvet by ten or ten-thirty. I read for a while, quickly losing interest, then reach for the light switch, drifting off (so I am told) just minutes later.
At any rate, that’s the plan. Last Saturday, feeling particularly virtuous after hours spent cutting back our increasingly monstrous front hedge, I was more than ready to let go of the day. But no sooner had I allowed my book of the month – The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz – to fall from my nerveless grasp than I was startled back into wakefulness by a 1980s disco that had evidently set up house on our front lawn.
In fact, when I stuck my head out the window, I realised that the noise – Boum! Boum! Boum! – was coming from somewhere further off. Only, I couldn’t place it. My wife thought it must be an overspill from the Vieilles Charues, the rock festival held each summer in nearby Carhaix – France’s version of Glastonbury. A quick check revealed, however, that it doesn’t start until July 8.
So who was making this infernal noise?
I could, I suppose, have donned my dressing gown and slippers and ventured into the night armed with my trusty rubberised torch. “I say! Whoever you are, what do you think you’re doing. Don’t you know decent people are trying to get some sleep!” Or something approximating to that in French. Needless to say, I didn’t.
Instead, my wife and I closed the bedroom window, switched on the fan and buried our heads in our pillows. It was no use, though. A 747 taking off on the road outside might have made more noise, but at least the aircraft would disappear into the clouds a minute later.
In the morning, with the throb of the drums still echoing in our ears, our neighbour, Jean-françois, rapped on the door. “Did you hear that? Claudine and I were kept awake all night. Some hippies have taken over Alexi’s field, and they’re running a techno-party.”
Jean-françois is an elected member of the local council and had already been in touch with the mayor, who was “looking into it”. But he had an important task to impart to me. If the music resumed on Sunday night, I was to phone the Gendarmerie and make sure they put a stop to it. He would do the same. I agreed and trudged back upstairs to catch up on some sleep.
That night, around ten, the drumming started up again: Boum! Boum! Boum! (why is it that melody and words don’t make it over the horizon, but drums and bass do?). I groped for my phone. Laboriously, I explained what was going on to the woman who answered, holding up the phone so that she could hear for herself. “Don’t worry, we will look into it, Monsieur,” she told me.
I sighed, confident that nothing would be done. After all, this was France, and the bureaucracy alone would take up most of the night or, more likely, the following day.
But I was wrong. Half an hour later, the music stopped. Abruptly. In mid-boum. And my wife and I were able to open the window and at last get some sleep.
I call that, service.
The next morning – Monday – my phone rang. It was the gendarmerie. I was required to report to the local cop shop at 2 pm on Wednesday to sign a deposition regarding my complaint. This was a bit of a bore. All I’d done was report a disturbance; I didn’t wish to make a federal case out of it. In the event, though, all went well.
The officer dealing with my case – an attractive young woman, no more than 26-years-old, was on her own in the gendarmerie, in sole charge that afternoon of what is technically a military installation. She opened the electric gates and beckoned me inside. This is where the bureaucracy hit in. I had to sign a formal statement (four times), answer detailed questions and declare that I either wanted or didn’t want to pursue the case and possibly claim compensation for loss of sleep.
It turned out that the officer taking my statement – a native of Normandy – was the one who had ventured up the hill behind our house and personally intervened to stop the “rave”. That was brave of her, I thought. Only twenty or thirty people were involved, she told me, most of them in their thirties and forties, more interested in smoking weed and taking drugs than music. At any rate, she had put the fear of God (or the French state) into them so that by daybreak, they were on their way, promising never to do such a thing ever again, at least until the next time.
I was impressed. In the UK, one of two things would more likely have happened. Either my complaint would have been written into the book, and left there, unresolved, or a squad of heavies would have turned up, sirens blaring, to beat the bejesus out of the miscreants.
The Gendarmerie Nationale, numbering more than 100,000 and under the direction of the Ministry of Defence, fulfils several roles. It guards the President, government ministers, the National Assembly, embassies and the courts, as well as ports and airports.
As the Gendarmerie Mobile, it joins the CRS in beating up demonstrators… I mean policing public protests, and as a trained reserve, it provides support to the armed forces during emergencies at home and abroad.
That is the big picture. But if you live in the French countryside, the role of the gendarmerie is more usually characterised by the locals as arresting drunks, serving unwanted legal notices and, most of all, pursuing innocent motorists.
Like teachers in the old days, officers can be posted to any part of the country, or the islands of les outres-mers, other than the district, or commune, from which they come. Over a 30-year career, they are likely to spend time in at least four different regions of the country.
The idea is that a certain distance should be maintained between members of the force and the communities they serve. Barracks, large and small, are self-contained, with living quarters for the officers and their families behind walls and fences clearly marked with the sign Terrain Militaire.
It is all very French and more than a touch repressive. It is impossible to imagine such a force in Britain. And yet, somehow, it works. Above all else, it enables me to sleep at night, and that’s no small thing. So I’m not complaining…yet.