Turning to the present day, in terms of public spaces, French gardening style has not grown out of the rather strict, disciplinarian regime under which it (like French children) grew up. Trees in French public parks (except those specifically denoted as rebellious Anglo-Chinese gardens) are usually marshalled in elegant rows, subject to annual pollarding; flowers are whipped into shape in geometric parterres; hedges clean-shaven. There’s none of the hippie abandon of Hampstead Heath or Wimbledon Common. (Unsurprisingly, most of the words for disciplining and training trees – espalier, pleach, cordon – are originally French.) The French obsession with disciplining and formalizing nature is evident in the annual autumn ritual of pollarding every single tree in sight, creating miserable rows of amputees along the great roads carved by Napoleon. The former French president Charles de Gaulle – a perhaps unlikely commentator on horticultural matters – once wrote in praise of French gardening style. His eulogy is telling:
‘In a French garden, no tree seeks to stifle the other trees by overshadowing them, the flower beds flourish although they are geometrically trained, the pool of water does not long to be a waterfall, the statues do not seek to show off to the detriment of the other elements of the garden. There is a feeling of noble melancholy about the garden. Perhaps it comes from the feeling that each element, if it were seen alone, could be shown off to better advantage. But it would have been to the detriment of the whole unit, and the person who strolls through the garden congratulates himself on the order that imparts to the garden its magnificent harmony.’14
THE GREEN-FINGERED GAULS (skip)
Contrary to popular belief about the alleged French disdain for the spade, perhaps not surprisingly for a country newly in love with suburbia, the French actually love gardening. If recent surveys are anything to go by, they are at least as (if not more) fond of gardening as the British. According to figures from the Office of European Statistics, French and British women both spend about 3 per cent of their domestic time gardening; however, French men spend 13 per cent of their time getting down and dirty, whereas British men apparently spend only 9 per cent. It seems, then, that if anybody is the champion of gardening these days, it is French men.
As to the dream garden of the French, the answer is somewhat surprising. It is neither the classical French, nor the Anglo-Chinese version. In fact, according to the most recent studies, the ideal garden that most French people fantasize about having is no other than the humble jardin de curé – the traditional walled village curate’s garden, with its grass paths bordering diamond-shaped potagers planted with vegetables for the kitchen, simple hardy flowers to decorate the altar, a vine or two to supply church wine and some medicinal herbs. Nothing grand, formal, pseudo-natural or triumphalist, but a simple return to something quite basic and utilitarian – not so very far removed, in fact, from the English cottage garden, or the recent allotment revivals in Britain.
Sources: EUROSTAT Free Time survey, 2004; French Union of Businesses for the Protection of Gardens and Green Spaces survey, 2004.
Order, discipline, hierarchy, the subordination of individual desire to the collective good, versus the luxuriant chaos of rampant individualism… the polarities in French and English gardening styles seem to mirror the difference between the two countries and cultures. On the one hand there is the formal, planned rigidity of the French garden; on the other, the pretty, disorganized yet somehow harmonious chaos of the English cottage garden. Just as Paris is still the splendidly planned, rational city of Baron Haussmann’s boulevards, and London a messy, glorious Dickensian hotchpotch of ‘villages’. Both sets of rival aesthetics, like both sets of politics, have helped shape the lens through which we see and live the world today; but neither, in the end, has been the ultimate victor in the turf wars.
Myth Evaluation: False. The French and English have been champions of gardening at different periods of history.
DIGESTIF
The Almighty in his infinite wisdom did not see fit to create Frenchmen in the image of Englishmen.
WINSTON CHURCHILL (1874–1965), BRITISH STATESMAN
When my final French ‘myth’ had been mercilessly set on the operating table, examined, dissected and either saved or relegated to the trash bin, I sat down to ponder. What had I learned from this forensic exercise? My examination of the myriad myths, legends and stories surrounding the people of Gaul had taught me an awful lot about France and the French. But it had also taught me even more about myself – or rather, I should say, about us, the Anglo-Saxons. Because, underlying almost all of these myths we construct about France, there lies a romantic and indefinable yearning… a sense of emulation, jealousy and desire. It is as though we cannot simply accept the French as a different race and culture, analysing them objectively – as, for example, we have no problem doing, say, with the Japanese. No, when it comes to the French, we must romanticize, idolize, emulate, envy or – when they defy our attempts at definition – condemn. They are either the object of wild and senseless worship, or equally vitriolic censure. We somehow have to possess and define them, as a projection of our own dreams. And they defy our attempts at possession.
But, you might ask, why spoil our romantic notions about the French by an investigation? What harm does it do, dreaming about a Gallic Neverland conjured up by a book with a pink dustjacket, cheering up a cold and wintry English afternoon? The first answer to that argument must be that truth – however difficult, shocking or unpalatable – has got to be ultimately more satisfying than fiction. Nor are all myths about the French bad. History is full of fables and tall tales, and the construction of narratives is integral to life itself. Stories about the fabulous discovery of tarte tatin, the legendary chefs of French history, or the discovery of Roquefort, enrich our cultural experience of French food, and indirectly of France itself. Who cares if they are probably not true?
Myths that become distorted into stereotypes defining a whole nation, on the other hand, merit a closer inquiry. We ought to ask ourselves whether myths that are frankly offensive or derogatory – such as that of the French not washing – really are true. Other stereotypes are more subtle. Myths such as that of French women not getting fat, French children not throwing food, or the idyllic French village, would seem to be pretty harmless – and even complimentary to the French, on the surface. But what if they are masking an incipient obesity issue, or concealing the wholesale destruction of the French countryside? What of the disappointment that we feel when we arrive at that dream rustic holiday gîte, only to discover a Carrefour hypermarket at the entrance to the village, and a cottage interior stocked with IKEA furniture? France is a land of beauty and delight, but in a country that is a major industrial power, those unspoiled, picturesque corners and sublime experiences are becoming rarer and more hidden, requiring a determined expedition off the beaten track to find them. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. The most important thing is not to be disappointed.
In any event, we should perhaps be asking ourselves a different question. That is, not whether France lives up to our expectations, but rather whether we have the right to impose such expectations on it. After all, doesn’t France have the right to be an industrial power like any other – blotted and scarred with the battles of immigration, industrialization, fast food, overcrowding and mass-market culture? Why should she be a mausoleum imprisoned forever in a cheese-eating, garlic-munching, glamourously thin-woman Neverland, just to satisfy the Anglo-American desire for a dream? An interesting point to note is that whilst a great deal of material from different authorities was amassed in researching this book, most of the material comes from published sources readily available to those actually living in France, with a sound grasp of the French language and a good general knowledge of issues of live interest to the French today. I did not need to bribe French government officials to find out the figures for female obesity in France, or secretly interview unnamed sources in the education sector to find out that French children do throw food. And yet, the �
��Froglit’ authors – those messengers to their compatriots in the UK and USA, whose winged missives so many Anglo-Saxons await with breathless expectation – do not report these truths which, in many cases, are completely apparent to anybody living in France for any length of time, and with a modicum of familiarity with French culture. Instead, they insist on recycling the same tired yet (admittedly) eminently marketable clichés. Just like those countless romantic movies about Paris – Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris included – which, in their portrayal of the City of Light, totally ignore the Corbusian ugliness of tower blocks like those at La Défense, apparent to everybody when they actually arrive in town. Our vision of France is always distorted, skewed, tailored to what we want to see.
Our image of the French, more than of any other nationality, tends to be based on a series of ‘paradoxes’. For example, French women drink wine, eat foie gras, and yet don’t get fat; the French work less than most other countries, yet they have one of the highest productivity rates. These contradictions fuel our perception of the French as a mysterious people, endowed with miraculous qualities beyond Anglo-Saxon comprehension. But in reality, once the so-called ‘paradoxes’ are unpackaged, they are always explicable. In fact, their existence is testimony not to any mystical abilities on the part of the French, but rather to our incomprehension of them. In particular, Anglo-Saxons – fuelled by the Froglit sub-genre – have a tendency to focus on aspects of French lifestyle subject to massive idealization (long holidays, short work hours, a culture of intimate local shopping experiences, lengthy lunches), while ignoring the French politics and policies that make this lifestyle possible. Take one example. France is a haven of small, independent bookshops: there are 3,000 in the country, of which 400 are in Paris, compared to only 1,000 in England (a mere 130 in London). Why? Because the French state imposes the same price on all books, regardless of whether they are sold via the Internet, chain bookstores or the corner bookshop. The same is true for all those markets and local boulangeries buzzing at the weekend: laws preventing the big supermarkets trading on Sunday to date have helped them survive. The role of the French state also explains the apparent ‘miracle’ by which French women have loads of children and yet manage to hold down their jobs: a network of low-cost crèches, holiday and after-school care, along with massive child benefits and tax breaks for children, helps women manage a work–life balance with relative ease. At the same time, France is an intensely macho society which is only just getting round to abolishing the title of ‘Miss’, defining a law of sexual harassment, and a country in which one of the major functions and duties of the female sex always has been to embellish and ornament the public space. These attitudes and assumptions are fundamental to, and therefore cannot be dissociated from, French female style. But would we want to adopt them as our own?
Next time you read a book that promises the secrets of French women’s style or eulogizes the French way of life, ask yourself a few searching questions. Are you willing to pay €16 for a book for the privilege of buying it in a small bookshop? Are you prepared to pay twice as much tax, so that women can put their kids in a crèche? Are you willing to sacrifice the freedom of being able to sneak to the supermarket on a Sunday morning in tracksuit bottoms and trainers? If the answer is no, it doesn’t matter how much cabbage soup you drink, how many clothes you buy from Agnès B, or whether you try to follow the precepts of la pause to make your baby sleep. You will never master the basics of the French way of life. Because, in many ways, the ‘French way of life’ – formal, hierarchical, state-controlled and prescriptive – is diametrically opposed to the individualism and freedom that lies at the heart of Anglo-Saxon society.
I have now lived for almost a decade in France. My three children have lived their childhood here, cheer for France in rugby matches, and will be sitting the baccalauréat, the great examination originally invented by Napoleon. They themselves do experience occasional problems negotiating the vast psychological differences between the cultures that they straddle, but somehow they seem to be muddling through. As for myself, over the years I have acquired a great affection for my host country, considerable respect, and some reservations.
But one thing is certain, and that is that we Anglo-Saxons will never be French; nor should we wish to be. As Queen Elizabeth II once said in a public address (in very good French, incidentally): vive l’entente cordiale, et vive la différence!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A book like this could not have been written without a great deal of assistance and advice from different experts in the many fields it covers, including of course those most expert in its principal subject: the French! My first acknowledgement should be to the many historians, sociologists and other experts, both French and English, who have examined the subjects treated in this book in depth, and whose learned dissertations and treatises have shed light on the many ‘myths’ explored in this book (full details of works relied upon can be found in the Notes and Bibliography). Then there are the many people who have either lent me a helping hand with their expertise, or cogitated, ruminated, argued and procrastinated with me on the many issues explored: to all of you, a heartfelt thank you! Special thanks are due to (in no particular order):
Jean-François and Hélène Bourdet of JFB Architectes; Martine Bourelly; Dr Christine Moisan at Obépi/Roche; Delphine Siino Courtin; Paul Bichot; Nina Wasilewska-Bichot; Mégane Quere; Alain Huisier; the team at SizeUK; Catherine Dawson at Clifford Chance Europe LLP; Charles Dalglish; Lord Eatwell at Queens’ College, Cambridge; Katharine Axten; Pascal Petit, Director of Research at CNRS, Université Paris 13; Azouz Guizani; Shelley Thevathasan; Veerle Miranda and Julie Harris at the OECD; Dominique Le Martret; the staff at Cambridge Tutors College, London; Nicholas Baker and James Cathcart at the Lycée International de Saint-Germain-en-Laye; Arlette Garih at Maternité Port Royal de Paris; Professor Stoffel Munck; Didier Pleux, Director of the French Institute of Cognitive Therapy; Julie Marabelle of Famille Summerbelle; Sarah Ardizzone; Julie Muret of Osez le féminisme; Ella Gaffuri; and the representatives of Allegro Fortissimo.
It goes without saying, of course, that all views, opinions and conclusions in this book are entirely my own.
To my indefatigable agent, Andrew Lownie, I am eternally grateful. And a heartfelt thank you to my editor Richard Milbank, who has made this book so much better than it otherwise would have been.
Finally, I should thank my mother, Sarah Das Gupta, for keeping the faith at all times, and my long-suffering husband, Nikolaï Eatwell.
We hope you enjoyed this book.
To find out about Piu Marie Eatwell, click here.
For an invitation from the publisher, click here.
NOTES
APÉRITIF
1 the last traditional French beret manufacturer. i.e. Béatex, taken over in July 2012 by the army uniform manufacturing group Cargo-Promodis.
2 wet sock on my head. See L’Armée US abandonne le béret, Le Figaro 14 juin 2011.
PART 1
1 Vatel incident. See Lettres de Madame de Sévigné de sa famille, Vol. I, Paris: Hachette 1863, pp. 286–8.
2 ‘lighter food, less of it, costing more.’ Elizabeth David, French Provincial Cooking, Penguin 1970, p. 476.
3 French cuisine was ranked number two. Survey by Kantar market research, May 2010.
4 hippophagy in France was socially engineered and a relatively recent phenomenon. For a detailed discussion about the campaign to make hippophages of the French in the nineteenth century, see Pierre, Eric: L’hippophagie au secours des classes laborieuses. Communications, 74, 2003, pp. 177–200.
5 the menu was as follows. See Larousse Gastronomique (English edition), Hamlyn/Octopus Publishing Group Ltd 2009, p. 549.
6 feasts in Britain, in Ramsgate. See Frederick J. Simoons, Eat Not this Flesh: Food Avoidances from Prehistory to the Present, University of Wisconsin Press 1994, p. 190.
7 Yesterday, I had a slice of Pollux for dinner. From Diary of the Besieged Resi
dent in Paris by Henry Du Pré Labouchère, Hurst & Blackett, 1871.
8 consumption of horsemeat increasing 77 per cent. See La Viande Chevaline: un patrimoine, juridiquement encadré, indispensable à la filière cheval, Fédération Nationale du Cheval, May 2008, p. 5.
9 nine thousand horses, mules and donkeys. See Simoons, Eat Not this Flesh, op. cit., p. 190.
10 low status and poverty. See Simoons, op. cit., p. 190.
11 110,290 TEC of horsemeat were consumed in 1964. See La Viande Chevaline: un patrimoine, juridiquement encadré, indispensable à la filière cheval, op. cit., p.17.
They Eat Horses, Don't They? Page 31
