3 years in France - retrospection

I'm writing this article on the occasion of my move to Norway, in retrospect to the time I spent in France. I moved to France from Germany in 2019, in the hope to, not really find a better society but to get to know something different at least than the Southern German garden fences that never felt like home to me. I got the lucky option to work together with a friend in his collaborative workshop near Strasbourg to learn crafting handpans. It was quite an adventure but things worked out well and I stayed for three years, selling my own instruments while gaining a little insight into French society and mindset. I will try to summarize my impressions (which are mostly very subjective, bound to the environment I was in and surely not representative for all of France).

[Strasbourg]

------- Alsace and France ---------

The region around Strasbourg, at the German border, is called Alsace. It has been a German area in the past. Today it feels like a weird mixture of the two cultures which mostly see themselves as incompatible, probably because, apart from the language, they are way more alike than they are comfortable with. People from central France kept telling me: Alsace? That is not really France. Old Alsace natives speak the Alsace dialect which sounds like a mix of French and German that is impossible to understand for French and Germans alike. Though subject to French government and rules, there is a certain German spirit in the densely patched villages, industrial areas and asphalt roads. Work has high priority in life. Alsace is a rich area and unemployment is low.

[Strasbourg]

France is very centralized which means that the people tend to either live in one of the few big cities (Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Nice) or in the scattered little villages across the wide countryside. While the northern part of the country has a moderate climate, the southern part has the dry, hot summers of the Mediterranean which affect the vegetation, culture and way of life. There's less of a language gap between the (both Latin-based) French and Spanish language. Many French choose to learn Spanish in school instead of the complicated German language. Northern French may describe Southern people as relaxed or lazy, while Southern people move to the cities in the North to work. Everyone in France enjoys a long break in summer – preferably at some beautiful spot in Southern France or the Bretagne.

[Lac Salagou and Pech de Bugarach, South of France]

------- culture -------

It is said that, much more than the complaining Germans, the French know how to enjoy life. This involves wine, cheese and sex. The warm season in Alsace starts in March / April and lasts until October. During this time, the cafés and bars are stuffed full in Strasbourg and the narrow inner city streets transform into a slow stream of walking couples, girls in light dress and groups of German tourists. Students are occupying the parks and spots at the riverside, drinking and making music. At night, the smell of weed is in the streets. Cafés keep being noisy until late at night and drunk people pass the streets screaming early in the morning.

Acting on the cliché, I was expecting a more open attitude about sex and nudity, given that France is just about 50% christian (compared to ~ 80 % in Germany) but in my feeling, things were restricted in a similar way or worse. Public nudity is limited to a few hotspots at the coast that everyone knows but no one talks about. In fact, French people think that Germany may be more open in this regard, with a more or less accepted „free body culture“ (FKK).

[Alsace garden fence]

------- French bureaucracy -------

When renting a flat in France, the law seems to be rather on the protective side for the tenant of the flat. I'm not sure if this is actually true, but it's certainly and excuse for landlords to be specially picky on who to rent out to. Per default, you need to hand in a dossier to show interest in a flat, which shows mainly one thing in as many different papers as possible: The insane amounts of money you earn. As rough rule, it should show at least three times the amount of the rent you're gong to pay to have a chance of consideration. Aside from that, you show your ID, stating that you're French and not some lesser being from somewhere else. And that you have a French "garant" - someone French making a handwritten promise to cover your rent in case you don't pay. Not negotiable.

Moving to France as a stranger, in many ways, felt like entering a city of red traffic lights. People who grow up inside of this system learn to make their way. In Germany, you don't step on the lawn as long there's an interdiction sign, right? Germans are well-known complainers about life and the German system - but we still have this trust deep inside that, if you're doing everything the right way, things will be fine. French people know that, in France, you never perfectly fit the scheme. If you wait for the green light from above for where you want to go, you gonna miss your train for sure, and if everyone waited, then nothing would move. So rules are rather seen as guidelines, to have a careful look when you need to step over them.

With German tax papers and an insecure income situation I was rejected per default by all housing agencies. Getting papers which would be accepted to start with basic things was a problem. Not French? Oh... don't know how to deal with that. Let's put it aside and hope someone else will manage. At the office tables of banks and administration tend to sit human robots with a box you need to fit into. Otherwise, error, sorted out. Your problem. Sometimes the robot is an online form and it's not possible to reach any human to talk to, to ask for help or to explain your situation.

[Passage interdit at Montpellier station]

In order to accept payments from customers I needed to make a French bank account to accept cheques (yes: papers with a handwritten number you give to your bank), which is the most common way to pay larger amounts in France. Opening a bank account in France is very easy... if you have a French bank account. By law every person living in France has the right to have a French bank account, still, every bank I would apply to refused (German papers, insecure income situation). The law says that, in that situation, you take a refusal paper to the Banque de France to have them assign a bank for you which must open an account. But the banks refused to give me this paper and my French was not good enough to start a discussion as they kept telling me: This is how things are, and you are wrong. I was earning money, but was not granted a way to prove it or to turn it into a form allowing me to pay the bills. I was close to desperation and needed my French colleague to apply at another bank together with me and then to patiently talk them into making, at least, the refusal paper. Once acquired the precious paper, we could follow the procedure and I finally got a bank account, free of charges. "Oh of course we open for you. You should have come to us right away!"

France is a Start-Up nation. Or so they say. Indeed it's easy, compared to elsewhere, to start a solo company - given you have a French person telling you which papers to hand in where and when, and making your calls. All the registers are digital. Very progressive. When I set up my company, they handed me a paper asking for my name, last name and maiden name of my mother.

...maiden name of my mother? O.o

"Oh. You have your mother's name? That's extraordinary."

Yeah. Welcome to France in 2019.

------- Mindset, responsibility -------

I quickly discovered the difference between my German education to follow the rules and the French red traffic light mentality. In fact, I loved the idea of people thinking for themselves and questioning the rules coming from above. On the other hand, there seems to be a certain tendency to get caught up in your own narrow horizon - mistrusting government and society, withdrawing in your own bubble, taking what you can get for yourself and hoping you will survive. This shows especially in global questions like pandemic and environment, where French people will actually manifest against environmental measures because they feel it is intrusive to their precious little bubble, to demand them to let go of their convenience. There's little regard to global / environmental impact of your own actions, and if so, it's not your business (especially out in the countryside as it seems, where you're busy with more immediate and substantial issues). This just describes an observation from my perspective, a tendency which, of course, does not apply everywhere or to everyone. People in France are getting more aware of climate and environment and are trying to readjust their ways, at times succeeding, at times failing, not unlike people in Germany or elsewhere. Green politics is on the rise in the cities (while hopelessly slagging in the countryside). Vegan products are slowly appearing in the supermarkets (it took time). Vegan restaurants in Strasbourg are booming - maybe because all the other restaurants are so incredibly ignorant to the idea of replacing cheese. When the current mayor of Strasbourg (lady from the green party) was elected in position, the youths on the streets at night where chanting her name. Nevertheless, it's a long way to go. We're heating our nice little rooftop flats in the romantic, old and miserably isolated timber frame houses with green nuclear power. There's no motivation for the landlords to make an investment. The never ending noise of cars is dominating life in the city. For students and other people on low income, it's not a choice to switch to expensive green power or responsible nutrition. Wherever you go to nature in France, somebody has been there and left their trash. Trash separation in the Euro-capital Strasbourg means to separate paper from rest, and, nowadays, you can also put plastic bottles into the paper bin (only bottles. No other plastic please, our machines can't sort that). My French friends would probably agree that France, though trying to be progressive, is incredibly slow and stiff.

------- poverty and trickery -------

In the rich city "of dance and music", there are tents under each bridge at the river, sometimes a lonely sofa and a cupboard standing around. I could not reach the station on my daily way to work without at least 3 people coming to talk to me, asking for a "pièce". A piece of money. The competition about beggars is high, so they need to make strategies. Some of them are crying. Some of them make music, some have one or more dogs which attract some attention and are warm in winter ("punk à chien"). Others have little stories on a cardboard. "I need to buy a train ticket to wherever." "1€ for alcohol. Thanks." This one is honest at least.

One day a girl came running to me on the street. She seemed somewhat hysterical and told me that she had come to Strasbourg to meet a guy but then he had stolen her handbag. Now she needs to buy a train ticket back to Paris. She stated that she's from a good family and she would give back the money of course. She gave me a phone number. I did not ask how she wanted to answer me without her phone. I thought about her story which could have happened to myself and gave her the money she wanted. The number was not connected and with some time distance I did not understand how she got me to believe her story in that moment. A few months later I crossed the same place not far from home. A girl was running from person to person, in her hand the money which she had collected. She came to me, telling me the same story from before. "How about you give me back the money I gave you the last time for your ticket to Paris first? You don't remember we talked before?", I responded, perplex. She turned pale and left. I followed her. "Tell me at least what you did with my money", I demanded. "Bought cigarettes", she mumbled. Then she took a key and disappeared into her apartment in the street.

After my first bike was stolen from the station, I concluded that it might be better to keep a bad one for using instead of investing in a new one. I was able to use the bad one for 2 years before it mysteriously disappeared from my backyard. My friends shook their head. "You don't leave your bike out in public. That's an invitation. Take them into your apartment or don't bring then along. It's a dirty business." All right... my bad. I didn't know that a lock is an invitation.

Finally I numbed into the same state as everyone else. "Desolée" I said automatically whenever someone talked to me. Sometimes they started cursing at me. I did not understand what they were saying, but I guess I deserved it. I know that people don't tell lies and steal bikes because they enjoy it, but because they got in a desperate situation and don't see another way. They would not do it if they were not caught in whatever addiction, if they could earn money in another way, if they didn't struggle to find their place in a society whose requirements can be impossible to fulfill.

------- Gender roles -------

Paris is, according to the French, a nice place to visit and a terrible place to live in. Metropolis life can be daunting. My friend described walking the sideways like a daily mini game of avoiding moving obstacles while advertising screens scream for your attention on all sides. There are high standards on how you're supposed to live as one of 12 million moving obstacles. My friend wished to become a secretary but he was told that it's not possible as a man. Companies are supposed to have female secretaries - because that's what people expect, and breaking the norm would be confusing (= less trustworthy) - nothing a company would risk in the high competition. So he needed to seek another profession. It may feel like a special situation, but it is just one example of the normative and competitive thinking and the deeply rooted gender roles which affect, more or less, the life of everyone in France.

In the heavily competitive metropolis areas, girls put effort into dressing up, make up, high heels. It‘s an art of standing out while fitting a role model at the same time. Omnipresent advertising has set certain expectations in both young men and women which tend to crash on reality. I don‘t like your body. Your boobs need to be bigger than your belly. You have a liver spot in your face. I asked a doctor to cut mine. My ex was a good person but I didn‘t love her. I desperately want a partner but I can‘t accept any flaw. So all of us stay alone and the world is sad.

[Paris]

My paragon blogger has some articles addressing French gender roles and dating culture, describing the cat and mouse game, the male chasing, the female luring, withdrawing and testing and the lack of initiative from the female side. But a certain special attentiveness and helpfulness from men to women is not only a means to seduction, but simply considered polite. Whenever I took my bike into the train with me and struggled to lift it into the hook, some random man would duck up, take it without asking from my hands and hang it up. It used to annoy me – did they think I was weak and could not manage myself? - until I understood that this is simply polite behaviour in French culture. She‘s a woman, you help her. In Germany, it may happen but it would be more common to ask her first. In Scandinavian culture, a behaviour like this would be considered offensive. You don‘t hold the door for a woman, you don‘t lift things for her, you don‘t invite her to dinner (and if you do, you split the bill). A woman is supposed to have equal means and to manage things herself. She will choose if to approach you, or not, and if she asks you for help, you gladly help her of course.

One day, on the way from the station in Strasbourg, I found a stack of folded bills lying on the street. I picked it up and looked around in astonishment. No one took notice of me. Then a guy, who was standing in front of a pub, saw me and came up to me. "It's mine", he said. "I just lost it. Really." He smiled. He tried to grab the money but I ducked away, trying to get enough order in my brain to make a decision. "Okay we can share", he suggested. I counted the money. 110€. I gave him some of the bills. In the situation I was too stressed to calculate. "Congratulations", I said. "Congratulations" he repeated and clapped my hand. Then I quickly left.

I thought about this afterwards. If sharing the money with another lucky person had been a good solution, or sharing the money with someone trying to trick me and becoming intrusive had been just a solution good enough to avoid conflict. I tried to imagine how my friends would have acted. "Nice try", they would have said and taken the money. "Bonne soirée." If the stranger had approached me like this if I had been a man. How I should have reacted to be respected like a confident person. I talked about this with my colleague and he said: "As a woman, screaming is efficient." Because everyone knows that becoming intrusive to a woman in whatever way is a no-go, and every man in the surroundings will come to protect you.

This old-fashioned attitude does not mean looking down on women (it happens of course, as it does everywhere in the world, but then it's more a personal flaw than a cultural flaw). It‘s simply a deeply rooted difference in behaviour from one gender to another, another kind of respect, and I felt this sincere respect with certain people. Society and culture give certain cards to men and certain others to women. These social rules, in difference to interdiction signs, are pointless to mess around with. You accept your role, learn the social codes and make use of the cards you have.

[imprisoned figures, Strasbourg]

------- French pride and education -------

It‘s not a secret that French are very resistant to speaking English, German or any lesser language than their own. Communication was a problem at the post office and at the doctor. Neither my bank nor my internet provider could assign me an employee to speak English with. Everything needed to work with my four words of French, often resulting in bad communication, together with disrespect from their side. I did not get the feeling that it is a question of pride, but rather of bad education, lack of practice and insecurity. Frontal teaching in school and imposing teachers had not been helpful for the people in my age to start speaking another language, and there's little ambition to change that. There might be a certain charm in keeping the society closed in the French bubble, to protect them a bit from bad influences from the rest of the world and make them more receptive to your own paroles (Strangers are coming to France to exploit good French people! Terrorists are everywhere! The € is bad for France, we should leave the EU and go back to take care of ourselves! Our nuclear power is safe and clean!) In my impression, young French people are very curious about the world and would like to speak other languages but struggle to get over the barrier to start speaking. It's common to spend some time in Canada, where French is spoken. People are excited about visiting Berlin which is supposed to be a great place, inclusive and open minded, big BDSM scene, a special music culture (often associated with the rough techno sound and audio gear from the 80s) and a spirit of rebellion that you may not find in Paris. Young men may come to other cities in Germany to seek well-paid jobs, cars and technology. Otherwise, French people tend to be sceptic about Germany: An overly complicated language, merciless 40h-weeks, intimidating productivity. Nothing appealing. It is that annoying big brother always pointed out by your family: Look! So efficient! So rich!

The products in the French supermarket, even in Strasbourg at the German border, are completely different brands than the German ones and have descriptions in two languages: French and, of all kind, Dutch. Shopping is more expensive in France, so the sceptic French are not too proud to hop over the border and spend a few € for the way which they can then save on buying German cleaning products. Also Germany is the paradise of legal prostitution, gambling, no speed limit on high ways and everything else which is fun and exciting, so business in the border towns is visibly blooming. The Germans, in contrary, love to clutter the streets of Strasbourg to look at the back heads of other Germans looking at the cathedral or taking a tour with the tourist boats. They also might have a look on the French side of the border if the house of their choice is too expensive in Germany (not sure if there actually is a big difference).

------- Politics, hate and mistrust -------

One of the roots of the mistrust and hatred against the government is the class difference in France. The gap between the rich and the poor is among the greatest in Europe. Successful politicians come from the high class of society, owning large properties in Paris and living a life far off common people, staying among themselves. They visited special schools and stay untouchable to the commons. There is none who has not been involved in one or the other story of embezzling money, which does not keep them from pursuing their political career. Laws are shaped in the interest of the high society. Everyone knows that they don‘t follow the rules they make for the (other) people. As a result, every new measure is considered a new way of restriction and exploitation by the common people. „They just test how far they can go with us!“ If you‘re from central Europe you might consider this phenomenon an inevitable result of human egoism, but there are other places in Europe where ministers can walk among the commons without risking to be killed and where being a criminal actually has political consequences.

The French are more rebellious than the Germans. Mediocre education and (justified) distrust in the media results in people making their own stories about things and falling for quick conclusions. They will happily protest against anything (like: the new bypass road which will only serve the rich, or the new environmental law which goes too far, or not far enough). Manifestations take place every week in Strasbourg: Women‘s rights, Covid measures, Palestina, climate change. As mentioned, French culture is noisy.

I read a newspaper article about French politics, stating that „French have left values, but elect right politics“. It explained the problem of unfree media controlled by right wing concerns, spreading fear of strangers and terrorism to manipulate people against what they really want (equality, liberty, fraternity is a lead phrase since the French revolution), as well as left wing people having given up hope long ago, knowing that there‘s no figure in politics to really defend their values, thus refusing to support the system by voting for any of the unacceptable options they are given.

[Someone used the sign to express their frustration with president Macron]

During the pandemic, I heard Germans complaining about restrictions while the chancellor „Mutti“ Merkel tried to patiently appeal to their reason and solidarity. In France, communication was very different. No two days passed between the statements of „We won‘t put the country in lockdown“ to „from tomorrow 12:00 no one in France is allowed to leave their apartment without attestation.“ For 6 weeks, even companies needed to close. Nurses and retail clerks kept going to work. Everyone else escaped in panic to their safety point of choice. Then people were locked inside and needed to find a nice way to spend their energy, preferably beating their partner (not sure actually if this was a thing as much in France as in Germany) or learning a musical instrument. After some weeks, companies reopened and work life continued but the lockdown + need for attestation stayed for 2 more months, until it was gradually lifted (and then re-applied later, several times). Macron told the population: „We‘re in war. We have no other choice than to apply hard restrictions. Everyone who doesn't keep the restrictions will be punished.“

Punishment is a common way to deal with people who are not impressed by interdiction signs and don‘t have high respect for rules – but are not smart enough to avoid the authorities. In the same way you maybe would try to make naughty children listen to you. For example, people keep forgetting their bags in the train, each time causing an extensive operation including security, dogs, secluding the area and major delays (there could be a bomb inside, after all). They tried to make a nice painted sign, showing a nice black man reminding a white guy of the bag he forgot, but seems that it did not work. So they put up another sign and added spoken announcements, informing the people about the fees they risk by leaving behind their bags. Who knows. Maybe this is just how you get French people to take care of their stuff.

------- Health system -------

At the beginning of 2020 I fell with the bike after getting stuck in one of the white rills on the street which are intended to guide traffic. I fell so bad that I was taken to hospital with an ambulance. I was spitting blood and my wrist was damaged. Once in hospital, I was placed in a chair in the corridor, together with other emergency clients. The hospital was hopelessly full – a standard state in the French emergency station, as I was told later. Covid had not even started in France at this point. „Don‘t get sick in France. It always takes a whole day.“ I waited for 9 hours in that chair, shivering with pain. At a moment I became desperate and wanted to leave, but they prevented me from leaving. No one spoke English. No one took the effort to even disinfect my wounds. I threw up into a bag, then went into an empty treatment room to clean the wounds myself. Finally they did a scan of my jaw, and a few hours later they came with the diagnose: Jaw partly broken. I tried to tell them again that there was a problem with my wrist as well, that I needed a bag of ice or something. Someone was supposed to stitch the scar on my chin, but it turned 23:00 before a confused doctor found a free moment to have a look. „I can‘t stitch that“, he stated. Then they finally sent me home.

In France, there is one national health insurance for the basic health care that you automatically become a member by having work in France (no matter if employee or self employed). For the case self employed, you pay a certain percentage of your earnings – percentage meaning 0€ when you don‘t earn anything. This system was one of the reasons enabling me to start independence in France, compared to being self employed in Germany where 300€ would have been the minimum to pay each month only for the health insurance (that is another story which shall be told another time). The first thing I needed to learn about the French system was to give my credit card to the doctor. 25€ for 15 minutes talk with the generalist, 60€ for a specialist. Part of that will be paid back later by the insurance. 15 minutes means 15 minutes and not more, because the generalist has 900 clients and no time to listen to a story which demands more than a standard treatment. Taking blood samples is not done at the place, but you make an appointment at a laboratory (12€), loose another morning to get there, then make a new appointment with the generalist (25€) if you want to know the results. It is common to discuss with doctors the price of more extensive treatments – maybe they can make you a special price if you convince them that you‘re really in a bad situation. My colleague had to take an expensive treatment at the dentist. He was lucky – the dentist was interested in his work, so my colleague ended up paying him by giving him one of the musical instruments he was just about to finish.

Going in hand with waiting times of 5 weeks for an appointment at a specialist, it is a rare luxury to have a doctor you trust and to get the treatment you need. With a more complex issue, I got stuck waiting for appointments in phases of acute need and then struggled to get the doctors to listen and understand the urgency of my problem which had become a major issue for work and life since months. I guess with the system, it‘s hard to be a good doctor in France, and to really care about people. The sparse health capacities are one of the reasons while the strict lockdowns during the pandemic indeed where inevitable to prevent the complete collapse of a system that is driven on its limits since years.

------- Leaving -------

After 3 years, I had gotten somewhat stuck with my life again. In the effort to meet the expectations at work I had not invested enough energy into finding social connection. I had neglected many of my interests and activities and the isolation caught up with me in form of thought circling, bad sleep and bad concentration. It was not easy to leave behind my work in Strasbourg, but I felt that it was necessary to progress my issues and to find a more healthy balance in my life. Finally, I was excited to escape the noisy city, to settle closer to o nature and to get to know another country and culture which I'm deeply passionate about.

:]

Sophie

[Strasbourg and Vosges mountains close by]