After 2 months here in France, some themes have surfaced that have got me thinking. So this blog post is a place where I've captured a few of the themes I've witnessed. No photos (at least not yet) and no travelogue, so feel free to skip this rambling. I won't be offended. But I need to capture these thoughts for myself. Thanks for coming with us on this 2024 adventure.
Reflections on living
in France
Eating fresh and local is for everyone
One of my favorite activities is to shop at the open air
markets for much of our food. Besides fruit and vegetables, we buy cheese, hard
sausages, olives, and some shortcut meals like empanadas or paella. There is
usually a butcher, a baker (but no candlestick maker), a “traiteur” –
delicatessen stall - and often a fishmonger. These merchants are likely to be
local. At the very least, they are regulars at the market. Customers form
relationships with their chosen merchants over time.
Every town and city we visit has an open air market one or
more mornings a week so that everyone has access to these products. (Many towns
also have garden allotments for residents to grow their own fruits and
vegetables.) Shoppers typically walk to
the market, carrying hand woven or wicker shopping baskets, or pulling shopping
bags on carts. Prices (from my point of
view) are reasonable, even inexpensive. One thing we have learned is to look
for the produce stands with the longest lines. They will have the best produce.
Eating “bio” – organic – is easy here, whether in the market
or at the grocery store. Meat, vegetables, dairy labeled “bio” must not use
chemicals, must respect animal well-being, must limit agri-inputs like
fertilizers, animal feed, etc, and must be made in the European Union. Many of
the market stalls sell organic foods, as you might expect, especially from
small producers and farmers.
Markets are for more than buying produce
Weekly markets are a community event, crowded with families,
neighbors, old and young. Sometimes it’s hard to move from one stall to another
as a group of four or five women are greeting each other with “la bise” (an air
kiss on both cheeks), or in the case of men, shaking hands all around or
offering “la bise”. Smiling, laughing, catching up on the latest news and
gossip means shopping is not a “zip-in and out” kind of affair. Even after
making their purchases, groups meet at the local cafes for coffee (or something
stronger) and more catching up. It is clear that for many this is part of the
ritual of shopping at the market. It’s such a simple thing that glues the
community together.
In France stores and offices are open, except when
they’re not
Where do all these people come from who have time to do
their marketing mid-morning? That is a puzzle, until you get used to a shop
front door being locked with a sign saying “Back in an hour” or some such.
Typically, stores (or tourist offices) are open from 10-12:30 and then closed
for lunch, with afternoon hours typically 2 or 2:30-6:00. Except when they
aren’t. It’s a holiday, or a saints’ day, or vacation, or not tourist season.
All this may lead one to believe that the French are a bunch of slackers. However,
that isn’t at all true. At work, especially in the service industry where we
have the most interactions, the French are helpful, polite, and go out of their
way to accommodate your needs. What is true is that the idea of quality of life
is so ingrained into the French way of life, that for the locals, none of this
is worth shaking your head over. Of course, they believe, everyone should have
an uninterrupted time for the noon meal with the family, adequate vacation
time, time to run errands, pick up kids from school, etc. It’s a lifestyle I
could easily get used to.
Camping wherever
Here in the Pyrenees, there’s so much opportunity for
outdoor activities. The rivers run fast out of the mountains, so canoeing and
kayaking are popular. The number of men and women we’ve seen cycling up and
down these mountains is staggering. We’ve seen far more cyclers in these
mountains as are registered for the Tour de France! By far the most favored
activity is hiking. The trails are endless, some local, some regional. Many are
part of the GR (Grande Randonée) trails – long distance trails that are well
sign-posted that travel over a variety of landscapes. With all this outdoor
activity, not to mention tourism, we see many “caravans”. About half are small
by our standards pull behind campers. The rest are camper vans – also small.
When you consider that France drives small cars on roads we would not consider
to be 2 lanes wide.
Interestingly, we’ve seen lots of places where campers park.
There are campgrounds like in the US, and, in fact, many towns either have a municipal
campground (with or without services) or a designated parking lot for campers.
There seems to be a “laissez faire” attitude about where campers park. People
are often camping the way we would do for a tailgating party. I’m not sure if
this is an attitude in this area of low population and plenty of wilderness
areas to explore in between the villages that dot the highways. Whatever, I
find this attitude refreshing – and I don’t see mounds of garbage left behind
and I’ve yet to hear loud music coming out of a camper. So perhaps it’s a trust
on both sides that folks will use good camping manners.
Politics
We were here again for an election – this time for European
Parliament seats of which France elects 81 members of the 720 member
Parliament. These are the folks charged with rule-making amongst the EU
countries. Not an easy job!
As we’ve seen before, there is only one spot in each village
that posters (all the same size, btw) can be displayed. There are no billboards
and it is rare to find a rogue poster on the side of a building or barn. There
are no yard signs. Candidates campaign by having open meetings in town halls. (I
have to admit, I don’t know what is allowed on TV as we do not do TV in France,
but I’m guessing it is also subdued.) I haven’t been able to find information
on campaign mail or Internet sites, but I’m guessing those are in play.
Even better, the entire campaign season lasts just a few
weeks. In fact, as a result of the EU Parliament vote where the ultra-right
gained significant seats over Macron’s centrist party, Macron dissolved France’s
National Assembly just hours after the results came in on the EU Parliament
vote. And new voting is within 20 days of the dissolution. Imagine how the
country is scrambling to get this to happen!
So, France may have a less-in-your-face campaign season, but
they still have plenty of drama in much the same way as we do.
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