Almost French (24 page)

‘In some clubs women can’t be full members,’ he tells me. ‘And on weekends, some courses and competitions are only open to men.’ If I was shocked to discover how belatedly France gave women the vote, Alain—who is the antithesis of a flag-waving feminist—is dumbfounded by this flagrant sexism in my country. He’s not placated when I tell him the situation has probably improved.

‘Why would men want to play on their own?’ he persists. ‘There’d be an outcry here. No-one would want it like that.’

But it’s precisely this harmony between the sexes in France that Elisabeth Guigou claims has masked severe sexism and patent inequalities in areas like politics. There’s another paradox too: while men and women might feel at ease together,
les Françaises
seem to feel uneasy about themselves. When I asked Sophie the reason for the rivalry among women she answered with the French expression, ‘Because they don’t feel good in their shoes’. Roughly translated this means they don’t feel happy or comfortable with themselves. I would go further and say they don’t feel secure. And this insecurity has to come from somewhere; women aren’t just born with it.

Discerning its origins is a bit like grappling with the chicken and the egg riddle: it’s hard to separate cause from effect when you’re talking about a vicious cycle. But I can think of several factors which might make France an ideal
breeding ground for female insecurity. Take this country’s cult of beauty, for example, which means women’s appearances (and I do think it concerns women more than men) are subject to intense scrutiny and criticism. It’s quite okay in France to admonish a girlfriend for putting on weight, for example. Add to that the incredible emphasis on
la séduction
, which encourages women to define themselves in relation to men. Then there’s the great Gallic myth of extra-marital affairs—I say ‘myth’ because a recent study revealed that adultery is only fractionally more common in France than in the supposedly puritanical United States. Regardless of whether the risk is real or imagined,
les Françaises
, more than their husbands or boyfriends, seem to live with a deep-seated fear of their partners being unfaithful.

French men often perpetuate the fear by playing on the insecurities of their partners. I know several women who at dinners regularly bring up their suspicions regarding a certain secretary or female colleague at their husbands’ offices. ‘Charles is getting home later and later,’ said one of these girls, recently. ‘There’s something funny going on,’ she joked. And yet it was obvious she wasn’t really joking: she was looking for reassurance. Instead of saying ‘don’t be mad’, her husband fuelled her anxiety. ‘She’s young, this secretary,’ he said smiling a little smugly. ‘She’s really pretty.’

French people might say it’s precisely this element of uncertainty that adds spice and thrill to relations between the sexes here, which they’re convinced are better than anywhere else in the world. We rejoice in our gender differences, I can hear them saying, and it’s true they do. Just look at the gorgeous lacy lingerie shops that line every street. They’ve got something over us casual, careless Anglo-Saxons with our drawers of greying knickers, and they know it. In
their eyes we often appear unappealingly masculine.
Pas très sexe
, is how a few French friends described women they saw in Australia. Not very sexy.

And yet I can’t help wishing French women would sometimes break out of this seduction-obsessed mould. Once, at a dinner at Alicia and Rupert’s apartment, a French girl (a lawyer) left us speechless by revealing that she never tells jokes or tries to be funny in the company of her husband for fear he might think she’s
trop mec
(too blokey). As we were trying to digest this extraordinary declaration, the other French girl at the table (a psychologist) concurred, ‘Being funny isn’t very feminine.’ They were her words. Their husbands nodded in tacit agreement. For a second or two, I was filled with the urge to shake those two girls, to make them knock back a few drinks, to crack their composure, to see them laugh noisily, spontaneously the way Mum does, the way plenty of women back home do. Instead, in a feat of self-control, I turned and joined the conversation taking place at the other end of the table. There was no point even trying to understand. I knew I never would.

It strikes me as one of this country’s many puzzling contradictions that this absence of battle between the sexes exists within a general culture of confrontation. Charlotte might abhor the aggressive ways of Anglo-Saxon feminists, but in a different way she is formidably combative herself. Faced with her stinging rebuke and snapping eyes, I’d wanted to shrink under the dinner table. This is not the first time I’ve been taken aback by a sharp response in France: far from it. Often these confrontations occur with women but sometimes they are also with men. Although the French adore poetic, oblique
language, in daily encounters they can be incredibly direct.

‘DON’T TOUCH THAT!!’ screams the guy at the local electronics store one day, making me jump. I have just taken a packet of batteries off the shelf to check their size but from his reaction, you’d think it was a priceless piece of sixteenth-century china. For ten minutes he’d been too busy admiring his friend’s wedding photos to even acknowledge my existence. Not so much as an appeasing I’ll-be-with-you-in-a-minute glance in my direction. Hurrying to an interview, I need batteries for my tape recorder. But after shouting, the shop assistant turns back to the wedding album, whispering something inaudible which makes his friend snigger.

‘What’s the matter?’ I ask in a lolly voice laced with arsenic. ‘Forgotten to take your Prozac today?’

The smart-arsed salesman loses some of his swagger. He wasn’t expecting a retort. Obviously I looked like a pushover. Sensing my anger, he adopts a transparently insincere you-know-what-it’s-like tone. ‘Well, you know, it’s just that I can’t have every customer coming in and taking things off shelves.’ To win my understanding, his face tries out a pathetic little smile.

But I’m not understanding—not after being ignored, screamed at, and then whispered about. Menace simmers from every pore. My voice is low, even, surprisingly nasty. The packet of AA-size batteries is in my hand and then suddenly it is spinning through the air, skidding across the glass shop counter where it smashes into the wedding album.

‘And I can’t wait fifteen minutes for you to serve me.’

This incident, which occurs not long after my holiday in Australia, highlights another cultural contrast with my time in Sydney, where the days had rolled by without discord or drama. No shop assistant snapped, no-one rolled their eyes in
impatience or lost their temper for some reason I couldn’t fathom. For an entire month, I didn’t have one shop scene. Everything seemed possible. Yes, I could exchange the top I bought for my sister which is not the right size. Your latté isn’t hot enough? Wait a sec, I’ll get you another. Sure you can just have an entrée. No problem.

Service in France comes in extremes: it’s either brilliant or bad. Some shopkeepers and staff are heroically helpful, as though their lives depended on finding the eyeglass frames that best suit your face or the Camembert that is perfectly ripe for your dinner party tonight. But often very little is accomplished unless you are willing and able to put up a fight. Even the most straightforward task may require a confrontation. Sorry, the public relations person explains. She is far too busy to fax the press release. Never mind that it will take two seconds—not to mention the fact that sending journalists press releases
is
her job. She is
à la bourre
(flat-out).
Pas aujourd’hui.
France Telecom cannot reconnect your telephone line which they cut without warning because some employee misfiled your cheque. Not this week anyway.
Ce n’est pas possible, Madame.
Contrary to appearances, this does not mean it isn’t possible. Not at all. Roughly translated, it means ‘I could help you but I can’t be stuffed’.

‘
Il faut râler
,’ Frédéric tells me all the time, which basically means you’ve got to make a scene. ‘If you’re too nice no-one will respect you.’

This is a novel concept. Too nice. But he’s right. The French are not impressed by anything as banal as niceness. Smile sweetly at a waiter as you sit down and chances are you’ll be treated with contempt. On the other hand, an air of assured superiority—preferably enhanced by a smart suit—will usually be rewarded with professional deference and
prompt service. In an interview, the entrepreneur Francis Holder who heads the hugely successful French bakery chain, Paul, tells me it boils down to
rapport de force
. ‘France is a very hierarchical society,’ he says. ‘The whole question of service is linked to old ideas of power and class. The person serving feels inferior to the person being served so they try and show they are important by being rude.’ Being too nice only gives them the upper hand: it makes you an easy target.

In France, sharp exchanges aren’t treated with the same degree of seriousness as they would be in English-speaking countries. It’s more or less accepted for waiters to snap at clients they don’t know or for someone to launch into a diatribe before you’ve even had time to apologise for bumping them. It isn’t a matter of being rude, it’s just the style of communication is more combative. The French take these daily spats in their stride. Their anger seems to surge and subside as effortlessly as sound levels on a stereo.

But not mine. Although the surging anger part is easy, it’s the cooling down afterwards that I haven’t worked out. If you’re not used to it, this constant conflict can be stressful. Some foreigners actually enjoy it—they find these disputes a healthy release, a way of letting go without risk of lingering ill-feeling or fist fights. But instead of unravelling like a yoyo, my stress only seems to coil tighter with every clash. Occasionally—like the time at the electrical store—my self-possession surprises me and the words magically connect like lines in a play. These moments are hugely satisfying. But they are also quite rare. Usually, I remain tongue-tied—a startled fish-face with popping eyes and a wide ‘O’ mouth.

Among foreign friends in Paris we pool experiences and workshop strategies, replaying our encounters like favourite videos, splicing in the clever, cutting replies which escaped
us at the time. Should you ask to see the manager if someone is particularly unpleasant? (Yes.) Will the manager be sympathetic? (No.) Should you tell a rude waiter
‘vous n’avez aucune éducation
’? Some books on France say this is a clever comeback—perfectly polite and at the same time deeply insulting. But to me, telling someone they’re badly brought up sounds snobby and old-fashioned. On the other hand ‘
vous êtes vraiment con
’ is nice and explicit. You’re a real dickhead. (Extremely impolite but perfectly appropriate in the right circumstances). I wonder whether I’ll ever be brave enough to say it.

Over the last couple of years I’ve sought counsel from my library of advice books for foreigners living in France. Treat confrontations like a game, advised one (which is all very well but I thought games were supposed to be fun). The challenge (the fun bit?) is finding a way of winning over the person so that she or he actually wants to help you. For once this is accomplished, people will go to extraordinary lengths to help you. You will encounter touching kindness. Rules will be bent for you and sometimes even broken. The trick is to find a way of breaking through that seemingly impervious barrier.

Halfway through my third year in France, around the time a team of talented women quietly but assuredly changes the face of the French government, I discover the answer—or at least an answer. The Common Enemy Strategy. In the right circumstances it works like a charm. This revelation occurs one day at the town hall of the 2nd
arrondissement
, where I go to obtain a document which is required by the social security department. I have already traipsed across town to numerous administrative buildings in pursuit of this piece of paper, only to be directed somewhere else. Finally, I am in
the right place. This time I vow not to leave without getting what I came for.

On the stress factor scale, encounters with French bureaucrats send the needle soaring into the red. Living legally in France requires a breathtaking amount of paperwork, and getting it all in order requires inhuman reserves of patience, not to mention a second life of spare time for queuing at the dreaded Paris Préfecture de Police, supplying eleven copies of this document and nine of that one and most pointless of all, a compulsory trip to a medical centre east of Paris where I spent most of the morning standing in line holding a jar of my own pee.

Of course, every country has its bureaucratic idiosyncrasies. What makes France intriguing is the arbitrariness of the administration. Your life depends on the mood of whoever is manning the counter. Your future is in the hands of civil servants and they know it. You, on the other hand, are an insignificant
demandeur.
The enemy. You risk making them late for lunch, bringing in your annoying problems too close to closing and generally taking up valuable time that could be spent doing a million other more important things.