“Would you do that in your own house?”, he practically shouted, puncturing the silence of the flight. I turned around, unsure who the man was talking to.
“Would you? Would you do that in your own house?” His tone was aggressive and he was, it turned out, glaring at me. It took me a moment to realise what he was talking about.
We were sitting next to each other on the front row and I’d been resting my feet on the panel in front of us, taking advantage of my relatively short stature. It hadn’t occurred to me that it could even be a problem; unlike train seats, no one sits on an aircraft wall. Still, the man kept going, until I told him, quietly, that I had no plans to move my legs.
The rest of the flight was spent in tense, glacial silence. I only started breathing properly again once I stepped on to the tarmac.
Now, it is possible that you think my plane neighbour had a point. Perhaps I shouldn’t have rested my feet on that wall. That doesn’t really matter. What I want to talk about here is the manner in which he spoke to me, and the extent to which it shocked me.
You see, he and I had something in common. We were – are – both French. The difference was that he clearly still lived in the country of our forefathers, whereas I left it a decade and a half ago, and rarely return. I was taken aback by his abrasiveness because I’d lost the habit of dealing with my own countrymen.
As far as I’m concerned, any interaction with a stranger, especially one that may lead to conflict, should begin with “sorry… hi… I’m so sorry, apologies, I just wondered if…”, and should ideally be no louder than a mortified mumble. That is what living among you has taught me.
This probably ought to be the point at which I start getting existential, and wonder just what has happened to me, but we’ve been there before. Instead, what this one unpleasant interaction made me realise is that there is a lot France and Britain should be learning from each other. Neither culture is flawless but, together, we could become more than the sum of our parts.
On the question of engaging with strangers, for example, I believe that your people have it right, especially in cities. We spend our lives surrounded by others and we’re all just trying to live our lives, and do our best. When conflict may arise, it doesn’t hurt to be broadly pleasant, and not go from zero to “irate” in the space of a few seconds.
On the other hand, however, I fear that Brits have a lot to learn from us when it comes to drinking. I consumed an absolutely heroic amount of wine while home for Christmas but was at no point hungover. We drank quite copiously with lunch but always had water and food to hand, and stopped for several hours before the aperitif began. Even in the evening, we made sure to drink reasonably slowly.
We in France treat drinking alcohol as a marathon, not a sprint that only ends once everyone has collapsed from exhaustion. Britain would be a much more pleasant country if, say, pubs started offering decent and decently priced snacks, and vats of white wine weren’t the standard serving.
It should also go without saying that we are right to take proper time off for lunch. Eating a salad “al desko” should only happen, at most, once a year, in case of dire emergencies. Anything else is too depressing to contemplate.
That being said, few things are jollier than spending an entire afternoon in a cosy pub in the depths of winter. This may not be applicable to, say, Toulouse or Marseille, but the northern half of France deserves to discover the joys of the pub – places which are neither bars nor cafes but, when done right, are somehow even better than the two combined.
More controversially, I believe that the British model of going out straight after work is the more convenient one. No one wants to be out until 1am on a weeknight, especially if they’re over 30. Some slices of saucisson served at around 7pm would make everyone happy, though. Again: the best of both worlds can be found here, somewhere between our two great nations.
In fact, a middle ground really ought to be found between the British, protestant urge to rarely step away from work, and the French tendency to down tools for the whole of August. Couldn’t it be possible for both our people to really, truly disconnect on weekends and holidays, but not to shut the entire nation down for a month a year?
I could go on, but imagine you get the gist. Where France has its excesses, Britain behaves with too much moderation, and vice versa. If we were to get together and create a hybrid version of our cultures, I believe we would be unstoppable. Who’s with me? I’ll grab my Muscadet and my Scotch egg.
