1 - The French

Well, hi there! My name is Louise Lewis and I live in the South-West of France, in a tiny medieval village called Cordes. Cordes is second home to many Brits in search of a long-lost paradise. The village which was re-baptized Cordes-sur-ciel some decades ago by a mayor with a sharp grasp of  public relations is strikingly beautiful and romantically medieval. It sits at the top of a hill over the Gaillac-area vineyards and its steep meandering cobbled streets, which require more climbing than walking, lead painstakingly to the gates of the old city. In the only newsagent's of the place, down below on the main street, I once bumped into the last British Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, who was having a chat with the then British Conservative minister Douglas Hurd. They were both wearing loose T-shirts, baggy shorts and sandals (possibly with socks on as English men are prone to, even in the scorching sun). It struck me then that the rare natives, who walked about the place with a permanent stoop born from working on the land, rarely lifted their weathered faces to look at the foreigners. They had no clue as to the identities of the English people around them and must have got used to hearing English spoken in the tiny shop which sold The Times alongside La Dépêche du Midi. It also occurred to me that I was not sure which of the two groups I fitted in. There was no easy answer to that question, it could easily have been: both, but more likely, neither of them.

So, do I sound to you like an expat? As a matter of fact, to English people I am “la petite française” but to my French friends and lovers I sound distinctly English, and they sometimes call me “l'anglaise”. To my mother, I am only the one who went away too soon and for too long (celle qui est trop partie). Although France is definitely my home country, I am not particularly at ease with my fellow citizens as I tend to feel readily judged and assessed. In a word, I don't quite trust them: when they are friendly I suspect some dissembling and if they are distant I recognize the arrogance they are at times accused of. You might wonder why on earth I'm using the pronoun “they”. I ought to say “we”. After all, I am one of them, aren't I!

I have never forgotten an article from the American newspaper “Village Voice” that I came across over twenty years ago. It was entitled “1001 reasons to hate the French”. At the time, in the late 1980s, early 1990s, I used to teach French in an English university in the north of England (more about that later) and someone had brought this article to my attention to use it as teaching material. No doubt, the English colleague who had given it to me, at the time I was a very young and inexperienced member of staff, had had ulterior motives; it could not have been a totally innocent gesture; perhaps his intention had been to test my ability to resort to self-derision, something that the French are not renowned for. I remember that the article, after listing all the reasons (although not 1001 but around fifty) to dislike the French, concluded that France was indeed a beautiful country but “Such a shame about the French”! Of course the so-called reasons were an accumulation of clichés and prejudice but, even at my young age I could tell that a lot of them had the ring of truth and had not been totally fabricated. The argument that had struck me most and which has remained ingrained in my mind was that, in France all those who had been young during WW2 (of course there aren't many of those left nowadays) claimed to have taken part in the Resistance. Touché!