Potty talk

As human society moves relentlessly forward, things that some of us experienced as luxuries have easily become normative expectations in contemporary society.  For example, my spouse and children were aghast to discover that our rental house (in which we have been biding time as our own home becomes vacant) had a big, old, fat television with only a handful of channels.  Quelle horreur! (How awful!)  The situation had to be fixed immediately, so now our own flat screen television sits atop the antiquated monstrosity. (Or, which is the monstrosity?)

Having an up-to-date television is one thing, but probably the greater hardship for my family in our U.S. rental has been sharing a single bathroom with one toilet.  Our sweet little rental home was built in 1936 and for the time in which it was built, that indoor toilet was probably quite the luxury.  In some parts of the world, indoor toilets still are a luxury and the focus of philanthropic work (see Gates Foundation work on this: "What we do: Water Sanitation Hygiene strategy overview"). Today though indoor plumbing is ubiquitous in the West; the OECD indicates that 97.8% of OECD countries have at at least one indoor toilet (see OECD better life index.). We've gotten to the point where a single toilet has become the minimal standard in private homes.  Most everyone we know in Seattle has at least two bathrooms with a toilet each, and during our sojourn in France, we lived in two different apartments with two toilets in one and four(!) in the other, arranged variously as full bathrooms or water closets (or wc's), with just toilets and sinks.  Occasionally, in France, we'd come across a bidet (not to be confused with a toilet), but these luxurious items seem to be much less common today.

Luxury in toiletry does seem to be reserved primarily for the private home.  Public toilets continue to be much more minimal, even in the West, although here there are variations.  In France, we attended quite a few all-day soccer tournaments with hundreds of attendees at public stadiums where that minimal standard of a single, barely clean toilet was considered sufficient to meet the needs of all the players and their families.  The conditions often required the provision of one's own toilet paper and the same kind of dexterity as the standing Turkish-style toilets at the French aires de repos (rest stops).  Talk about antiquated models! These toilets off the toll highways were really old school (or barbaric, according to one expat friend.)  In our beloved and bourgeois Aix-en-Provence, public money was finally coughed up in our last year there for the installation of several fancy public toilettes (these are always referred to in the plural in French, even when there is only one!).  I had to laugh at the installation of one which was right next to the location of a very popular children's bungee-jumping attraction, making it difficult for tourists to stand in line or to enter the 'facilities' without being jostled.

French tourist offices don't typically offer access to toilets (not in Aix, not in Nice, not in Lyon), but the staff do direct people to private toilet facilities where you can pee for a fee, but these facilities were often a bit scruffy too.  It seems that the French do not put a lot of money or effort into the provision of public facilities, while providing ample access seems to be much more important in the U.S., even if the toilets aren't always flushing models.  I'm thinking of the outhouse style port-a-potties such as the one I noticed two weekends ago, prominently stationed adjacent to a soccer field at my son's tournament in Beaverton, Oregon. Permanent facilities were also available at the sports complex, but since one particular field was a bit farther away, someone had thoughtfully installed a temporary toilet.  I've even been to tournaments where a dozen such port-a-potties were set up, all in a row.  When you gotta go, that's nice to know.
 

Le respect

Because I haven't attended French schools myself and parents are not typically invited to be on school grounds during the school day, there are many everyday classroom protocols that I only know about through my children.  For example, when middle school students enter a classroom, they must stand by their desks and wait until the teacher tells them to sit down.  Likewise, if an administrator such as the principal enters the classroom, even unexpectedly, all of the students must instantly scramble onto their feet to stand beside their desks in a sign of respect for him or her.  And, when raising their hand in response to a teacher's question, students raise their index finger, as if gently pointing up to the ceiling (no frantic U.S. style hand waving here!).

These are markers of le respect that are specific to a culture.  Curiously though, they imply strong deference to authority, in a society where many other social conventions seem to be intended to create social exchanges on a more equal footing.  I've noted earlier how the French offer greetings and farewells in stores, and this is in part I think to create a setting of mutual respect between the seller and the consumer for the potential economic exchange that may take place.  Once, when I was so focused on making sure I got my order right in French at the fanciest bakery in town, I forgot to say bonjour.  The bakery clerk repeated his bonjour to me three times, waiting for me to return it before he would help me with my order.  And there is what I sometimes think of as the kiss-fest that occurs whenever we go to football practice or a game.  I easily faire les bises with at least 20 people, parents, coaches, players, siblings of players, grandparents of players, etc.  It doesn't matter what the person's social or coaching rank is, we make these exchanges as a way to imply a kind of respect for each other as persons, where we acknowledge each other's humanity for just a moment even if we go on to sit or chat with someone else.  Finally, there are the opportunities for the French public to respectfully disagree with their political and economic leaders, by striking and bringing the country to a standstill, if for a moment.  This week the air traffic controllers and local train line staffs took their turn in the South of France.  (I also wrote about the strikes of last October in Les manifestations, Oct. 2012.)

Unfortunately, in some social arenas, authority figures do sometimes use their positions to demand respect from their followers but don't always offer considération (respect) in return.  We see this in politics often, even in democratic societies.  For example, we have the government shut-down in the U.S. brought about by politically powerful people who can't seem to make compromises for the good of everyone (striking is not a privilege for the government, but for its people!), and in France, we have the amazingly sexist behavior of some French MPs (members of parliament) towards their female colleagues ("France's sexist National Assembly", France24blogs, 10/10/2013), and the unfortunate comments by a presidential cabinet member in regards to the Roma population in France (Roms: le Mrap va déposer plainte contre Valls devant le CJR, La Provence, 11 Oct. 2013).  In the educational setting, the rules about respect seem to vary a bit more widely.  In U.S. schools, students are expected to act politely to their teachers and administrators, but standing up in the presence of teachers or shaking their hands is not required, not anymore anyway.  Teachers and administrators themselves must abide carefully by rules governing appropriate personal or physical contact and are expected to be mutually respectful.  In French public schools, the model seems to be be much more authoritarian and the flow of respect is largely from the students towards their teachers.  I hear a lot about verbal berating of students--students are often told what they are doing wrong and very little of what they are doing well--and this week at my sons' school, a teacher reportedly hit a student violently for misbehaving.  Yet, the school year began with the national announcement of a new secular code of conduct for all French students ("School year begins in France with string of reforms," France 24, 4 Sept. 2013).  Codes of conduct are pretty common in U.S. educational institutions, and a few months ago, I reiterated a feminist's call for a broad social code of conduct in everyday life (see La politesse March 2013). Yet, I gather from the cartoon below from a page in my French daily calendar that the question of mutual respect is still a bit of a joke at French schools.  Maybe the new code of conduct should address everyone at school, students and adults alike?

In the Ethics class, on Politeness, a student says to the teacher,
"One stands up when the students enter the classroom!"

Une porte fermée

This week we had the frustrating experience of losing access to our rental parking spot due to a poorly-publicized changing of the garage door sensors.  The first evening my spouse was caught between two closed garage doors, unable to go forward towards our section of the garage nor to exit (or even to call for help due to weak phone reception).  The next day I watched helplessly through the grating on one side of the center garage door as the new transmitter I had been given failed to open the door immediately in front of me yet worked nicely for the one beyond that leads to the street.  On both occasions, we could see where we wanted to go, the rewards were tantalizingly close, but because of une porte fermée (a closed door), we couldn't quite get there. 

That's not so different from the experiences of women that I wrote about last time in regards to salaries (La Politesse, March 2013).  In addition, women can often see the occupational and promotional opportunities above them, through the plafond de verre (the glass ceiling) but they can't quite reach them, at least not in the numbers that we should expect, not in France and not in the U.S.  A similar situation faces immigrants, particularly those from poorer countries-of-origin, for whom the rewards of a better or at least hopefully more comfortable life may be all too visible but not so easily reachable.  This is the theme in the témoignage I am currently reading (which is a kind of memoir, or personal testimony) by an Algerian Muslim immigrant who grew up in the Paris suburb of Val Fourré.  (About 13% of French immigrants come from Algeria.)  In Du côté de chez moi, Salima Senini* (2013) tells of life in the isolated city housing project, and the thrilling glimpses of French mainstream culture she gets, through television, school, and eventually, through her reading of French literature.  For her family and most of her immigrant neighbors, living the comfortable French lifestyle though is beyond their grasp.  Her father works several jobs to pay the rent and feed his large family and to get them to Algeria for summer visits, so for Senini, the desire to celebrate Christmas and receive gifts, to spend holidays skiing or frankly, anywhere outside of the immigrant ghetto, to wear more fashionable clothing, all these have to be satisfied with infrequent discount shopping trips to the city and or through dreams depicted in her made-up answers to school assignments about what gifts she received or to questions about where she spent her holidays.  (The teachers didn't realize that not all of their students celebrate Christmas?!  These same teachers also suggested that the  immigrant kids who spoke French and a tribal language at home were not 'really' bilingual because the other non-world language didn't count as a real language.)

Most of Senini's seven siblings don't complete school, ending up in strictly manual or blue collar jobs, just like all of the other neighbors' kids.  Unfortunately, they and others like them are often among those that suffer disproportionately in times of economic downturns such as we are experiencing in France right now.   This can put to a halt any progress made towards those elusive immigrant dreams.  (We have a family friend in Washington state who no doubt sees this same thing over and over again in her work helping immigrants and refugees learn English and find gainful employment in their new homes.)  Here in France, unemployment is the highest since 1999, at 10%. (See France24, French joblessness climbs to highest rate, March 7, 2013.)  It's over 25% for those under age 25, and some of whom are indeed immigrant youth or youth of immigrant parents, especially here in the south of France.  And, the sectors that continue to see declines in the past few economic quarters are precisely those in heavy blue collar (and immigrant) sectors, such as construction, mechanical work (vehicle repair for example), transportation, manufacturing (see INSEE report, in English, Ongoing decrease in payroll employment March 13, 2013).   Thus, glass ceilings, and open and then suddenly locked doors remain a fact of life for many immigrants, here and elsewhere.

*(Click here for a French language radio interview with Senini on the release of her book.  The English edition of her book from the Arenes publishing house seems to be forthcoming, and is entitled In search of myself.)

Here's another door that is hard to penetrate.  It leads to Le Panthéon national in Paris, that final resting place for illustrious contributors to the glorious French Republic (as decided by the current president of the Republic).  Among the many men's remains, there are remains of two women (next to their spouses) and one person of color.
 

Où est le boeuf?

Lately I've been having some fun collecting creative food names in French, particularly in the sweets department.  The highly descriptive millefeuille (thousand leaves or sheets) is what the French call a Napoleon, and langues du chat (cat's tongues) are lovely shortbread-like biscuits. Last week I discovered les lunettes de Romans (the Romans' glasses) at the grocery store, and then there are the hilarious pets de nonnes which are currently available at several local bakeries in Aix (these 'nuns' farts' are just doughnut holes to you and me).  I can enjoy all of the above with a noisette, which is an espresso shot with just enough milk to turn the color of a hazelnut for which it is named.  The French aren't all that unusual, as I can think of creative names for foods in other places I've lived; in the U.S. we eat elephant ears, or pigs in a blanket, and for a simple meal I really enjoy köyhät ritarit (poor knights) as they are named in Finnish, which are French toast in English and pain perdu (lost bread) in French!  How's that for creative?

In Europe, some overly creative naming of food is very much in the news right now, after the discovery that horsemeat has been packaged and labeled as ground beef, and manufactured into packaged meals and sold to European consumers.  The scandal implicates a French company and reveals a convoluted European food supply chain.  Indeed, où est le boeuf (where's the beef)?  On the one hand, it seems that the French are generally less scandalized by the creative advertising of horsemeat, and this is in part because horsemeat is consumed here.  Apparently there is a stand at the market in Aix where la viande de cheval (horsemeat) is available, and in Paris too there are boucheries (butchers) that specialize in it.  The outrage is apparently particularly great among the Brits for whom horses are dearly beloved pets and not meant to be consumed as food. (See The French Observatory blog post Why are the British so fussy about horsemeat? 2/13/2013).

For the French, their real beef more likely lies in the implications of the story of la viande (meat).  French factory-processed, Romanian horsemeat lasagne just is not consistent with the hallowed French traditions surrounding food, knowing where it comes from, buying it specially selected, preparing it with elaborate techniques, and then, serving it and eating it slowly with great pleasure and with great wine.  Revering locally produced food is a big part of these traditions.  We have a great deal of local produce available to us in the south, but even so, many food items are expensive here, especially meat and poultry.  Our family consumes much less meat here for that reason.  We've made a few exceptions, for example, we bought an 8 kilo (about 18 lbs) Thanksgiving turkey at the neighborhood boucherie (butcher/meat shop) to prepare for a belated Thanksgiving with our French friends.  This French bird cost us 66 euros or 88 U.S. dollars!  Even sweets can be expensive.  In early January we had some school and sports families over for an epiphany party where I served epiphany cakes from two local shops.  The bill for the brioche-style  gateaux (cakes) for 20 people from the best patisserie (pastry shop) in town, was..., ahem, over 100 euros !  Okay, the line was out the door when I went to get my special red boxes from the shop, the gateaux were really, really delicious, and they contained real santons (figurines) for the lucky recipients, but they sure were pricey!  Certainly, these were special foods for special occasions, but even the weekly meat purchases and our Sunday afternoon cakes add up.  I have adolescent boys who are always hungry, so I resort to buying multipacks of meat, big bags of produce, room-temperature milk and sometimes, les plats préparés (prepared meals) at the local supermarkets, hoping I'm getting good quality, much like many, many French families do.  I'd love to buy more food in bulk, and meat from a farm, like we do in Seattle, buying from relatives who grow happy beef, (and there are sources here, even grass-fed beef raised by a former Seattle family in SW France: http://bratlikeme.com/), but where would I store this food in my French apartment and how often do I have time to prepare it well, working as I am?  The freezer in our tall but skinny French refrigerator is always jammed full, and I am always in a jam trying to squeeze in decent meals on the days I try to both work and schlep children to activities.  Perhaps this is the most scandalous thing about 'le faux boeuf' (the fake beef); it brings to light the fact that even though the French famously love their food, to be able to buy the best quality from local sources, to have the time and resources to prepare it and enjoy it slowly and lovingly, this all requires far more money, time, and creativity than many people can muster.

La vie familiale

The U.S. academic and mainstream presses have been highlighting the significant social class differences in how Americans experience family life, and the distinctive outcomes that such experiences bring.  What we are seeing is twofold.  The middle is falling out of the middle class, in that the median income of the middle class is falling and the middle class share of the nation's wealth is declining (PEW Research, August 2012. "[video] Lost Decade of the Middle Class." Social and Demographic Trends).  As the the middle thins out, we are noting increasingly disparate family patterns at each end, in terms of coupling, childrearing, and life chances.  Families in the upper middle class and above are increasingly more likely to be led by married couples, and these families contain children who receive a great deal of attention and enrichment in their lives, thanks to the opportunities afforded by two incomes and the presence of two educated adults.  Families on the lower end of the social class spectrum, those slipping out of that shrinking middle section and below, are increasingly much less likely to consist of two parent households or to be created out of marriage, and the parents in such families are less well-educated, work in relatively unstable and low-paying service occupations, and struggle to offer children adequate educations let alone the chances to develop themselves in other ways.  A particularly poignant portrait of this is provided in Jason DeParle's article from this past summer (July 14, 2012, "Two Classes, Divided by 'I do'." The New York Times.).  The article collection that I use for my sociology of family courses (Public and Private Families A Reader, 7th edition, edited by Andrew Cherlin, 2013) reflects this shift as well, as there is a recurrent focus on the social class divide in family experience in many of the articles in the newest edition.

In France, distinctive family patterns by class are not immediately obvious.  People generally seem to dress well and eat well here, and la vie familiale (family life) seems relatively similar across social class.  Sure, there is a high divorce rate here too, and unmarried childbearing is not uncommon, but it occurs at the top and bottom (witness France's president!), and families with children, of all class backgrounds and parental structures, can and do receive broad financial support in France in the form of educational, food and other kinds of public subsidies (not to mention tax breaks for having kids in school).  This modulates the living standards and to some extent, life chances, giving a more uniform experience across the social classes.  Even children of single mothers or parents with relatively low-paying jobs seem able to outfit themselves in the latest skater gear, and  participate in extracurricular activities, purchase books, and may go on to public university (if they complete their compulsory educations, a spot is guaranteed), something we simply don't see across the board for U.S. children.  In our own experience here, we note that the soccer club fees we pay in France for one adolescent son are barely 10% of what we paid in Seattle, and the département (administrative region) in which we live provides booklets of vouchers for every middle school child which further reduce sports participation fees and the prices of tickets to movies or cultural performances (pictured above).  And then there is that high-quality, centralized public school system that most French schoolchildren attend, complete with a substantial four-course meal (the price of which can also be reduced), in contrast to the U.S. where school quality and school food vary greatly by state and community, further accentuating any class disadvantages that already exist. 

Yet, the French middle has also hollowed out a bit (see short video The Globe and Mail, Feb. 22, 2012, "Tough Choices for France's Middle Class"), and the 'social elevator' that was powered by earlier, more generous social programs and that created the attendant social leveling of the previous decades has slowed down during the current period of economic stagnation in France and elsewhere in Europe.  Will distinctive class patterns and outcomes become more evident among French families as a result?  The data will tell.  On the other hand, there are probably greater distinctions among French families than I can recognize, struggling as I am as a foreigner to read the social cues and understand the conversations around me.  I do sense the surprise of local acquaintances when we mention a recent trip to Paris, or the gently raised eyebrows of the staff when I pay our children's sport fees in full and before the deadline.  And I still think back to that conversation with my former driving school teacher during one of her cigarette breaks (I mentioned this also in a post last summer, Je ne sais quo ) when she emphatically pointed out the rigidity of the French class system, the fact that someone of the French lawyer 'class' would have virtually no reason ever to socially interact with or speak to someone like her.  By extension then, I have to suspect that as her children experience life from a similar social position and under challenging economic conditions to boot, class privilege and oppression will play an ever greater role in France too, in accentuating existing social patterns and determining family and personal outcomes.

Allez les gars!

Just like in the American town in which I grew up and in the U.S. city where I've lived most of my adult life, sports rivalries are big here in France, at all levels.  For us, they are especially pronounced since our children play in local sports clubs and we spend each weekend listening to fans of opposing teams rallying their team's members against the foes.  The French may be a little more restrained than the American fans, but we hear plenty of yelling and sideline coaching:  Allez les gars! (Let's go guys!)  Bien joué! (Good play, or well-played!)  Tirez (Shoot!)  As for rivalries, our rugby-playing son's team has a cross-town rival club, and much was made of a former teammate 'defection' this fall.  A more intense rivalry exists between Aix's best club de foot (soccer club) and the one in the adjacent town (to which my other son has in fact defected this year, see the team photo below that appeared in Friday's La Provence, Nov. 23, 2012).
  

Intense local rivalries become regional ones and even national ones, such as those between teams and fans of the French professional teams, or between the French national team and say the Italians.  Here in Provence, regardless of one's local club affiliations, it's the professional football team OM, Olympique Marseille, that we are supposed to root for (this is apparently non-negotiable), and this Wednesday's French league match is a much-awaited one one of its big rivals, OL, Olympique Lyonnais.  As we see elsewhere, French fans can get a little crazy in expressing their loyalties and the rivalries.  A coach at our son's soccer club is such a rabid OM fan that he sports a big OM tattoo, a big old OM earring in one ear, and turquoise OM fanwear; he is also said to break out in song whenever the archrival team Paris SG loses its matches.  I'd wager though that when it comes to national team competitions, his local and regional rivalries are eclipsed by his support for the French national team, with its FFF rooster logo.

The us vs. them mentality is quite social.  On the one hand, it allows one to identify closely with others who share similar interests and situations. Rivalries and battles create that essential Durkheimian sense of belonging and group identity.  Interestingly, it doesn't even take a victory, to build that feeling of connection with others in the same boat.  Yesterday, our son's U-13 team tied the region's most prestigious and purportedly best team, (that would be the youth team from the OM club, mentioned above!).  Amazingly, that tie was the talk at our sons' school today, and it was the catalyst for some emotional Facebook posts on the club's page last night proclaiming a few grown men's pride in their hometown club.  Apparently, being the underdog can be just as unifying as being the ultimate victor.


On the other hand, being the underdog can pose real disadvantages too, because the relatively superficial sports rivalries usually reflect deeper inequalities and social struggles for power, privilege and prestige, between individuals, groups, towns, regions, etc.  These all have different social, economic and political endowments that others might seek or that they want to augment themselves, and so we jockey for power.  Sometimes we try to share, or compromise, but usually, the stronger, more endowed team wins, the other one loses, and if there is a tie, well, eventually that tie has to be broken, most of the time.  Here in France, we've just witnessed the messy political battle between the top candidates for the leadership of France's main opposition party (the former president Sarkozy's party) both of whom felt they had won the recent party election and neither would gracefully concede (see "Rivals class over UMP leadership ahead of talks" Nov. 25, 2012, France24).  I'm not sure who's the underdog in that rivalry, but ultimately that deadlock has to end if that party is going to remain viable.  Locally, we have the political wrangling for and against a national proposal to unify Aix more closely with Marseille in administrative affairs, to create a bigger metropolitan zone.  The mayor in Aix clearly opposes the plan, seeing it as a threat to Aix's prestige and its autonomy (see "Maryse Joissains ne veut pas de métropole, Sept. 7, 2012 France3).  She apparently authorized the banner that I saw being unfurled on the balcony at the hotel de ville (city hall) last Friday.  Others see the métropole plan as the only real way to improve the intolerable traffic in the region, the inefficiency of having so many separate administrative units in so many small towns, and the difficult security, economic and immigrant situations in Marseille.  (See a pro-metropole view here, in French.  I touched on Marseille's difficulties in an earlier post this year, see Du shit. )  In this case, the bigger, more complex, but overburdened Marseille is probably the underdog, despite the glory of its football club.  In sports, it often doesn't REALLY matter how the matches end (or so we tell the kids: "it's just a game").  Here though we can see that the outcomes of some rivalries can have much more serious consequences; sometimes it really does matter who wins and who loses.