vacances

Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot

Posted on by MELewis

You can hear the emotion in his voice. When Nicolas Hulot, Ministre de la Transition Ecologique et Solidaire, says that he has decided to leave the government, live on French radio station France Inter, his words shake with emotion. The announcement sent shock waves across the country this week.

Nicolas Hulot was a big catch when Macron formed his new government in May 2017. For years, French presidents from Chirac to Hollande had been vying to put his name on their environment portfolio. The fact that the well-known ecologist and TV personality of ‘Ushuaia’ fame finally agreed to join the new ‘En Marche’ government felt like a coup, and an indication that the president’s promise to ‘make our planet great again’ was more than just words.

Alas, the reality of this notoriously difficult portfolio was more than Hulot could bear. He is no career politician and I can only imagine that the daily meetings with dullards diplômés must have grated as the ice caps continued to melt. And the long, hot summer vacation gave him ample time to weigh up his options. Despite what many saw as significant progress over the past year, he could not reconcile himself to playing politics. Dumbing down what he sees as a planetary emergency in order to negotiate with lobby groups, each with its own agenda. Farmers, hunters, energy companies.

While some might see Hulot’s departure as a lack of courage, of abandoning ship in stormy seas, the French on the whole approve. For one simple reason: personal integrity. This unwillingness to sell out or compromise one’s beliefs is a value highly prized in France. Nicolas Hulot will be remembered as someone who had the courage of his convictions.

When I heard about the surprise announcement on the radio, I couldn’t help but think of Jacques Tati’s classic 1953 film, Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, aka Mr. Hulot’s Holiday. I’ve never watched the entire movie, but this clip will give you its essence.

Are there similarities between Tati’s lovable but clumsy character and Nicolas Hulot? I see a few, from the fact that he has always seemed like a fish out of water amongst the smooth and smiling political elite, that he is rough around the edges and rather gauche at times. And, as I discovered while researching this post, Tati actually took inspiration for his ‘Monsieur Hulot’ from Hulot’s paternal grandfather, an architect who lived in the same apartment building as the filmmaker.

The word play is fairly obvious. As the French word for holiday is ‘vacances’ and the singular version of the word ‘vacance’ means a ‘vacancy’, the media have also played with this syncronicity of life imitating art.

https://www.letemps.ch/opinions/vacance-monsieur-hulot-agite-medias-etrangers

https://www.contrepoints.org/2018/08/28/323640-vacance-monsieur-hulot

So what do you think of Mr. Hulot’s post-holiday decision? Kudos or cowardice?

Blogus interruptus

Posted on by MELewis

As the sun sinks slowly in the west, we find our heroine melting in a puddle of perspiration. Will she cool off with her paramour on a beach somewhere? Drown her sorrows in a bucket of champagne? Or disappear into a shady corner of the garden and hibernate until winter?

Stay tuned for further adventures of life in France when temperatures return to normal…

Bonnes vacances à tous!

 

Le temps d’une pause

Posted on by MELewis

Versailles gardensHere in France our summer siesta has begun.

This year more than ever, we need a break. I’ve written before about the fact that la pause estivale is sacrosanct in this country, about how they roll up the carpets while just about everyone goes on summer vacation.

Between the bracketed holidays of Bastille Day on July 14th and le 15 août – one of many religious holidays inscribed in the French calendar – not much will move around here. Hopefully, not even the crazy people who want to kill us.

For me, too, it’s a good time for a break. Time to step back from the routine of normal life and breathe a little. Stare at the sky, watch the grass grow. Think about some things, stop thinking about others.

For the past few years, I’ve been working on a memoir about life in France. It’s been slow going as it spans almost thirty years and many different places and experiences. Recently I began work on what I thought was the final edit – and realized I am still in need of some major restructuring. So it’s back to the drawing keyboard.

Sometimes it’s good to take a step back – you see things completely differently. If I hadn’t got some space between me and that draft, I might not have seen the cracks and the flaws.

Like this picture of the formal gardens in Versaille. It took me a moment to see the other, surprising image there.

I’m hoping a blogging break will help me gain perspective and see a lot more happy faces, Including all of yours.

Hope you are heading off somewhere nice or otherwise enjoying life this summer. Please tell me all about it!

Bisous et bonnes vacances!

Juilletiste ou Aoûtien?

Posted on by MELewis

Juilletiste ou Aoutien?If one thing is sacrosanct in France, it’s vacation time. And when the schools close in July and August, it’s more than just the summer holidays: these are les grandes vacances.

Ain’t life grand? Everyone, but everyone – goes away. It’s not enough to simply take time off from work. Il faut partir. The question on everybody’s lips is – “Vous partez? Où?”

A question of only slightly lesser importance than ‘où’ is: ‘Quand?’ When you are leaving is almost as vital as where you are going. And as with any question of faith, there are different schools of belief. The two main camps are those who go away in July – les Juilletistes – and those who wait until August – les Aoûtiens.

Les Juilletistes – These are people who just can’t wait to get away. They long to be first and to come back tanned and relaxed while everyone else is still stressed. And they look forward to a second break when they return during the dead weeks of August. No traffic. No line-ups at the lunch counter. Hardly anyone haunting the office. Not surprisingly, Juilletistes are viewed with suspicion and perhaps a hint of envy.

Les Aoûtiens – They are the traditionalists, the moral majority. Also the self-employed (moi). They are the worker bees. They cannot afford to take off before the half-year financial results have been put to bed, the president has spoken to the nation on the 14th of July, and it is safe to assume that France has rolled up its sidewalks for a long summer’s sièste.

I’m normally an Aoûtienne. Not just for the reasons above, but because I’ve always found it unbearable to be coming back to work when everybody else is on their way to the beach. But this summer is different…this year we have decided to stay put.

We’ve been intending to do this for years. Ever since we entered that enviable bracket of those whose kids have flown the nest and are no longer required to stick to le calendrier des vacances scolaires. When prices often double in France.

For once, we decided to be smart and enjoy the summer in our own backyard. Then take a break in the lower season when most people are back at work.

I didn’t think this would be a problem. I’m a real homebird and looked forward to enjoying the season in our parts for once. We’re lucky enough to live in a beautiful region that attracts a lot of people on holiday. We have a lake nearby and a pool. And this year, this idyllic location has attracted quite a few of our own family as visitors. So we’ve been busy.

But I have to say it feels wrong somehow not to be going anywhere. Last year it was Corsica and the year before, Dubrovnik. Both of which were beautiful. Now, without a trip in the offing, I’m feeling a little antsy.

There’s an expression for this in French: ‘Il faut se dépayser.’ You need to get away, discover something new, have a change of scene.

Don’t you love the fact that the French have specific words to describe the need for a holiday? And for different summer vacationers?

What about you? Juilletiste, Aoûtien or not at all?

For those who read French, this article from Le Figaro drolly explains the entire philosophical debate around the choice.

 

Vive les vacances

Posted on by MELewis

congésOverheard snippet of conversation amongst female coworkers, roughly translated:

“I really need some.”

“Me too. It’s been way too long.”

“How long’s it been?”

“Months. Not since the winter and that was far too short.”

“If I don’t get some soon, I’m gonna die.”

I was red-faced before I figured out what they were talking about. It’s the one thing the French absolutely cannot live without: holidays.

Since the law was first passed in 1936 granting every French worker the right to les congés payés, the annual paid vacation has been inscribed in the culture of this country. Since then it has mushroomed from two to five weeks.

There are two major categories of holidays: les petites vacances (spring, fall and winter breaks) and les grandes vacances, that lovely stretch of two long summer months. They all march to the rhythm of the school calendar. But whether or not they have school-age children, and whatever their other hobbies (travel, skiing or other sports), everyone in France, and I do mean everyone, takes a summer vacation.

I love the fact that France has charitable organizations devoted to ensuring that underprivileged children get a summer holiday (“Pour ceux qui ne peuvent partir”). And that there are even specific words for those who take their holidays in July (les juilletistes) or August (les aoûtiens).

Although some go to the mountains for fresh air and others go north and west to the beaches in Normandy, Brittany and the Atlantic coast, most of France heads south.

I visualize this as a sort of tipping of the hour glass: come July 14th, the country gets tipped over and almost all of the sand goes to the bottom. Then, around August 15th, it flips back again.

On the first weekend after Bastille Day you only have to turn on the TV or radio to hear the breaking news: the highways and byways are ‘noir’ (literally ‘black’ but actually meaning packed) as tourists take to the road and converge on France from all over Europe. All news channels will talk about little other than the major traffic jams and report double-than-average travel times from Paris to parts south. La canicule (the heatwave) and la météo des plages (beach weather report) are the only kind of news the French want to hear about for the next month.

When I got my first job in France and discovered I would immediately qualify for five weeks of annual paid vacation, I was thrilled. Compared to the paltry two weeks you get as statutory holiday in Canada, this was manna from the gods. But then I noticed how quickly it went. A week at Christmas, another for a ski break in March…if I wasn’t careful to keep it to two weeks in summer, there wouldn’t be much left.

But two weeks in the summer was too short, as one of my colleagues explained:

“The first week, you unwind. The last week, you’re already thinking about going back to work. So you really need three weeks in order to have a least one week in the middle where you really relax.”

I have to admit, the French are good at this.

As for me, I am a devout aoûtienne. But we’re only taking two weeks this summer. There’s just too many other times of year when I need a vacation.

Bonnes vacances to all who are lucky enough to enjoy some!