DICTAabroad
A
T
he typical Frenchie rises at about 9 am,
makes coffee at home, and then heads to
work via the local boulangerie. Just as in the
UK we are no more than two metres from a rat,
in France they are never further than sniffingdistance from a bakery. It is also customary
at this time to collect several baguettes, which
must be carried around as a form of defence
at all times according to the National Baguette
Association. Above all, the Frenchie must not
leave home without a piece of ID, necessary
for most everyday transactions from going
swimming to buying a bus pass. Rumours that
its use is to be extended to public toilets are as
yet unconfirmed.
Whatever route the Frenchie takes to work,
he can be sure to pass a pharmacy at least every
200 metres. The pharmacy’s main purpose is
not to sell medical supplies, but to light up every
person’s journey with fast-changing patterns
of green stripes filling a large cross above the
pharmacy door. Helpfully, most of these signs
also display the date, time and temperature, so
the Frenchie can accurately calculate how much
time he is wasting being distracted by these
signs.
Fortunately, work will not begin until 10
o’clock, so there is no real hurry to arrive. Time
spent at is seen as a form of torture by the
Frenchie, and working hours (a maximum of 35
hours per week) make leisure time compulsory.
Attempts by the previous President to increase
the statutory maximum of working hours were
supported by just over half the population. It
is to be expected that well-used shops such
as bakeries and cafés will shut for four to six
weeks over the summer, particularly in small
villages. Not actually having a job is an even
more detested situation for the Frenchie. In fact,
being given employment is a constitutional right.
Arrival at work will signal a flurry of kiss
exchanges. Depending on the region and the
Eleanor Healy-Birt
in Bordeaux, France
Day in the Life of a Frenchie
level of acquaintance,
these may take anywhere
from two seconds each to
a full minute, per person.
This ritual serves well to
replace British small-talk
about the weather.
The Frenchie will then go to his work
station and begin to clock up the 35 hours.
There are two things that can be stated about the
job regardless of the post. Firstly, the Frenchie
will have spent half his life at university to get
it, selflessly wasting away years to help keep
the country’s unemployment statistics at a
minimum. A typical university journey consists
of two or three first years in different subjects,
a re-taking of the first year in the subject that is
finally settled on, and then a further four years
of study with extra re-takes for fun. People
who pass their first year on their first attempt
(a mere 35% of freshers), are considered to be
strange. The Frenchie will have qualifications
for one particular job, which makes him unable
to do anything else. Education is about learning
specific facts by rote, and not about learning
general skills. A person trained in peeling
potatoes is the peeling potatoes person, and will
not move onto peeling carrots when there is a
potato plummet and a carrot overload.
The second constant is that this job will
almost certainly involve copious amounts of
paperwork. The employee’s job is to lose as
many documents as possible, send querying
members of the public to small offices at the
opposite end of the building which may not
exist, and then dump the assembled files into
the large underground paper storage rooms
upon which most of France is built. Every
Frenchie will experience this system as both
client and member of staff, leading to a complex
game of cat-and-mouse. The basic principle is
that the employee must read off necessary
documents from a list until he arrives at one that
the member of the public cannot provide. This
will then be declared the vital document and the
case