Letter From Paris
Paris Kiosque - July 1998 - Volume 5, Number 7
Copyright (c) 1998 Harriet Welty-Rochefort - Used with permission.
Two "School Leavings"
July in Paris: for tourists, the delight of a cold
drink on the terrace of a Parisian café and seeing
the sights. For Parisians, the beginning of les vacances. For
French students, the joy of the end of the year
and for their parents, relief.
As the mother of two Franco-American sons, I have had
the privilege of raising them in France, coupled with the
joys and sorrows and mysteries resulting from putting them in
French schools. It took me years, for example, to understand
the French educational system. Now that they are almost out
of it (our 22-year-old just graduated from a grande école
with a degree in Applied Mathematics and the 17-year-old is,
at the very moment I pen this, in the midst
of his French "Bac", a nationwide exam all French high
school students have to take before they can leave school)
I have finally figured it out! Better late than never....
Almost everything in the French educational system is different from
the U.S. system so even after getting used to most
of it, there are still some things that surprise me.
For example, "graduation" U.S. style, with caps and gowns and
solemn music, doesn't exist in France. Considering how rigorous the
French educational system is, I thought that at the end
of the road students would be "rewarded" for their efforts
by some kind of elaborate ceremony. My eldest son, for
example, worked like a trooper to get into one of
the nation's most elite schools but when it came time
to graduate from it, the least one can say is
that the departure ceremonies were understated - and his school
is one of the few which took the trouble to
do anything at all!
We parents were invited to a ceremony where speeches were
given and the diplomas handed out. However, with no music
or program or faculty filing in in academic garb, the
whole thing looked more like an insurance convention than a
graduation. The speeches were rather funny, though. You can hardly
imagine an American college president warning the future graduates that
"the higher a monkey climbs, the more he shows his
a--" or "two intellectuals who are seated will never go
as far as one a------ who walks". It sounds a
bit vulgar in translation, but since the speech was laced
with citations from famous French philosophers and writers, those two
comments brought a bit of welcome comic relief.
As for leaving high school....in France, no one gets a
high school diploma until taking and passing the nationwide school
leaving exam called the "Baccalauréat". My youngest son's "Bac" went
like this: Monday: a four hour written Philosophy exam, Wednesday,
a four hour History and Geography exam in the morning
followed by a three hour Math exam in the afternoon.
Thursday, a one hour written text in English, and Friday,
a five hour exam in Economics. After that, a one
hour oral exam in German and it's all over but
the waiting (students get their results three weeks later). Multiple
choice, by the way, does not exist in France. If
you don't know it, there's no way to fake. Believe
me, by the time kids get out of high school
here, they have richly deserved it!
.....and a Lockout
Perhaps it's the strain of my youngest son's "Bac" but
of late I have started doing odd and incomprehensible things.
On a recent Wednesday morning I was in my nightgown
out on the little back porch of our fourth floor
apartment hanging up some clothes when wham! the door banged
shut behind me. Even in decent dress this would have
been bad enough. To add to the already catastrophic circumstances,
the nightgown was diaphanous, the concierge didn't have the key
to my apartment, and my son had gone to school
and wouldn't be home for at least another three or
four hours. All of this flashed through my mind as
I stood there locked out of my own apartment. What
to do? No use running down the stairs to see
the concierge since she didn't have the key. Workers renovating
the building were swarming all over the place so my
main objective was either to become invisible or find refuge
quickly.
Now here's where a powerful stereotype about the "cold French"
breaks down. As is often the case in Paris, I
had never been inside my neighbor's apartment. Our relationship was
limited to "Bonjour" and my admiring comments about her Dalmatian.
Every once in a while we would engage in mutual
complaining about the building management as we waited for the
elevator. However, from that to having her take me in.......
I screwed up my courage and buzzed on her back
door. The Dalmatian barked and I stood there, hoping desperately
that it wouldn't be her husband who answered. Fortunately, it
was Madame. She took one look at me, whisked me
inside, and put me in a black wool coat hanging
near the door. "Now", she said, "I'm going to run
you a bath and give you some clothes - you
must be the size I was before I put on
weight - and that will give you time to think
about what you want to do. If you need me
to drive you someplace, I will. Otherwise, you can wait
here until your son comes home."
Thus it was that, at the hour I am usually
running around Paris, I found myself in my neighbor's bathtub,
calmly soaping myself and sizing up my options. Yes, I
could wait for my son to come home, but when
would that be? I could call a locksmith but it
would cost me more than 600FF ($100) which I found
too high a price to pay for my stupidity. I
opted instead to call the mother of one of my
son's friends to find out where the boys might go
after leaving school. After dying laughing at my story, her
Gallic logic took hold. "Come on over here and on
va déjeuner. ("We'll lunch) Je t'invite." ("It's on me") she
urged. In France, since even the most dire problem seems
to be solved by food, I decided that was indeed
the most reasonable solution while awaiting my son's return.
In my neighbor's clothes, which did indeed fit, I was
on my way to the friend's when I happened upon
one of the building management workers I have known for
years. A thought popped into my head. "Laurent, I'm locked
out! Any ideas as to how I can get back
in?"
He reflected for about a half a second. "I'm going
to do a small job but I'll be back in
five minutes. I think we might be able to get
your door open with an X-ray."
Loaning me 10 FF for coffee and leaving me to
ponder how an X-ray could open a door, Laurent sped
off. Ten minutes later, true to his word, he was
back. At the door, he took out an X-ray, folded
in four, and began to slide it up and down.
The door gave, gave...and opened. In the split second it
took me to realize how easy it would be to
burgle a place, I saw my son and put two
and two together. He (not the X-ray) had opened the
door. From the expression on his face, he was having
a hard time figuring out why I was standing there
in odd-looking clothes accompanied by a man with an X-ray.
Laurent politely did not offer any comments on our crazy
family.
For this alone, he got a well-deserved tip. Madame, my
neighbor, received the prettiest bouquet of roses I could find.
My concierge got a double of the key. As for
me, I no longer go out on the back porch
clad in only a nightgown! And if anyone ever dares
to say that the French are "cold" or "unfriendly", will
you please send them to me?
Harriet Welty-Rochefort, a bona fide Midwesterner from
Iowa, visited Paris for the first time while in
college. She became so completely enamored of
France that she stayed - and has been there ever since.
Married to a Frenchman and the mother of two
Franco-American boys, Harriet Welty-Rochefort writes
on business, lifestyle and travel for major U.S.
publications. Her book - French Toast - is a lighthearted look at
French manners and mores.
Writes Leslie Caron: French Toast includes the most delightful barbs at France's
subtle but deep-rooted codes of behaviour...I read the book on the EuroStar between
Paris and London and wished the train had not reached its top speed of 300 kph!
Reviewed in the Los Angeles Times on January 2, 1998, French Toast
will be published in the U.S. in December.
For information on ordering the book,
Harriet can be contacted at
101676.467@compuserve.com.
Your Hotel In Paris