France, French Icons – Madame Liberty and McDonalds

After breakfast at the Hotel des Poetes we walked into Béziers on a rather chilly morning to visit the market hall which had been closed the day before. It was a typical French town market hall next to the Hôtel de Ville in the centre of the city and this early hour it was not yet particularly busy. Our last market visit had been to the Varvakios Agorain Athens which had been a delightfully chaotic affair but this was much more orderly and the stalls were laid out to perfection much like the one in La Rochelle which we had visited a couple of years before. We couldn’t realistically buy anything of course and take it back in our hand luggage so we stayed just long enough to get our ‘market fix’ and then we returned to check out of the hotel.

I wasn’t looking forward particularly to my next challenge but I surprised myself and today I managed to make a much better job of getting the hire car out of the garage and was relieved to get out onto the street without ripping off a bumper or putting a crease down the side and we waved goodbye to the patron and set off on our sixty kilometre journey to Castres.

For the first twenty-five kilometres there was nothing very special about the journey as we motored across unremarkable landscape puntuated with a few untidy villages under a disappointing leaden grey sky but then the situation began to improve as we started to approach the Languedoc National Park and we drove through vineyards with leaves curling and turning to brown, their job completed for this year and then we started to climb and the road swooped through forests of deciduous trees which at this altitude were adorned with golden and russet leaves and we climbed still further to over a thousand metres and left the deciduous trees behind and entered the conifer forests of the higher elevations, the cloud gave way to brilliant sunshine and blue sky and it all became very picturesque.

At the top of the climb we went through the charming town of St Pons-de-Thomieres and as we sat in the mid morning traffic we drove past the Hôtel de Ville and in the courtyard there was a magnificent statue of Madame Liberty, the traditional female embodiment of the French Republic with her ample thrusting bosom unashamedly thrusting out and exposed to all. Madame Liberty represents the spirit of the French Revolution (various revolutions actually, 1789, 1830, 1848, 1968) and I have always thought how magnificent it would be if England could have a big breasted busty national symbol instead of the frumpy Britannia! It’s an interesting fact however that when the French built the Statue of Liberty for the USA they made sure that she was more discreetly attired! The French are proud of Madame Liberty who can be found in most French towns alongside the inevitable Place de la Revolution and the Place de la Republique an interesting contrast to the UK where I am yet to find a ‘Constitutional Monarchy Square’!

We didn’t stop in St Pons-de-Thomieres but carried on towards Mazamet where a by-pass took us around the centre and through the ubiquitous edge of town shopping malls which are a disagreeable feature of most French urbanisations as everywhere it is almost certain that the approach to any historic town or city must now pass through a collection of supermarkets and fast food restaurants. And this is another curious feature of France because every town we drove through had countdown signposts and specific directions to the nearest McDonalds restaurant as though the French need the constant reassurance that somewhere nearby is a set of Golden Arches.  The poor French. There they were, with their low-rent bistros serving brie-filled crepes, soupe a l’oignon and coq au vin when all the populace really wanted was rectangular food-like objects that taste vaguely of chicken, and a side of dipping sauce

Well, actually it turns out to be not so curious because even though they maintain that they despise the concept of the fast food chain an awful lot of French people do eat there. Across France there are nearly twelve hundred restaurants (restaurants?)and in Paris alone there are almost seventy, with even more dotted around the outer suburbs. That’s much the same as London, but with only a third of the population. McDonald’s, or “macdoh” as it is known, is France’s guilty secret. In 2007 the chain’s French revenues increased by eleven per cent to €3 billion. That’s more than it generates in Britain and in terms of profit, France is second only to the United States itself. It is now so firmly a part of French culture that the menu includes McBaguette and Croque McDo and in 2009 McDonald’s reached a deal with the French museum, the Louvre, to open a McDonald’s restaurant and McCafé on its premises by their underground entrance.

It didn’t take long to drive the last few kilometres into Castres and we found the Hotel de L’Europe without any difficulty at all and after we had checked in and deposited our bags we set out to walk around and discover the city.

France 2010, Berck Plage (again) and French Obesity

I can only put it down to the peace and quiet of the place but everyone seemed to be taking things easier by the end of the week and even Molly was sleeping longer and she didn’t wake me up this morning until almost eight o’clock. This was still earlier than all of the others however and it was well past nine before we sat down for breakfast and some time past ten when we had finished clearing up.

This didn’t matter because we were in no particular rush today and planned an easy itinerary with a return visit to the beach at Berck.

We spent most of the morning in the garden, Molly and I played ball, Richard checked the wasp trap and chose his logs for tonight’s fire, Sally read her book, Rachel had a nap and we did some washing, some items for the second time this week, and it was almost midday when we finally set off for the short journey to the coast.

We drove past Montreuil and along the clear roads towards Berck but close to the town the traffic became heavy and we spent some time in a crawling traffic jam making only slow progress. Eventually we broke through the bottleneck and arrived in Berck. We tried to get closer to the town this time but this proved difficult and after I had driven down a road on the wrong side and frightened a poor French motorist half to death we decided it was safer to simply return to the same beach next to the crumbling convalescence hospital.

The hotel is there because Berck, a former fishing village, took on a therapeutic role in the treatment of tuberculosis during the Second Empire. The Maritime hospital was inaugurated in 1869 by Empress Eugenie and other hospitals and benevolent institutes were soon created to cater for the sick and those in need of rest and recuperation.

We were a bit earlier today so the tide wasn’t as far out and there wasn’t so much beach to choose from so we selected a spot in the soft sand just above the high tide mark and it turned out to be a good job that we did because although we didn’t know it the tide was coming in. Molly enjoyed the sand and the lagoons again and was even a bit more adventurous about going further into the sea. Actually the sea was surprisingly warm and Richard and I both stripped down to our bathing costumes (garish yellow Hawaiian style for Richard and Speedos for me) and we went swimming in the sea and this was the first time that I had been fully submerged in the waters of the English Channel since at least 1975.

As the sea came steadily towards us and covered the beach, more and more people started to arrive and the sand was starting to get a bit crowded. One surprising thing was the amount of fat people on the beach because France has always prided itself on being slim and healthy with a belief that there is something in the French lifestyle that protects them against obesity, heart disease and diabetes. This is called the ‘French Paradox’ and is now being exposed as a myth because they are straying from the very dietary habits that made them the envy of the world: eating small portions, eating lots of vegetables, drinking in moderation, and limited snacking. It seems that the French are exercising less, eating more fast food, and are employed in more service jobs where time is spent sitting at a desk rather than driving a tractor or working an assembly line. Overall six and a half million French, that’s 14.5% of the population, are now classified as obese and it is worse in the north (around 20%) because of the rich heavy food of the region.

To illustrate this shift we can look at the example of McDonalds. Even though the French will maintain that they despise the fast food chain and the concept an awful lot of people do eat there. Across France there are nearly nine hundred restaurants and in Paris there are almost seventy restaurants under golden arches, with even more dotted around the outer suburbs. That’s much the same as London, but with only a third of the people. McDonald’s, or “macdoh” as it is known, is France’s dirty secret. In 2007 the chain’s French revenues increased by 11 per cent to €3 billion. That’s more than it generates in Britain and in terms of profit, France is second only to the United States itself.

There were some really heavy specimens on the beach at Berck today (they may not all of been French of course) and even worse there were more and more dogs arriving and running about the sand. I have explained many times that I am not a lover of dogs so I started to feel uncomfortable about this and I was almost pleased when the clouds started to move in and blotted out the sun and everyone agreed that this was a good time to leave.

On the way back we stopped briefly in Montreuil for some final supplies and extra beers but in the late afternoon a lot of the town was closed and the bars weren’t open and the place lacked atmosphere so we abandoned the plans for a drink and went back to the cottage instead.

Molly and I went for a long walk towards the next village in search of a field of cows but they were a long way a way so we had to count tractors instead and then sit and watch a combine harvester working in a field of corn and reducing the flowing clouds of golden stems to a carpet of brown stubble. On the way back we had to pass Camille’s house and when he spotted us he came out to greet us and Molly asked to see his rabbit and he was only too happy to oblige.

This evening, like all of them, passed surprisingly quickly as we played in the garden and waited for Molly to tire herself out and Richard prepared the barbeque. We were enjoying the al fresco dining and once again after we had finished we sat around the fire but Richard kept the poker well out of my reach.