Coming to France- Part 2
Living in France
Introduction
Every country has problems- as we are all keenly aware now. Racism, religious fundamentalism, poverty, wealth inequality, an inadequate social safety net, lack of affordable healthcare and immigration are are undoubtedly amongst the many universal problems facing countries. These problems exist in various forms and at different levels in all countries. It is impossible for any country to deal comprehensively with all the problems, but where a country chooses to focus says a lot about the country and its people.
Citizens may disagree with the priorities as set by their politicians and may cast envious glances at a particularly visible focus or strength of another country. Not having lived in that country as its citizens, other negative aspects of life there may be invisible or unknown, or known only in passing- as a conversational topic.
The French national motto is Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité. To varying degrees of success the French have tried to put this into practice. In the past, because of a uniformity in the racial mix, this had been an easier task, however now with the negative impacts of globalization on ordinary french citizens, visibly increasing inequality, immigration from Africa (many of which were past colonies of France) and the growth of Islam, the social fabric has begun to fray.
Having lived in India, the United States, and now in France, I can comment in a somewhat informed manner on the advantages and disadvantages of life in France as compared to life in the United States. Though, I will still be at a disadvantage, as I have worked only in the USA and not in France.
By very definition, in attempting to cover this such a wide topic, I will end up making some sweeping generalizations, which may be at odds with someone else’s experience. For this I ask the readers’ indulgence.
Daily Needs
The first thing we needed to do after moving to France was to register as foreign residents with the Ministry of the Interior at their website- étrangers en france. This was a relatively painless affair. Once you register, you are given an appointment at a nearby health center for standard health checks- blood pressure, blood sugar etc. and an MRI scan.
As our visitor visa is only valid for a year, it needs to be renewed online every year. The website you use for this purpose is again- étrangers en France. You upload all your documents- proving that individually, you have sufficient funds to live in France (which is above the French minimum wage of €1,766/month- gross) and have international health insurance. Your file is examined, your application is either approved or you are asked for additional clarifications, and once your application is approved, you get notified when the carte de séjour is ready. You can then set up an appointment at your prefecture (local governmental center) to pick it up.
The next task was to get a landline telephone. Strangely enough this is probably the most important step, as virtually all other steps depend on proof of residence and your landline is an unequivocal proof of residence. Most rural areas are only serviced by France Telecom- now re-branded as Orange, and they have an english-speaking customer service line- which make life easy for those not so fluent in French. Once this was done, we could get mobile phone and internet services.
The next relatively easy tasks were to move the Water, Electricity and Garbage collection (SIMER) accounts into our name. Here again, you provide proofs of identity and residence- your passport and the deed of sale- or the bill from Orange.
SIMER gives you 2 micro-chipped, rollable cannisters- one for your recyclables, and another for your garbage- the size of which depend on the size of your family. There are garbage pickup points close to groupings of homes, and the garbage truck comes by every 2 weeks. You do not get charged for your recyclables to be picked up, but you do get charged for garbage pickup- which discourages garbage production and encouraging re-cycling. You can pay extra to have the garbage truck stop by your doorstep, but that facility is not universally available. You are also entitled to a roll of recycling bags and a roll of garbage bags every year. You can go to the local re-cycling dump to drop things off that do not fit in the bins, but you have a key card in order to enter the facility- so your use of it is recorded. On your account with SIMER, you can see when your garbage was picked up and how often.
Simer also operates large green cannisters, where residents can drop off glass bottles for recycling. Frequently, next to the glass bottle recycling cannisters, you have drop-off cannisters for used clothing. You wrap your used clothing in a plastic bag and dump it into the receptacle. A graphic on the receptacle helpfully illustrates the percent of used clothes that are redistributed to needy folk and what percentage get re-cycled. In the US, The Salvation Army is usually the sole location where you can drop of used clothing. But more recently, the trend to recycle, gently used clothing seems to be becoming more of a movement in the US.
Simer also has classes on mulching. Most folks in rural France, including us- mulch our kitchen waste. From the garden waste dropped off by customers, SIMER produces mulch, which customers can buy at relatively low prices.
The Commune of Antigny
The commune of Antigny consists of Antigny and the surrounding vilages. Each village has an elected mayor (maire) and we recently got invited to an evening of drinks for introductions to other new residents and to the Maire. Most of the inhabitants around here are either retired, farmers or tradespeople.
Our village- Antigny, is too tiny to have many facilities except for the mayor’s office and the post office. The next village over- St Savin, which is about 2 miles north of Antigny, has more facilities like a community swimming pool, 2 boulangeries, a super-market- Intermarché, a superette- Huit-à-Huit and a couple of nice restaurants (more on that later). St Savin also has 2 pharmacies and a Credit Agricole branch office, as well as 2 ATMs. If one had to, one could live here and not need to own a car. Walking or riding a bicycle is our most frequent mode of transport.
St. Germain, the adjacent village, has a doctor’s office, a dentistry, a nurse’s office and podiatrist. Other than a few places like the boulangeries or restaurants, most other business offices close promptly at 12:30pm and reopen at 2:30- presumably to give employees time to go home and get lunch. This took us a little getting used to, as we were used to the US where after opening time, businesses typically close at night for the day. Restaurants, also close relatively early- around 8:00pm and our villages wear a deserted look in the off seasons. As bread is a daily staple, the 2 boulangeries in St Savin coordinate between them to make sure that when the owners of one are on vacation or have to close, the other stays open. This includes the weekly day of rest.
Various activities, like yoga sessions, swimming classes etc. are offered in the larger villages of St. Savin or St Germain. In a nod to égalité, fees for swimming pool and the adjunct activities are based on your income. The less you earn, the less you pay. This to me, is the best example of the concept of égalité- as put into practice by the French.
In the United States- an economic exchange is all that matters and, as long as you pay for the services, you do not really have to care about who you get the service from. Here in rural France, who you get your services from - are your neighbors and often your friends.
Politesse, or acknowledging the other party, whether in an economic exchange or not, as another human being worthy of your acknowledgement and respect is important around here. In the US your counter-party has been dis-intermediated- to the detriment of society in general. This is almost certainly true in suburbia and in larger cities, though small town America is in many ways still similar to small town France.
In our doctor’s office, when people come in, they usually greet everyone in the office with a general Bonjour and an au revoir when they leave. The same goes with checkout at the super-market. You first exchange greeting with the cashier before the checkout begins. As you wait in the checkout line, visitors are immediately recognizable- they are usually busy talking amongst themselves, ignore the cashier and walk out of the store with their groceries. Now that we have been here for 3 years, that pure act of economic exchange feels strangely insulting and degrading. Interestingly, most people from outside of Paris, find it just as impersonal and rude, as New Yorkers find New York City.
Even though our commune is small, there is a weekly language exchange in St Savin where english speaking and french speaking folks get together to improve their language skills. It is run jointly by a strict french lady and a genial english gentleman.
Years earlier- we are told that, Antigny had more stores and even a super-market. But sadly as the population has dwindled, commerce has died and merchants have closed shop.
A key issue for communities in rural France is- how do you maintain social cohesion and the key traditions of the past- food and culture- whilst keeping the community economically viable, under the onslaught of modernism, and social and geographical mobility?
Healthcare
As I mentioned earlier, in the first year of our stay we had to show that we had health insurance, which we purchased in the US through Cigna. The cost of that was similar to a low cost health insurance plan in the US. After a year, you become eligible to sign-up for the universal government run health care in France (introduced by a socialist president- Lionel Jospin) and, we could not wait for that. You start by applying for a French social security number and it is accompanied by government healthcare through PUMA. I think, applying for a social security number was one of the few, still manual processes. You download and fill out the form and mail it with the required proof of your being a resident in France for a year, and after a few months- you get an attestation letter with your new social security number. Once you have that, you can go onto the French healthcare site Amelie and apply for your carte vitale- or your health card.
However, even as you wait for your carte vitale, you can visit healthcare professionals in the area with just a printout of the social security attestation.
Government run healthcare is probably one of the great achievements of France- for which the French should truly be proud and it is incomparable to anything I had experienced before. It is inexpensive- it pays about 70% of your healthcare costs. The remaining 30% is for you to take care of, or you can get inexpensive supplemental health insurance or Mutuelle, which brings your costs down to nearly 0.
In the United States, as long as you are employed and your employer provides healthcare insurance coverage, life is pretty good (though premiums and deductibles have been climbing), not as good as in France- but still pretty decent. Once you are self-employed or unemployed you get kicked in the proverbial nuts. I used to pay about a $1000 each month- for what is now popularly known as Obamacare (ACA), and other than for protections against a catastrophe, it was pretty much useless as we were of decent health and the deductibles- sky high. Families with children end up paying quite a bit more.
In France, I pay my US federal taxes and for the most part they offset any taxes I need to pay in France- because of the reciprocity agreement between the US and France. So, in effect I get some of the best healthcare in the world without having to pay anything additional.
The healthcare system is seamlessly integrated- my healthcare records are all tied together through my social security number. I go to a private doctor, who inserts my carte vitale into a device and he/she has acccess to all my health records. I pay my co-pay- which is about the same as what I used to pay in the US. However, the payment gets reported to Amelie, which then reimburses my 70% of what I paid and the reimbursement gets automatically deposited into my bank account.
Another remarkable difference is the low cost of pharmaceuticals in France. In the US my high blood pressure pill used to cost $72 for a 3 month supply. Here in France, I pay about 6€ for the same. Quite honestly, after having lived in the US, it feels a little embarassing to be paying so little for so much.
Pharmacies also have the same carte-vitale reading device and what I pay at the pharmacy gets reported payments to my supplemental health insurance provider for the appropriate reimbursement. These reimbursements get direct deposited into my bank account.
To illustrate the egalitarian nature and universality of quality healthcare here in France- our young neighbor, who worked as a sanitation worker- someone with very ordinary means, was pushed off their balcony in a drunken fight. He fell a floor down onto his neck. He has since been mostly a paraplegic. After a series of operations on his back and nearly a year in hospital, he is finally on his way to recovery. He is able to move around, but only on an electric wheelchair- provided by the state, and gets home-care twice a day through a government provided home-care service. Initially, for a while, the state also paid his wife to take care of him at home. In the US, their family would have certainly been bankrupted because of medical bills, but here in France, they do not have to face that prospect and only have to worry about his getting well again.
While the US spends the most in the world on healthcare, the healthcare outcomes are far worse than those of other OECD countries. In the US, the very christian suspicion is that if you are poor- you must deserve it. Politicians, are very much beholden to a rich variety of lobby groups- making any reasonable reform of the patchwork of state insurance regimes impossible. Bernie Sanders, who was fearlessly vocal about universal healthcare, handily lost in the primaries to Hillary Clinton in whom the naked flame of entitlement burnt ever so brightly. More recently though, the assasination of the CEO of a giant health insurance company has re-ignited the latent frustration with an inordinately burdensome and ruthlessly unequal health insurance framework. However, much of the media have portrayed the accompanying lack of sympathy for the slain executive as a sign of the fraying of the social fabric- as if corporate America had not done enough already to tear the social contract to shreds.
In India, the government spends a pittance on healthcare, government hospitals have been robbed threadbare and private hospitals function pretty much solely for profit. The quality of healthcare is unreliable, a matter of dumb luck and wealth. Modern day hospitals have set themselves up as hotels- with the ancillary job of providing healthcare srevices. India spends more money on defense in order to fight avoidable wars with its neighbors- for a jingoistic hard-on. Despite having been forewarned during the Covid epidemic- as the globe watched patients in the UK and then Europe, gasp their last breaths and die, the government in India did not prepare. Later, when the full frocity of Covid hit the country, we had to watch people beg for oxygen cylinders from passers-by for their sick family members and in the ultimate indignity- cremate their loved ones in gardens and public spaces. Like Donald Trump, Modi has figured out ways to manipulate the worst instincts in Indians.
Driver’s License
The written Test
Getting a driver’s license in France was a uniquely French experiences. A US driver’s license is only valid for a year in France. In a very strange twist, France has a state by state arrangement with the US- meaning that some states have reached reciprocity agreements with France where the US state driver’s license can be exchanged for a French driver’s license, while others have not. Unfortunately for us, New York state does not have an agreement with France. We bought our used car in France in December and when I got the car insurance, the lady at the insurance agency solicitously warned me to prepare and get my French driver’s license in time- which I dutifully ignored.
The written test is administered only in French. My french language abilities were still pretty much only useful from a tourist’s point of view- where is the toilet and where is the Eiffel tower- nothing that could be remotely useful for my driver’s license tests. It was only in July/August, when all possibility of giving the test in English had disappeared in the rear-view mirror, that I seriously started preparing for the exams- a few months before my NY driver’s license was to become invalid in France.
For a French driver’s license, you have to pass a written exam and then a driving test- nothing that is much different from in the USA. Having driven in multiple states, I thought it would be a breeze but unfortunately, the written exam consists of 40 multiple choice questions, where all the choices could be right or all could be wrong. You had to answer at least 32 questions correctly. In several questions, you have to look at a picture, or watch a video and then answer the related question. Worse still, you had only 8 seconds to answer each question. I bought the driving bible- The Code Routiere, and started working my way through it. Pretty soon, I realized that my miserly understanding of French was going to be a serious obstacle to obtaining my driver’s license in France. And then, I made the mistake of watching these disillusioning videos on Youtube about what it took to pass a French drivers license test and how people had failed the tests multiple times.
As I slowly worked through the driving bible- french words and terms related to driving, gradually became familiar to me. After becoming familiar with the “Code”, I used an online site- Ornicar, where you can take test after test. It took me a long time from understanding the question- in time, to picking the right answers. Slowly but surely, I progressed from getting 8 answers right to to getting close to the magic number of 40- in order to feel comfortable enough to register for the official written test. With a dint of hard work- probably more than I had to do for my admission into my engineering college, I passed the written test with flying colours.
The Driving Test
Next came the hurdle of the driving test. I did not think that I needed to prove my driving skills after having driven in India and the US, for over 40 years. But the French state said- “Non”, and I am glad, because re-learning how to drive in France has cured me of all the bad driving habits that I had picked up from driving in the US and worse still- from driving in India. For the test, you needed to bring a dual-controlled vehicle to the driving test and guess what- access to such a strange beast is really only possible through a driving school. Initially, I tried to find a driving school that could instruct me in English, and then gave up and joined up with ECF- Montmorillon. ECF is not inexpensive. They gave me an initial exam to understand my level of driving skills- which I flunked quite handily. I was given an individualized class schedule (over 12 weeks) and a variety of drivers to work me through the rigors of the actual exam. Understanding spoken french was a way worse problem for me than understanding written french. Initially I would turn right, when asked to turn agauche and left when asked to turn adroite. My teachers did not speak any English. Slowly but steadily, I got more comfortable. On the day of the exam, an instructor accompanied me through the driving test and calmed my jumpy nerves. As luck would have it, the examiner was a lady who had lived in Colorado and loved the US. So, our conversation flowed easily in english. It is quite possible that I got some advantage from my being a US citizen and her fascination for the USA.
In times gone by, the examiner would give you the result of the test right after the exam, but because examiners were regularly getting beaten up by irate students who failed the test, they stopped that practice and now send you your results by email.
Luckily I passed the driving test too, and am now the proud owner of a french permis de conduire. As I said, I am glad that I was forced to go to driving school in France, because I have certainly become a much more careful driver and caution has become a habit. France has roundabouts, a feature that the US does not have. Knowing when to show which blinker, still seems to escape many drivers. I feel French enough now that I find myself waving my fist in the car and shouting merde when I see someone not following the proper signals through a roundabout.
In the US, speed traps and radar detectors are a feature of daily life. For many smaller towns and villages, this is their way of making up for lost town revenues because of lower taxes. Here in France, there are no manual speed traps. There are cameras that detect your speed- and send you the ticket through the mail. I find this to be a much better system, as in the US, traffic stops have become an indicator of latent racism in the police force. Over 600 drivers get killed and another 250,000 get injured during traffic stops every year in the United States. The most enraging videos on the internet are related to police violence particularly against african-american drivers during traffic stops. In most places in France where speeding is a concern you find cameras “pedagogique” that show you your speed and you are encouraged to follow the law.
Every once in a while the gendarmerie set up stops to check your papers and alcohol levels.
Politics of a Small Place
For the most part, in the past, the center-left and the center-right French governments were quite similar when it came to the welfare of French citizenry. Taking into account mandatory social contributions (healthcare, social security, free tuition etc.), the tax rates on individuals in the US and France are fairly similar- contrary to the American perception that taxes in France are unbearably high. However, more recently, there has been a growing fascination with the wealth of the United States in France- the startup bro culture and the multi-billion bra$h startups- amongst well educated younger french citizens. The winds of globalization also have had a markedly negative impact on poorer French citizens. Starting with Nicolas Sarkozy and continuing with Emanuel Macron, there has been an attempt to refashion France in the image of the US- as a startup nation. The Macron government forced through an increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64 and there were widespread protests against the change.
Unlike the impression that we in the US have of the French indulgence in 2-hour long lunches with wine, the French play hard and work hard. Their productivity is comparable to that of the workers in the US and Germany.
However, the brashness of recent center-right governments, the lack of inclusivity in discussions around critical changes, plus the negative impacts of globalization, have produced an unpleasant, but understandable backlach from those being left behind. There is also a strong sense of not being in control of one’s own destiny among people- when negatively impacted by decisions made by a bureaucrat in Paris. Hence, the far-right has seen a surge in popularity. Strangely enough, in the most recent elections, other than populist slogans, the far-right seemed completely unprepared for governance of any decent quality. When the far-right won the largest percentage of votes in the first round of elections but failed to reach the magic number, both the far left and the center right parties joined forces to defeat the far-right in the second round.
At our échange linguistique I got to know that, in our neck of the woods, nearly 50% of the populace had voted for the far-right. Now, just in case you imagine that we as foreigners are seeing the negative impacts of that voting pattern, nothing could be further from the truth. The French have been uniformly kind and pleasant to us. Often, as we walk back from St Savin to our house in Antigny on a hot summer’s day, people stop their cars to ask us if they could give us a ride back home- considering the heat. Now, to be honest, we never faced any racism in the US either- where racism is institutionalized against african-americans.
While, there certainly is a lot of Islamophobia and people are struggling to come to terms with and how to react to the growing muslim population (muslims now comprise 10% of the population in France), much of the concern is about the economic direction of the country and the choices citizens need to make. And believe me, the Islamophobia here in France is nothing compared to that in India or as has been made quite evident recently- in the US either. Studies have shown a similar aversion to hiring applicants with clearly African and Islamic names in France as have studies in the US shown to an aversion to hiring African-American applicants. That is the sad reflection on humanity, no matter where you live, our biases are alive and well. In India, there is a similar aversion to Muslims living in your neighborhood or hiring a Muslim into a company- marrying a muslim of course is beyond the pale and deserving of bride killing in many parts of India- especially the rural north. A college friend of mine from India, who has worked and lives in the US- though he did not study in the US, educated me on the principle of “No MBW” that his wife espouses- when it comes to the marriages of their children in the US- No Muslims, No Blacks and no Whites.
As in the USA, government administration in France, is dominated by the élites- who, for the most part are graduates of the Sciences Po. In the US, administrations are dominated by Ivy league law schools. Starting from the presidency of Bill Clinton, the democratic party in the US and the corporate media have gradually become more elitist. In my view, a large reason for Kamala Harris’ loss in the recent elections to Donald Trump, can be attributed to this feeling in the electorate that the Democratic party is elitist and does not work for them anymore.
New Friends
In the US, we had relatively few friends that we fraternized with on a regular basis. Cultivating really deep friendships was rarer still. Not having been born in the US, while we were familiar with football and basketball, we were never emotionally attached to american sports themselves. We had never been much into sports- period. At work in the US, generally people avoid talking about subjects that could potentially be alienating to a co-worker, such as politics or social issues- which makes perfect sense. Most of the water cooler talk in the US centered around sports- “Hey, how about those Patriots, huh- what a game!” Other conversations were equally lightweight- at least for us. For the most part, American views of the rest of the world were limited, at best to the current evening news or to the superficial viewpoint that a tourist might have gained on a short trip abroad. One could, of course, always encounter someone with a more refined and knowledgeable view of the world outside the boundaries of the US. In New York City, other than a passing nod in the foyer of the apartment, people rarely were seen- or engaged. That being said, in our building in New York City we made close enough acquaintances, where we would look after their cats when they went on vacation and they would look after ours when we went on vacations.
We got introduced to friends in France slowly and in increasingly widening circles. We welcomed the much better informed conversations we had in France. People were engaged in their country’s politics and had a fairly informed view of the rest of the world. We found that the French are not afraid to present their views boldly- which was a welcome change. Friends, introduced us to their friends and so on.
Our département- Vienne, is thankfully not one of the glitzy or popular tourist spots well known to visitors- such as Provence, the Loire, Burgundy or Paris etc. However, even in this quiet and unlikely nook, we have encountered a motley and variegated crowd of gay and straight expats from the US, UK here. Indians are a curiosity here and I have met only one other young Indian woman.
At gatherings, we are often asked as to how we chose Antigny as the village to settle in. We explain that it as pure chance and lady luck- considering the location of our house opposite a river, the quiet serenity of our village and the friends we have made. Over time, our home has also become the nearest source of Indian food.
For the first time, we feel part of a community that is diverse and interesting. It would seem to be reasonable that it is easier in small villages and towns to build that sense of community. In the US, the blight of suburbia, the daily battle for livelihood, money and McMansions- makes it much harder to build a community. Now, I do know that my Bengali friends in the US have a large and strong community, but it is much narrower connection, as it is tied to language, very particular cultural affiliations and the country of origin. I suspect that children in the family helps create a wider circle of potential friends, simply through the common interests of the children and their friends and their families.
To wit, as Timothy Snyder says, a critical element of freedom is the existence of solidarity in the citizenry- among other requirements. In spite of its many problems, the existence of solidarity in France is a positive quality that should allow it to weather storms. When you imagine the consequences of your choices and actions on your immediate neighbors- your boulanger, your coiffeuse, the lady working at the checkout counter, the postman, the teacher who teaches your kids at the local school, the person picking up your garbage- you end up making choices that are more considerate of your fellowmen. In the USA, the instinctive dislike of paying taxes, the trashing of the link between the consumer and the producer of those goods and suburbia- made possible by cars- has resulted in a lack of solidarity, and has society-threatening consequences- consider the ever increasing levels of inequality and the self-evident fraying of the social fabric- as seen in recent elections.
Quality of Produce
Much like life in Indian families, French life revolves around food. The quality of the produce is impressive and my favorite feature of France. It is true that in the US food is cheaper, but it is also mass produced with a singular focus on shelf-life. As a result, much of the produce there, while cheap, tastes like a faint semblance of what it should really taste like. In France, I could not believe that carrots- a vegetable I had ignored all my life and could not understand why it was used to perfume stock, could be so delicately perfumed and tasty to eat raw. And that is, after we were used to buying fruits and vegetables at the Union Square farmers’ market. In the US, you get virtually all vegetables and fruits all year round, thanks to industrial farming and the milder weathers of California and Florida. But the focus on cheap supermarket produce has driven to extinction most the native varieties of fruit in the US. Organic farmers are making a concerted effort to revive native varieties, but it is an uphill climb. In France, you only get fruits and vegetables that are seasonal. If you find unseasonal fruits and vegetables at the supermarket- it is probable better to stay away from them, because they taste nothing like they would taste at the peak of their growing season. Strawberries and melons taste like nothing I had ever tasted in the US. Where they are sold, the country of origin of the fruits and vegetables is clearly announced, leading us to try and buy only French grown fruits and vegetables, in order to try and support French farmers.
In the US, apples come in only a few varieties- Granny Smith, Gala, Pink Lady etc. Here there are many more local varieties and they have pride of place at the fruit stand. Each apple variety is described in terms of it crunchiness, juiciness, acidity and whether it is good for cooking or for storage. While, my wife favors crunchiness in her apples, I favor the flavors. As a result, we usually get the french varieties for myself and the global varieties for her.
Intermarché in St Savin is the nearest supermarket, where you can buy wine, fruits and vegetables and other sundry household items. Walking to St Savin to the boulangerie or Intermarché has become part of our daily walks. For a larger collection of goods you would have to drive to the Leclerc in Montmorillon. What I found amazing at the supermarkets is how they go out of their way to advertise the local farms that meats and cheeses are sourced from. In the US, you would be reduced to naming the company or the feed lot that your meat came from. At organic farmstands in the US, there is the beginning of a recognition of acknowledging the producer and their efforts.
Quality of produce is indeed at the heart of the French way of life, and long may it prosper. The US has lost its soul to cheap industrial food. 1
The best places to buy fruits, meat, fish and vegetables are the village markets- held once a week. Antigny, given its population, has a rather lonely village market with only a few stands. The one in St Savin- held every Friday, is better with more stalls and better variety, but the best is at Chauvigny- on Saturdays. We look forward to visiting the village market in Chauvigny. You buy your fruits and vegetables, and then relax with a glass wine or beer at one of the 2 bars in the market square- our favorite being the Le Kiosque. When buying fruit and cheese, you can let the vendor know when you plan on consuming the fruit or cheese and they select it accordingly. While, even talking of cheese probably raises my cholesterol, I love the infinite varieties. Our favorite cheese shop at the Chauvigny and Montmorillon weekly markets is Les Alpages. You get heavenly cheeses and fresh butter there.
And best part of the market experience is that you greet the stand owners, the friends you meet as you shop and the staff at the bar. In contrast to my experience on the TGV from Paris to Poitiers, when my backpack was stolen on the train, I left my wallet at a vegetable stand and wandered on to the next stand. When I was getting ready to pay, I realized that I had left my wallet at the previous stand. As I made my way back, worried that I had finally lost my wallet, I saw Sophie, the young woman from the stand, running around looking for me with my wallet in her hand.
Most processed foods in the supermarket come with a marking of the healthfullness of the food on the packaging. The range varies from the most healthful- like carrot juice at A, to the worst at an E. This makes it really easy for the consumer- if they wish, to make an educated choice about what they are eating or drinking.
Food and Dining
Finally, living in France, the curse of the Michelin star has been lifted. Many of our friends who visit from the US- just like we were before, still cling to the Michelin star as the sole indication of the quality of a restaurant.
St Savin has a couple of restaurants, Fa Si La Manger - run by its indefagitable, constantly innovative and charming young owner Stefan and his wife Alice, Le Cerasus, L'ascenceur, Le Patisson and the Le St Savin. Late in Fall, most businesses coordinate their annual vacations of a couple of weeks for employees. Given the dwindling population of our villages and the variable number of tourists that the restaurants depend on, maintaining a restaurant business is hard. Le Cerasus is the local fine dining place with a bevy of inventive young chefs. In the summer, when St Savin is swamped with visitors, Fa-Si-La Manger is the alive and thumping- late into the night, local watering hole.
Antigny, on the other hand, has a recently opened pizzeria and a restaurant- Les Petites Sardines on the river Gartempe, which is run by the local school teachers and hence is only open during the summers and early fall- when school is closed. When we lived in the US, we used the Michelin rating of restaurants as our guide- both when we went out to eat in the US as well as when we were visiting France or Italy. Here in France, we have found that the quality of food in restaurants is incredibly high. Even in a tiny village like St Savin, the quality of food at Le Cerasus stands out. Similarly there are places in Chauvigny- such as the Lion D’or, where you can have an excellent, inexpensive 3-course french dining experience.
Food is the next best thing to heaven in France. It sustains the country and while the French may drool over the cheaper prices of produce in the US and Americans may curse the price of produce in France, they would not if they had a chance to sample the quality. More often than not we have seen workers eat lunch at the local restaurant- a full 3-course meals. the dignity and egalité of that has always blown my socks off.
I think finally, the scandal caused in Paris by restaurants not cooking in-house but getting cooked food from other restaurants and palming them off as their own, is over. Restaurants now, have to clearly state if the food was cooked in-house or slipped in from the outside.
In India, eating meat is a voluntary act of cruelty. By this, I do not mean the rights or wrongs of eating an animal’s flesh- but the way in which animals are treated in India. Behind any chicken restaurant are cages upon cages stuffed with sad hens waiting to be killed. These hens go from being chicken to slaughter without having experienced a day of joy in their lives. Similarly, in Calcutta, you can watch herders driving their dying and lame cattle on the way to the local tannery. Despite the much vaunted hindutva reverence for cows, local milk producers let their cattle roam free to eat any rubbish to be found on the roads- including ingesting huge amounts of plastic bags- in order to save on feed.
In the US, eating meat is an involuntary- though deliberate, act of cruelty. The cause here is the industrialization of farming. Hens are housed in overcrowded industrial barns, cattle in filthy feed lots and pigs spend their entire lives in crates. The sanitized intermediation of the supermarkets between the consumer and the industrial producer, allows the consumer not to think twice about the life of unwarranted cruelty lived by the animal they are consuming.
In France, horse meat is still legal- thought ethically speaking, it makes no difference whether you are eating a horse or a cow, a pig or a hen. An animal is still an animal. However, the EU is forcing through rules to prevent undue cruelty to farm animals. In the farms around our house, sheep spend their days in large grassy plots. Cows can be seen grazing in the fields. And, eggs in the supermarket or at the village market are advertised as having been raised in fields. You can see a similar trend in US farms owned by organic egg farmers. France, I think, will turn the ethical corner when the force feeding of ducks for fois gras is banned- which it already is in the USA.
Though, now I have to reveal a gripe. Ever so often, I feel a hankering for food that is non-French, like a really tasty empanada, a simple tortilla, a tamale- like at Frontera Grill, or dim-sum like at any ordinary US chinatown restaurant. Sadly, the French do French food well, but are terrible when it comes to international foods. There is a Vietnamese restaurant in Montmorillon that was touted as being fabulous by many of our friends here. I finally managed to make my way there and it was disappointing at best. As far as dim-sum is concerned- it is a favorite of mine. In the US, most big cities have a well identified Chinatown where you can slurp down some heavenly soups and die in dim-sum heaven. Alas, that is not possible in France- you can only go to heaven eating French food. We made reservation in Paris at a much advertised dim-sum restaurant. The dim-sum skins were thick and unappetisingly chewy, and we made our disappointed way back to Antigny. I think, in a pinch, I would make better dim-sum than the fat lady who emanated a bored air as she steamed the dim-sum.
There are a lot of pizzerias around here, but they have the same sad flaw. To me, the flavor of a pizza is a combination of the taste of the crust as well as the toppings. A good crust is worth its weight in gold. Unfortunately, here in France, the crusts are painfully thin and serve only as a vehicle for the toppings. I miss the thick charred crusts of Italy and the USA. Pizza in France is comparable to the mass produced pizza in the US or pizza in India- lacking in joy.
I love and miss ramen noodle soups, but now, I think, the only way to get a good ramen soup is by catching a flight to Japan or the US. How strange is that?
The United States, in spite of its many flaws, remains a haven for international tastebuds and I have much to thank it for. But that is the interesting contradiction of the United States- it was made by immigrants and which now denigrates immigrants- who are essentially fleeing destruction caused by US state policy- the war on drugs in South America, the war against Islamists in Africa and the middle-east and, climate change in the rest of the world.
A Life of Solitude
I love my life here. It is a life of food, friends, solitude and reflection. There are lots of walking and biking trails around our house. Anytime, I need to decompress, I just put on my walking shoes and take a long walk in the forests- barely meeting another human being.
My walks vary in distance from 8km to 27km, and there are any number of websites (e.g. Visorando) that list and guide you through the various walks. Walks are described by the lenght of the journey, the difficulty of the terrain, sights along the way etc. The trails themselves are marked with signsposts. In the US too, there is no dearth of walking trails from those for serious mukti-day hikers to those out for a weekend jog. The Fox River Trail used to run behind our house in Algonquin- which I used, to train for my Chicago marathons.
Municipalities and local government in India do not make it easy for the ordinary citizen to get some much needed exercise with a stress-relieving long walk. There are any number of reasons for this- poor or no urban planning, the extra cost of setting aside land that cannot be built on etc. Additionally, the problem of pollution, anyway makes walking or exercising outside hazardous to your health. Also sidewalks- where they exist, are considered to be multi-purpose- as in Gugaon, where sidewalks are used by hawkers, indigent day-laborers to setup their tent homes and drivers trying to find a faster way to get to their destination or attempting to avoid a speed bump in the road. Roads in India are lined with public waste. The thoughtless Indian who rather than taking a bag from home for his groceries, takes it back from the store in a plastic bag and then throws it on the street. At stores in St Savin or Montmorillon, you will more frequently than not, see people bring their own bags from home to take their shopping back in.
Our garden, and virtually any trail you walk, are full of blackberry bushes, walnut, pear and abandoned fig trees. In the late fall, when you walk the trails- look out for the wild chives and mushrooms. In late summer, as I walk the trails I can pick ripe blackberries along the route. In the fall, I bring back walnuts to dry in our cellar. In the late fall, the figs are ripe and ready to be plucked, to be eaten raw or made into fig conserve. I have a little potager in our garden, where I try to grow tomatoes, fava beans, green chillies, aubergines, brussel sprouts, potatoes, cabbage and cauliflowers. We have an apricot tree that is finally blossoming (it had 7 fruit last year), a couple of mirabelle plum trees and a few very old plum trees that keep disappointing us with their promise of fruit. The raspberry bushes have overtaken their designated space- but I have many bottles of raspberry jams in the cellar to show for their agression. We also have a herb garden with Rosemary, Thyme, Sage and Oregano.
We had brought our 5 adopted cats with us from the US. The three of our US adopted cats- Sitara, Manohar and Chinnu have died and we have 3 fruit trees in their memory- a pear, an apple and a fig tree. Two died suddenly from undiagnosed diseases, while the third was probably lifted by foxes- which are endemic in our neck of the wood.
The quality of veterinary care here remains a big concern. Now, I suspect that veterinary care in Paris for household pets is probably much better than what is available here. It is also probably much better for farm animals in the rural France. In both the cases of our cats’ demise, the vets were unable to diagnose a root cause and consequently, to save our babies. We have tried several vets in our area. To be fair- we had 2 cats die in New York City, the mecca for veterinary care of household pets, without them being diagnosed with a root cause.
I have to thank our US passport, which made the move to France really easy. I am fairly confident that with an Indian passport it would have been well-nigh impossible, considering the rings you have to run through simply to get a tourist visa, as an Indian, to France.
Travel in France is a pleasure. It is easier to be concerned about the environment and to travel well and inexpensively- given the absolutely marvellous network of high-speed trains- the TGVs and regional trains. In the US, traveling by train is an afterthought, because of the low speeds and a network that is not geared towards regular travel, resulting in long train journeys- when possible. There, cars and air travel are the most frequently used, simply because train travel is so inconvenient. India too has a remarkably comprehensive rail network, but the frequency of deadly rail accidents, the lower speeds of the trains cause you to think twice about travel by train. Consequently, air travel has taken off in India. I still love traveling by train in India- not the air-conditioned trains of today, but the slow, crowded trains of years gone by.
All in all, we are very glad to have chosen to live out our semi-retirement in France. There is never a day of regret. The world is not perfect, but we live in a country that as the wife of the next US President would say is trying to “Be Best”. And best of all, we are now situated half-way between our two the US and India- making travel in either direction incredibly convenient.
Correction: I incorrectly commented that wouldn’t it be better for the US government to pay poorer people to buy fruits and vegetables rather than subsidize the agri-business. In the US, the government provides food assistance through the SNAP program to needy individuals and families. How much you get for food each month depends on your state and your income as a percentage of the official poverty level income. The money provided can be used to buy food stuffs at local markets that accept the program.