Good Things About France No. 10: 'Les Nympheas' de Monet

When I was a student at university in Liverpool, I shared a flat with a bunch of other students. One of them was a lad who was tidy (surely a term of abuse for a student?), listened to classical music with the manuscript open on his knees, read nothing but Trollope and Hardy and had a curling poster on the wall of some women walking through a poppy field.

It was Monet of course. The eternal Monet summer of meadows, fluffy clouds and ladies in bonnets. He used to tell me how much he liked Monet and the Impressionists. So much better than the artists today and the rubbish they created. I would stifle a yawn and go back to my room to read some Kundera and stare at my own Kurt Schwitters poster.

I think today I would give him more time. And the reason is a strange one. By starting work with a French company, by eventually being transferred to France, I have found myself, quite accidentally, living in the very place that the Impressionists lived and painted. The famous "camembert", a little round island in the Seine which was painted by both Monet and Renoir standing side by side one idyllic summer's afternoon, is only ten minutes walk from our house.

The place is less idyllic now. The banks of the Seine have been stabilised, the "camembert" removed and no one would dream of jumping into the Seine in a bathing costume. But the light on the Seine is the same, the same bold stripes of light and dark recorded by Monet that afternoon.

It was visiting the Orangerie museum in Paris that changed my opinion of Monet. Therein are housed his enormous paintings (entitled 'Les Nympheas') of the water lily ponds next to his house at Giverny. Monet bequeathed the works to the French nation in on the condition that they remained in the Orangerie which he helped to adapt for the task. Last year the Orangerie was reopened after a major restoration project reestablished the influx of natural light to the galleries.

These late works, carried out between 1915 and 1923 and completed when Monet was in his eighties are a vast and hugely ambitious project. The subject matter is the surface of the lily ponds, full of hazy and shimmering reflections of clouds and sky, splashes of curiously mottled colours dissolving among the lily pads and reeds.

These paintings take impressionism to a new level. They are still about seeing, observations of a particular moment, but they are also abstractions, mood pieces, delighting in the double image presented by the surface of the pond and all the reflections trapped therein. They seem to mark an end to the search for exotic subject matter, a glory in simplicity, a sort of ultimate place at the end of Monet's life...

...which was a life not without its trials: the death of his wife at a young age, frequent penury. For Monet, as for all of the Impressionists, success was hard to come by. Manet, Cezanne, Degas, Renoir all spent decades battling for the respect of academy and public alike, to be able to present their new art which was essentially realist, painted for the first time out of doors, interested by effects of light, showing real people in real situations, rapidly painted, attempting to capture the impression of a moment.

Good Things About France No. 8: Aubade Pubs

Before writing this, I hesitated a moment or two, trying to decide whether Aubade Pubs (short for 'publicité' or 'advertisements' in English) were a 'French Particularity' or a 'Good Thing about France'. It wasn't a very long hesitation...

We had some friends over for dinner the other night, and one of them was complaining of the danger posed by these advertisements to French road users. He said that while riding to work on his bicycle, not only was he distracted, but if a motorist was passing they were also distracted at the same time causing a life-threatening 'double wobble' effect.

While we discussed this effect, our wives looked on quite baffled. Apparently they had never noticed these advertisements, despite the fact these ads are currently afixed to every bus stop in Paris. This must say something about the female psyche, but I'm not sure what. This saturation advertising campaign seems to come once a year, just after the August tanning season.

Each campaign features the release of half-a-dozen new photos, always in the same style and always featuring sleek bottoms and tenuous lace. The women's faces are never included.

There are lingerie ads from other brands, but these Aubade ads are famous, not only for their stylish black and white photography, but also for including quirky 'lingerie-wearing lessons' implanted mid-photo in a font that is rather too small to read at a single glance by passing motorists - hence rendering them even more dangerous.

Each lingerie lesson has a number, and the current batch of ads includes lesson number 75 - emphasising what an institution these ads are. One example which has stuck in my mind was: 'Pose him a metaphysical problem'. This lesson featured a pair of knickers that did, indeed, pose a metaphysical problem: i.e. how was it that a pair of knickers could appear to connect between the legs at the level of the belly-button?

You could say that these ads reduce women to the status of sex objects, and you'd be right. You could say they posed a danger to road users, and you'd also be right. But on the other hand, there is something uplifiting about the cheekiness and humour of them.

And anyway, the roads in France couldn't get much more dangerous, right? And isn't the size of France's population supposed to be shrinking...

Good Things About France No. 7: The Bagatelle Rose Gardens

Many visitors to France are aware of the famous Chateau de Versailles gardens which are built on a grandiose scale and the smaller and more intimate water gardens of the painter Monet at Giverney. Perhaps less visitors are aware of the Bagatelle Rose Gardens which is part of the large expanse of parks and forest which make up the Bois de Boulogne situated to the west side of Paris and easily accessible by metro.

It is a fairly formal garden with a fabulous array of different roses whose overwhelming scents fill the summer air. The best time to visit is probably in June when the gardens have an annual International Rose Competition judged by the public.

There is a smart outdoor cafe just next to the garden where you can top up your radiator with Perrier water and if you still have energy left there is the Jardin d’Acclimatation next door which is the perfect outdoor amusement park for young children.

Good Things About France No. 5: Journée du Patrimoine

Once a year, a great many french cultural sites (museums, churches, monuments) open their doors for free during an entire weekend. It is also an opportunity to visit places that are not normally open to the public. This year the event is being held on the 17th-18th September.

The programme for the whole of France is here. For Paris alone, there are more than 250 locations listed which can be visited, and many more in the suburbs of Yveslines and Hauts-de-Seine etc. A good idea is to get out a bicycle (if you have one) and plan a tour of the sites.

It is also worth remembering that you can visit the museums of Paris for free on the first Sunday of every month. For more tips about things to do in Paris when your down and out, have a look at Paris Gratuit

Good Things About France No. 4: Le Comite d'Entreprise

This is my younger daughter, trying to think of a way to drive this souped-up toy vehicle out of the shop without anyone noticing. She is wondering how to spend her 'Cheques Cadeaux' (gift cheques), a present to her from the company I work for. She received them last Christmas and we have been waiting for a rainy day before going out to spend them. Well, it was pretty hot today actually, but you know what I mean... In fact, she hadn't got nearly enough for this little gem, but she did manage to scrape enough together for a wendy house, which made her very happy.

This is not a special perk for my family alone, but something that applies to people who work for larger companies all over France. The 'Cheques Cadeaux' are given to the children themselves by the Comite d'Entreprise of the company I work for. And this is not the only cheque we receive. There is also the 'Cheque Rentree' to help with buying things for going back to school in the Autumn, the 'Cheque Vacance' for paying for holiday activities and the 'Cheque Lire' for buying books at a 50% subsidy. There are then other perks such as 50% or so off the cost of a holiday to selected destinations, reduced price tickets for theme parks, a lot of subsidised sporting and theatrical events, and subsidised training in anything from yoga to guitar lessons.

This is definitely a 'good thing about France'. So what is the Comite d'Entreprise? Well, there's a lot of information here but it's all in French. That's perfectly normal, it's a French institution. But for me, a foreigner, receiving loads of documentation in French, it has taken quite a while to realise the true benefits of this organisation. So here's a brief description in English.

Comite d'Entreprise, roughly translated means: 'the work's council'. In fact, since 1945 every company in France with more than 50 employees has been obliged to have a Comite d'Entreprise. The Comite d'Entreprise's role is to speak on behalf of employees so that their interests are taken into account in decisions relating to the management and financial evolution of the company, notably the organization of work, the vocational training and production techniques. It is a tripartite organization, composed of the head of company who chairs the Committee, a delegation of personnel elected by the employees and a trade-union representative designated by each representative trade union.

The employer must provide administrative offices for the Comite d'Entreprise as well as the material necessary for the performance of its duties. It allots an operational budget to the Comite of 0,2% of the company's total wage bill and also allows a subsidy of 0 % to 5 % of the total wage bill for the financing of the social and cultural activities of the employees. In practice the actual figure is 1%.

In a very large company like the one I work for, the Comite d'Entreprise (or CE) is therefore a very large and rich organisation. Because of their links to the unions, they are also a powerful negotiating force within the company and part of the reason why the directors of French companies have little negotiating power with their work force. In effect, they are obliged by law to finance the people who internally organise union activities.

Most of these perks are available to me, even though I am not a French national. I even have the right to cast a vote for members of the Comite. So, it really is a good thing. French employees sleep safer in their beds and have more fun in their lives all due to the CEs. The only problem is, if I really looked into all the offers that arrive from the CE in my pigeon hole, I would never get any work done. So most of them just pile up on my desk, along with the daily updates from the various unions and assorted other 'junk mail'. After two years in France, the pile of paperwork on my desk coming from this type of activity is about a foot high.

Good Things About France No. 3: Service with a Smile

A while ago we took the car into a garage and asked them about a clicking noise that we could hear under the car. The mechanic took the car for a spin, raised it on the lift and took a wheel off to check the bearings, cleaned it and put it back together again. That should be okay now, he said. How much? We asked. No charge, he quickly said. When we drove off, we found he had indeed fixed the problem.

Then, last week, my wife broke the arm on her glasses. She took them in to the optician. He looked them over, then took them into his workshop and quickly fixed them. How much? She asked. No charge, he said.

This is a wonderful aspect of France. The idea that people will do work for a complete stranger, even a foreigner who doesn't speak French that well, completely gratis. It suggests a certain level of respect still existing between everyone in the community and an unwillingness to let monetary values take precedence over human decency. Bravo!

Good Things About France No. 2: Cheap Public Transport

Yep, not only cheap, but also good and reliable public transport. Compared to Britain, the cost of bus and train transport in France is peanuts. Ten years ago I was paying £270 a week (about 400 Euros) for a monthly train pass from the suburbs into London. Here I pay 45 Euros for the month. Admittedly the journey is only half as long but it still means I am paying a tiny amount compared to London. It is intended that these fares become even cheaper next year for the old, the young and the unemployed.

The only down side of public transport in France are the regular strikes (one day every few months) intended to keep the management on their toes. No one in France ever gives up a work related benefit. Someone told me that about 100 years ago a law was passed to allow train drivers to retire at fifty in view of the damage to their health from shovelling coal into steam engine burners. Apparently they still retire at fifty to this day.

Good Things About France No. 1: Louis de Funes

At the risk of starting to seem rather critical about France, which would not really be an accurate representation of the way I feel about the place, I thought I'd start a series of articles listing all the good things I've discovered about France which are not that well known.

The first one is Louis de Funes. This guy is a really funny French comic, a bit like a Gallic version of John Cleese. I have watched a couple of his films which are both very good. The first is 'Oscar' which is the film of a farce originally put on in the theatre in which a goonish millionaire tries to outwit a potential son-in-law who arrives with a valise full of jewels in return for the hand of his daughter. Louis developed the part of the millionaire by playing the role hundreds of times in the theatre, and it shows in his brilliant performance which is really fundamental to the succes of the piece.

The second film is 'La Grande Vadrouillle' which is about a bunch of British airmen who bail out over Paris. In a series of unlikely adventures they escape from Paris into the countryside and eventually to the unoccupied zone. It is also hilariously funny, especially the scene where the 'Bosch' dance around a French restaurant on their chairs. Need I say more?