They Eat Horses, Don't They? Read online

  * An Immortel is designated as such for life, and very few of these dignitaries have been divested of their title. Those who were included some collaborators in the Vichy regime of the Second World War, most famously Marshal Philippe Pétain, head of state of Vichy France.

  Needless to say, the Académie is not an institution associated with radicalism or innovation: it was, for example, one of the principal objectors to French regional languages being given protected status under the French constitution in 2008. It has been subject to much ridicule by the more radical elements of the French literary establishment – including the French playwright Edmond Rostand, himself an Academician, who in his 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac included a recitation of the names of the first generation of Immortels (all of whom had been long forgotten).

  Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.

  P. G. WODEHOUSE, ENGLISH COMIC NOVELIST (1881–1975), THE LUCK OF THE BODKINS, 1935

  Despite the best efforts of institutions like the Académie, one of the principal historical obstacles to a codified French language came from within France itself: namely, the absence of a single language spoken throughout the country. Until relatively recently, in fact, it could be argued that France was hardly a ‘country’ at all, but more a hotch-potch of regional tribes with different languages, dialects and customs. The Northern French dialect – the langue d’oïl – had a natural advantage, in that it was the language spoken in Paris and the surrounding region. This was the dialect that was to develop into modern French. After the fall of the monarchy in 1789, the heirs of the French Revolution decided that the only way to unify the country was to stamp out all other languages apart from French. Shortly after the Revolution, a government report – appropriately entitled ‘On the need and ways to annihilate dialects and universalize the use of French’ – noted that only 3 million of the total population of 25 million in France at that date actually spoke French.1 How was the civilizing language of Voltaire to be brought to this unruly Babel of different tongues? The answer was – by outlawing all dialects and regional languages, and imposing a uniform standard of French. As a 1794 report on regional languages by the revolutionary zealot Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac made clear:

  ‘Federalism and superstition speak Breton; emigration and hatred for the Republic speak German; counter-revolution speaks Italian, and fanaticism speaks Basque. Let us destroy these instruments of damage and error.’2

  Revolutionary legislation ensured the propagation of French as the unified national language in a number of ways: the conversion of private schools into state schools, where the language of instruction was French; a decree banning the use of German in Alsace; a decree to ensure that the population would not be ‘abused’ by the use of regional languages; and a decree enforcing the use of French for official purposes.3

  The policy of linguistic centralization was sustained in France throughout the nineteenth century, reaching its peak in the reforms of the revered statesman Jules Ferry, who as French minister of public instruction in the 1880s laid the basis of the modern, secular French education system. Even to this day – when regional languages have been all but eradicated in France – the fear of them and their perceived potential for creating discord has not completely abated. France has not, for example, ratified the European Charter of Regional or Minority Languages, which would give regional languages official status (as the UK has done with Welsh and Irish, among others). The French government did, however, concede regional languages a ‘protected’ if not ‘official’ status, by a revision to the French constitution in 2008, recognizing regional languages as part of the ‘patrimony of France’.*

  * France has stated that it is constitutionally blocked from ratifying the Charter, since to do so would jeopardize the status of French as the single official language of the state. As noted above, the constitutional concession of 2008 was objected to by the Académie française. President François Hollande, however, has declared that he intends to ratify the Charter.

  In other words, regional languages have about the same status as French regional cheeses: quaint relics of the past, adding a splash of local colour and piquancy to a summer vacation spiced with a few Breton songs accompanied by bagpipes. And with about as much political clout as a lump of Camembert.

  Having eradicated regional languages, the French government was faced with a new threat to linguistic purity in the latter half of the twentieth century: foreign invasion in the form of English terms entering the French language. The first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of new words was sounded in 1964, with a book that caused a furore in France – Parlez-vous franglais?, by René Étiemble. ‘Franglais’ is the incorporation of English words into French, and Parlez-vous franglais? was a tirade against the colonization of the French language by such words: ‘le weekend’, ‘le businessman’, ‘le boss’, ‘le playboy’, ‘le shopping’, etc. According to Étiemble, the French language would soon lose its status as a ‘pure’ language of culture, turning France into a trashy country of ‘free enterprise’ and ‘hamburgers, cheeseburgers and eggburgers – filthy things that I didn’t eat even when I was poor in Chicago’.4 Concern over the new linguistic threat grew over succeeding decades, leading to the enactment of a new law to try to stem the onslaught – the so-called ‘Toubon Law’ of 1994. Under the provisions of Toubon, the use of French was obligatory in official government publications; French as the predominant language was a requirement for schools to receive state funding; advertisements had to be in French, or if in English, with a French translation; and legal or other key documents in the workplace – such as computer manuals – had to be in French.

  The French don’t care what they do actually, as long as they pronounce it properly.

  PROFESSOR HENRY HIGGINS PRONOUNCES ON THE FRENCH, IN THE FILM MY FAIR LADY, 1964

  In addition to the Toubon Law, the Académie française was also drafted in to stem the onrushing tide of English words, by inventing French equivalents and attempting to impose them on the public. Thus the Académie caused a stir in 2003, when it rejected the words then in use by French people for ‘email’ (e-mail, mail and mél) as too close to English. Instead, the Académie declared that the word used by French Canadians, courriel, was the correct native word (somewhat ironically, as Canadian French would usually be looked down upon by purists as not ‘true’ French). A few days after the Académie’s decree, the French culture ministry banned the use of the word ‘email’ in any official or government documents. It has been of little use – most French people still use the words mail or mél, and not courriel. And many advertisers flout the Toubon Law, which requires a French translation of non-French words, by brazen use of Franglais. ‘Pokez, taggez, likez!’ proclaims an Orange France advertisement to young users. ‘Have fun, c’est Noel!’ says another, for Etam lingerie. The Toubon Law, in fact, has become something of a national joke.

  There is, in fact, an argument that it is precisely the French obsession with the ‘purity’ and ‘correctness’ of their language that has contributed to its downfall. In other words, French linguistic chauvinism goes a long way to explaining why French is not the universal language of world business today (as it was once the international language of diplomacy). ‘English,’ George Bernard Shaw once quipped, ‘is the easiest language to speak badly.’ The English language is massacred every day in boardrooms, hotels and restaurants around the world, but nobody cares because as long as what is being said is understood, it doesn’t matter if you cannot distinguish correctly between the simple present and present continuous tenses, or do not make the proper elisions between words, or generally speak English with an execrable accent. The French, on the other hand, will always correct you if you don’t speak with the precision of a school textbook, and take great delight in doing so. They have a habit of telling yo
u how much more difficult, how much ‘richer’ their language is than English (even though English has a vocabulary approximately five times larger than French).*

  * The French are convinced that their language is more difficult than English, and therefore superior. The fact is that the two languages present completely different challenges. French has greater grammatical complexity and more rules than English, but when those rules are mastered, there is great consistency in their application. English is a language of few rules, but a thousand exceptions and idiosyncrasies that must be individually mastered.

  In spite of all attempts by the French to stem the English linguistic incursion, however, the invaders keep on coming. The latest threat to French linguistic purity comes, of course, from the Internet, and the French have responded characteristically by setting up a watchdog to guard the chastity of their technical jargon. Among the snappy French equivalents proposed for English computer and Internet terms are informaticien bricoleur for ‘geek’ and élément d’une image numérique for ‘pixel’. As yet, though, there is no official committee to police the influx of new (English) social networking terms, so, for the time being, you can write un blogue, poker someone on Facebook, and tweeter fellow twittos. A particular problem is posed by the subversive younger generation of French, who plunder US television series, bagging colourful words that they then use in ways unauthorized by the Académie – such as the très cool term swag. (Avoir le swag means to be ‘classy’ or ‘hip’.) Not to mention the evocative, rebellious and impenetrably rich argot or slang coming out of the immigrant housing estates, in the banlieues.

  Yet the latest word on the street is that the French may finally be loosening up a little on the linguistic front. Ministers in the Socialist government of François Hollande, elected in May 2012, have actually been heard hazarding a few sentences in English – and even German – on occasion. Some courses at the major French élite educational institutions, or grandes écoles, such as Sciences Po (L’Institut d'études politiques de Paris or Paris Institute of Political Studies) are now in English as well as French. And there is even a proposal to teach English in primary school at Cours Préparatoire level (Year 2).*

  * The recent government efforts to improve the quality of English teaching in French schools was in response to the general recognition that French ability in English was abysmal and actually handicapping young French people in the international workplace. The TOEFL results of 2008 placed France 69th out of 109 countries for proficiency in the English language.

  In a marked difference of opinion from the stance traditionally adopted by their government, 90 per cent of French people in a 2012 survey regarded the arrival of new words in the French language as a good thing.5 Every year, some 20,000 new words jostle for recognition in the French language; a privileged few will make it into the dictionaries. Indeed, Gallic publishers are even mooting the shockingly revolutionary idea that a dictionary might record the French language as actually used by people in daily life, as opposed to the officially authorized usage. There is even an annual festival of the mot-valise, the French translation of a ‘portmanteau word’, or – as Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty put it – two meanings packed up into one word. The former presidential candidate Ségolène Royal herself unwittingly coined one a few years back, when she referred to bravitude (brave + attitude): surely an endorsement of lexical innovation from the highest authority. In fact, while linguistic traditionalists are fruminous about it, the radicals are chortling in glee; for finally, it seems, the smog of tradition may have lifted from the French languagescape.

  Myth Evaluation: Historically true, although this appears to be finally changing.

  FRENCH POP MUSIC IS IRREDEEMABLY NAFF

  Life is always love and desolation – life is always the same songs.

  GEORGES BRASSENS, FRENCH CHANSONNIER (1921–81)

  It is an established fact: the French are as bad at pop music as they are brilliant at haute cuisine. Or at least, so we like to think. For while we are quite happy to accept the outstanding contributions the Gallic race has made to classical music – with names such as Berlioz, Bizet, Debussy or Fauré regularly topping British concert bills – we are less ready to accept their musical output of a more populist kind. It is part of a wider myth that the French can do ‘high’ culture, but are rubbish at ‘pop’ culture – the preserve, naturally, of the British and Americans. France’s historic pop-musical isolationism is underlined by the fact that, although Anglo-American songs have often made it big in France, French-language songs in the UK charts are rarer than snow in June.* ‘French rock music,’ John Lennon once said, ‘is like English wine.’ The chilling put-down has haunted French pop music ever since.

  * There are, of course, the rare exceptions that prove the rule: such as the Belgian Plastic Bertrand, whose vaguely punkish Ça plane pour moi made number 8 in the UK singles chart in 1978.

  In the mind of the average Briton, the words ‘French pop music’ conjure up traumatic images of televised Eurovision Song Contests featuring Gallic crooners with permed mullets and backing singers in satin hotpants. Among further offences to be taken into consideration: the writers of the 1980s song ‘Agadoo’ by Black Lace (recently voted the fourth most annoying pop song of all time)†6 were French; the country’s most famous rock star is a superannuated Elvis wannabe with the unlikely moniker ‘Johnny Hallyday’ (real name Jean-Philippe Smet); and the second-best-selling pop song of all time in France is ‘Danse des canards’, the French version of ‘The Birdie Song’ (the number one most annoying song of all time in the aforementioned poll)7. Need one say more? Well, perhaps just a little…

  † ‘Agadoo’ was originally recorded in French in 1971 by Michel Delancray and Mya Symille, and was the Club Med theme song from 1974. It was re-released by Black Lace in 1984.

  The first and most important thing to know about French pop music is that it is intimately and inextricably linked to an age-old French genre of song called the chanson. It is hard to explain to a non-French person what the chanson is: like an elephant, one knows it when one sees it (or rather hears it), but it is difficult to define. It is, basically, a ballad. The modern chanson grew out of the popular music played in the French cabarets and dance halls of the late nineteenth century, producing such acknowledged masters of the genre as Edith Piaf and subsequently Jacques Brel, Mireille Mathieu, Charles Trenet, Georges Brassens and Léo Ferré, to name but a few (ironically, the great Jacques Brel, the ultimate exponent of the French chanson, was in fact Belgian). The chanson was a genre of music intimately linked to the lives of ordinary people, recording the joys and sorrows of the everyday and mundane, with often thoughtful, even poetic lyrics and the simple accompaniment of piano, guitar or accordion. Above all, the chanson is and has always been quintessentially French – as much a part of the French cultural landscape as Gauloises and vin ordinaire.

  For most of the past 50 years, French music has not been cool, with a reputation stuck between ’Allo ’Allo-style theme tunes and a desperate desire to ape Anglo-Saxon sounds, the latter with cringe-worthy results often delivered in breathless Franglais.

  TOM DE CASTELLA, BBC NEWS MAGAZINE, NOVEMBER 2010

  In the 1950s and 1960s, however, a giant wave from the outside world burst onto the French popular music scene, threatening to sweep everything (including the chanson) aside: the tide of rock ’n’ roll, led by Elvis and a host of rockabillies, swiftly followed by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Everybody the world over wanted to groove to the new beat, but the French public (not unreasonably) wanted to groove to it in their own language. Enter the grand fromage of French rock, Johnny Hallyday. Johnny who? You will have to trust me on this one, but Johnny Hallyday is the biggest French pop star ever. He is probably the biggest pop star of whom you have never heard. Indeed, ‘Johnny’ (as he is affectionately known in his native land) is a star of such gigantic proportions there that a 2006 French film had as its central conceit a nightmarish parallel world in which J
ohnny Hallyday doesn’t exist (unthinkable for most French people, reality for everybody else).8

  The ‘Johnny phenomenon’ presents an enduring puzzle to foreigners. Why all this un-ironic fuss and bother about a guy with a quiff and a bad line in Mad Max outfits, who seems to spend most of his time belting out cover versions of British and American rock classics like ‘Let’s Twist Again’ (‘Viens danser le twist’)? Because, quite simply, ‘Johnny’ more or less single-handedly brought le rock ’n’ roll to France, while remaining canny enough to alternate the new beat with French chansons to keep the traditionalists happy. It was down to him that the French could persuade themselves that they were participating in the rock ’n’ roll revolution as equals, rather than as victims of Anglo-American musical colonization. The French have idolized him ever since; to everybody else, he remains the biggest French cultural exception.*

  * For a full explanation of this term, see the chapter on French cinema (see here). The phrase ‘French cultural exception’ was first used in the context of the negotiated French exception to the provisions of the GATT relating to cinema. It has subsequently been extended to include all areas in which the French are perceived to be unique in cultural terms.