How many hours does it take to be pissed at France?
Posted on Sat 12 April 2025 in reportage
It's a trick question. It's measured in minutes.
I land in Paris at 11.25, my final destination being the small village of Aurillac at 21.25 later today, for 2 weeks of Feldenkrais training. I need to cross the city to go from an airport to another, and I have scheduled lunch with a friend who moved here a few months ago. At the airport all the signs are written in French, English, and Chinese. These polyglots, wow, they even speak Chinese. The 21-year-old French ambassadors that periodically venture out of their wombic land to study abroad must be part of an uneducated minority. I meet so many of them in Stockholm. Knowing they can't interact with humans in any language other than their own, I assume they choose that location for the deers.
I follow the Chinese signposts leading to the train station, where more signposting directs streams of walking flesh onto a platform that unequivocally says Paris at each step. Can't access the station without a ticket, though, and tickets happen from ticket machines for which there's a kilometric queue.
This is South Europe. I feel so comforted.
I have the impulse of checking if I can do the ticket through my phone, and I laugh at my naivety one second later. There's a miniscule QR code on a flyer talking of apps -- I go to the app store to figure out that I would need two apps to do one ticket, and the reviews are lower than what chain smokers would leave onto smoke-free areas, and I can already see my 13€ vanish into the app and having to queue anyway. This is so South Europe, I feel so comforted. So I queue like in Ghana, and down at the platform there's an abundance of signs saying Paris and a man with a stage microphone, one of those that hook onto your ear, the one kind teleshopping broadcasters have all the time, and he has a yellow overshirt with LEDs embedded both at the front and at the back, and he's in front of the train, wide-gesturing towards the train and screaming in French to me and a contingent of perplexed asians. Unsurprisingly, nobody is boarding the train. Every single sign says Paris, but this guy is screaming concitedly, and what else could it mean other than "All the signs are wrong! This train is going to self-combust as soon as it leaves the platform, and it's gonna head opposite to Paris for good measure anyway, so if you hold dear to your life, don't step onboard!"? This continues until a) I decide he's probably a Jehovah's Witness who roamed a bit too far; b) somebody asks "Paris?", and somebody else nods, and half of China comes on board, while this crowd-confuser continues harangueing newcomers down the escalators. I discover that working in one of the major european airports of one of the most internationally renowned european capitals requires no knowledge of English whatsoever.
It takes just 20 minutes of me strolling through an astoundly blooming and bubbly Paris for two different man to furtively approach me and low-tone concitedly ask me something, to which I just shake my head, because I'm assuming they're not offering to reimburse my travel tickets and so I don't care, but. But. I am the only, single biped in the whole town wearing a T-shirt and shorts, while everybody is wrapped in scarves and jackets, and I'm carrying a 38L backpack flaunting flags of multiple countries (none of which France). I get that I may look like the person interested in your weed, but do I give out any hint that I may be speaking French? I'm bewildered. Read the room, for god's sake. This is hurting your business.
I've almost made it to my meeting point. The maps on my phone direct me through a building -- I can see the exit from the entrance. There's a bouncer standing by the door, and I can see how it's gonna play out. I approach the door, and he stops me. He provides an explanation, except guess what, it's in Fucking French. I reply "I don't speak French. Je ne parlais pas frances". He rolls his eyes to the sky, makes no effort to conceil his annoyance at this ridicolous foreigner who's come here as part of the 8.8% of tourism GDP, says whatever else, hints at my backpack. I reply showing him my maps, meaning I don't give shit of stopping in this place, I only need to cross. He keeps hinting at my backpack, "le sac, le sac, le sac". For a divine miracle I manage to avoid arrest shouting "Yes I have a backpack, you smarto, and yes I'm gonna carry it with me. I woke up at 5.30 and I've been walking with this hippopotamus on my back for 2 hours and you just go fuck yourself." Instead, I just say "OKAY" and leave. Thank god he's enforcing this counter-terrorism measure, I feel so safe. I'm glad I'm allowed to blow myself up at the train station, or in a shopping mall, but god forbid I may do that in hospitals waiting halls. It would be a pity if people scheduled to go to heaven in 2 weeks would make it earlier.
I go an endless detour around this megablock packed with cars speeding in any direction just to... come to the other entrance, and find another bouncer. Same scene, except this time I understand he wants to look inside my backpack. I don't hesitate a second and I open it for him. We look at each other a second to figure out how he's gonna assess I'm not a kamikaze, given that emptying 38L of stuff is frankly ridicolous for both of us. He resolves to pat-pat it on the sides, from top to bottom, acknowledges that it could contain exactly anything, and he lets me in.
My friend and I make it to the cafè of this hospital, a world-renoknown place for international research, where there's again an endless curvy line of humans and we don't understand why the waiters are taking orders from people who stand two thirds into the line. What's up with the first two thirds? Have they all ordered truffle pig which is now being butchered in Vietnam and will take just a little longer, so we serve you already? What's up with this people, I don't know. My friend's time to order: "un croissant", the waiter puts on a puzzled face, then repeats "un crrrrrroissant?"; then "un espresso", and after the theatrical one-moment-puzzlement she repeats "un espressò?". And I'm like, have I ordered a Génépi from '89? Or a Reiki foot massage by a tantric healer? What the fuck do you sell here? With how many things could you possibly mistake a fucking espresso? Even the most deludent pattern matching would yield the right result. I let you imagine how complicated it's been to get an orange juice.
I don't know why I even get so upset: what could you expect from a people that translates download with telechargér?
It's time to continue my travel and reach Orly airport. I take the metro, and at some point I notice the seductive lady's automated voice is speaking in fucking Spanish. Por favor, no olvidar recuar todos los equipaje, and Cuidado con el espacio entre el vagón y landen. Maybe that was the key, speaking Spanish, how did I not think of trying that.
I get to Orly (where Chinese signs are again a strong presence), I scan my boarding pass to enter security checks and 30 meters ahead I start unpacking my backpack, where they want every little thing in a different container, and then again the security man talks to me. I respond, this time visibly irritated, that I don't speak Fucking French; he replies something I parse as ���� but of which I make out pass, so I lay my passport in the container in front of me and make my way through the gate but no, it's a major insult, he calls me back and at the third time I understand "Show me your boarding pass", and then "Do you speak English?" with such an arrogant smug that I've never punched anybody but this may well be my first. I'm sorry if you asked a stupid question, because you've seen me fucking scan my pass 30 meters away. And yes, last time I checked I do speak English, it's you who don't: speaking Fucking French with words sampled from an english dictionary doesn't count, I'm afraid.
Since I landed at 21.30, I have nothing for breakfast the day after. But lo!, I'm in the land of crrrroissant: I will just pop into a cafe and get a cappuccino and a pastry. These people will finally get to shine. I peer into a few cafes windows to get a feel of the places. At the third cafè, I realize something's off.
Everybody. Is. Just. Drinking. Coffee.
Nobody is eating.
I find bakeries, that provide pastries, and, at best, a glass of water or a hot chocolate. After 30 minutes of walking around, I just accept that there is simply not a place for people that want to eat and drink, as humanity has been doing since when humanity was not yet a thing and Neanderthal roamed our land.
Reputable sources have later informed me that yeah, cafes normally only provide coffee, and cappuccino is not a thing -- I'd have to ask for a coffee with milk, except I'm not gonna ask for anything that's not clearly stated in their menu in fear that they would bring me shrimps.
I then step into the supermarket and discover a) one wall of coffee, the variety of which is just novel for me; b) one wall of red meat; c) one wall of cheese; d) 2 corridors of ultraprocessed sweet food; e) one entire department only dedicated to wine. I buy my canned beans and rice from the most deserted aisle and wander out wondering how these people don't drop dead of cardiac arrest at 38 while walking in the street.
They're really something.