Portraits of France: The French Village
A series of sketches of villages from far flung regions of France. Today: Introduction
This October will mark four years since I moved back to the United States, after 29 years of living in Paris. My reasons for returning from what was in many ways a deliberate exile were varied and complicated, and I will be exploring them in a book I am working on (some of which will be excerpted in this newsletter.)
During that time, between my work as a food and travel writer and my work as a science journalist covering France, I had the opportunity to visit nearly every corner of the country and a lot of places in between. Over the next few weeks, I will post portraits of six French villages I got the chance to spend time in, thanks to my editors at Bon Appétit magazine. Some of these visits were quite a few years ago, but these particular villages have gone to great efforts to preserve the past. That means they are not changing as quickly as much of the French countryside, which has left way too many ancient villages to abandon and ruin.
For most visitors, France means Paris, the Côte d'Azur (French Riviera), or Provence. As for exploring the rest of this vast nation, fewer venture off the beaten path. But as any French person will tell you, the real France, la France profonde, is found in the countryside. Even Parisians will admit to this, although you might not suspect it from the way they refer to anywhere outside Paris as “the provinces,” and the way they sometimes mock the people who live there (while at the same time proudly proclaiming their provincial roots.) Thus, while the French are proud of their technological accomplishments—they have some of the fastest trains in the world, the most reliable space rockets, and a highly competitive computer industry—even the most diehard Parisian technocrat is usually only a generation or two away from the farm.
That’s why the French will risk throwing away international trade agreements to defend their farmers, even though agricultural workers represent less than 3% of the total workforce—and that is just half what it was only twenty years ago. Before World War II, more than a third of the population worked the land, a fact some older French people still remember and that the young are constantly reminded of. Most families that can afford it, and a lot that can’t, maintain a second home in the countryside, even if sometimes it’s little more than a bungalow with running water. So those foreigners who venture onto France’s back roads will find that the tourists they meet are, as often as not, French people out discovering their own country.
And there is a lot to discover. The French often refer to their nation as the Hexagon, and a glance at France’s angular contours on a map will show you why. But the concept is more than just geometric. It refers to the multifaceted nature of the country, the endless variety of landscapes, cultures, and even languages. Almost every kind of scenery you can imagine is packed within its borders, from the soaring peaks of the French Alps in Savoy to the rugged Atlantic seacoast of Brittany, and from the prehistoric painted caves of the Périgord to the herb-covered moors of the Languedoc.
This variety is reflected in the look of the villages that dot the countryside. The whitewashed houses of Brittany, for example, bear little resemblance to the half-timbered Renaissance structures of Alsace. But the Breton-speaking fisherman is French, and so is the Alsatian with his German-based dialect—it’s just that their differences are at least as interesting as what unites them.
The French have struggled hard to safeguard their rural heritage, and some think it might be a losing battle. Not just a few once-idyllic villages are threatened with abandonment, as the exodus to the cities quickens (it’s hard to convince young people anywhere to stay on the farm when agriculture has become so marginalized as a way to make a living, even though everyone has to eat.)
For those who have held on, tourism has often been the key to survival. That makes you, the visitor, a partner in preservation. French villagers understand that. If you go—not with romantic illusions, but with a quiet appreciation of their determination—they will welcome you with open arms.