Friendly French

This week Mary went to a committee meeting. As in most organisations, whether choirs, churches, sports clubs or whatever, people often rely on them and their meetings for social contact and mutual support. In this case people were feeling upset and perhaps guilty because a member had sadly and unexpectedly died and they wondered if they had done enough, whether they could have helped more and so on. But in the course of conversation it turned out that the person in whose house the meeting took place lived only 3 plots away from another active member, but neither had any idea that the other was a neighbour.

This would not I think happen in our street. When we arrived in late 2006 three neighbours were in the road welcoming us ten minutes after we'd arrived, and we've experienced unfailing friendship and support from our neighbours ever since. We live in a cul de sac (which by the way is technically a French expression but is hardly ever used for a dead-end road - un impasse or voie sans issue on road signs) in which all the houses are fairly close together, and people tend to know what's going on nearby. English friends in towns and villages nearby confirm that neighbours are equally friendly and act as an informal neighbourhood watch!

But there's one feature of French life which is different from what we are used to in England. Both the letterbox and the doorbell are at the front gate, not at the front door of the house. Obviously this makes life easier for post-people and other deliveries. Among other things they don't have to risk life and limb if there are dogs in the front yard. But when someone comes to your house, unless they know you well they ring the bell and wait in the street. Given that many French homes have large solid gates and high walls or hedges, you've no idea if anyone is in or not, especially if the front garden is large. In the case of our committee friend who had not realised who were her neighbours, she lives in an area with large plots round each house and far enough from the centre of town that people use their cars all the time rather than walk, so it's not surprising that she hadn't bumped into them in the street.

When we came to France we carried in our minds somewhere the myth that French people are more private and discrete than English people. We have not found this at all - indeed we've been overwhelmed by kindness and warmth on all sides - and we've also found a similar myth here about how 'the English' are back in the UK. It all confirms us in the resolution we made early on not to generalise about 'the French', but at the same time you realise that simple things like the placing of letter-boxes and doorbells makes a difference to everyone's view of privacy.

There is one final thing - if you know roughly where someone lives but have forgotten the exact address, the letterbox usually gives you a clue - you are supposed to put your name on it. Indeed, when we first came to live in France and borrowed a friend's house for a few weeks, the post woman took back mail addressed to us at first because we'd forgotten to add our name to our friend's letterbox!