Escaping Paris Lockdown

Ile-de-Noirmoutier, Saturday, March 28, 2020

On my last day of work at Le Cordon Bleu two weeks ago, I wore latex gloves. The boulangerie class I often translated for had visibly shrunk. “They left France already,” explained the remaining bread students, two of whom wore masks.

It was their artistic piece exam day, but that’s not the only reason why everyone was so tense.

“No need to panic,” joked one student when the chef stepped out of the room. “We’ll have plenty of decorative bread baskets during the crisis.”

It seemed more wasteful than usual to be making art out of perfectly good flour and butter.

On my walk home from work, I passed by the public pool where my son was supposed to have a swimming placement test in a few days. “Closed until further notice,” read a large sign on the door. I could have sworn it had been open that morning. Things were moving fast. Just two days before, President Macron had announced that all French schools and universities would be closed jusqu’à nouvel ordre. I had a strong suspicion that my son’s tennis class that afternoon was going to be canceled. I called the courts and sure enough: the sports stadium where he had his weekly lesson had been closed by municipal order at 2 pm that day. 

By late afternoon, we learned that all cafés, restaurants, and “unnecessary” stores would be closed to the public starting at midnight.

It was happening. Paris would become a ghost town just like Milan and Wuhan.

Usually when things got rocky in Paris, I could torture myself by imagining how life would be so much easier back in Southern California. But this time was different; the same nightmarish mess unfolding in France seemed to be imminent in America, too.

We were all trapped.

The next day, Sunday, strict lockdown (or confinement) rumours began circling online. After dinner, while our children played in the living room, we hurriedly phoned friends and neighbours from our tiny Paris kitchen to tell them that we were packing our bags. We would drive to Noirmoutier—an island off Nantes— early the next morning. My husband’s family had a house there just a minute’s walk from the beach. There was also a garden and more rooms than in our Paris apartment.

 

We weren’t the only Parisian family to flee the capital that week. The French phone giant Orange estimates that seventeen percent of Parisians—roughly over one million people—escaped the Paris region when we did.

Just the Friday before, parents had been musing about organising play dates in the park and study dates with friends to help pass the long days when schools would be closed. “We won’t go to the movies,” one friend had told me outside school Friday afternoon, “but I can’t keep my five children indoors for five weeks.”

The idea of remaining inside a Paris apartment with children for weeks on end with none of the usual reliefs like museum outings; picnics and bike rides in the parks; coffee and goûter with friends in cafés; or extracurricular activities was unthinkable for many.

 

So we left. We left behind our decent WIFI connection, boxes of Lego and Kapla, and puzzles galore for a slice of green, open space.

It almost felt like going on vacation; we could hear the roar of waves like freeway traffic from the front yard as soon as we arrived. The first two days, I even took the kids for short walks on the beach; we made sure not to go anywhere near other people. But these brief escapes wouldn’t last; by Thursday, metal gates and large white signs barred our entrance to the beaches.

 

We were left with the garden. In the evenings—after densely digital days of juggling screens, scanners, and printers, so our son could connect to his distant learning class and do his homework and my husband could work—our household could finally unwind.  We’d all made it through another day. The kids cut branches for the fire, and after dinner, they brushed teeth, grabbed their jackets and pulled boots on over their pajamas. The nights were clear and beautiful. We never could see any stars in Paris.

 

Timeline:

Thursday, March 12: President Macron announces schools will be closed as of Monday, March 16

Saturday, March 14: the French Prime Minister announces that all restaurants, cafés, movie theaters, and unnecessary stores will close at midnight; municipal sports facilities close in Paris

Monday, March 16: President Macron announces lockdown for all of France beginning at noon on Tuesday, March 17

Tuesday, March 17: all city parks and gardens close in Paris

Thursday, March 19: French authorities begin closing access to beaches 

Switching Sides

"Not the other breast," my French husband whispered to me during a wedding ceremony last week, as he saw our baby finishing up on one "side." Breastfeeding has come a long way in France, but a few societal barriers remain. And nursing in a church seems to be one of them. I've breastfed in just about every public place possible here: on the bus, in restaurants, parks, and cafés. Even in front of my French in-laws. But as I left the ceremony mid-feed to continue on the chilly stone steps outside, I couldn't help feeling like I'd come up against a wall. Like when I mentioned La Leche League to a French mother I saw breastfeeding her one-month old. (LLL has the same bum rap here that yoga did six or seven years ago. People just assume it's a cult. That said, you should probably avoid attending "free" yoga classes in Paris.)  Once I was sitting down, though, enraptured by my baby's eager mouth, "always thirsty for the pure spiritual milk," I decided to think positively. After all, my husband actually understood now how breastfeeding works: switching sides and all. And my in-laws now knew first-hand what nursing on demand meant. So in some small way, I was showing the unsuspecting what breastfeeding was all about. Maybe one day it would even make it to Wii Fit. A Balance Board has got to be warmer than church steps.

John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer as Jim and Pam Halpert. [Online image] 2010.

"La Crèche"

In her controversial Le Conflit : la femme et la mère, French philosopher Elisabeth Badinter sings the praises of the French crèche system, which enables mothers to go on with non-mommy business as usual after giving birth. (Of course, they're supposed to wait until baby's two or three months old, or they risk getting as much slack as Rachida Dati did when she showed up for work five days after her C-section.) Badinter explains in Le Conflit how crèches are simply today's version of sending your infant into the country with a wet-nurse--a choice that even middle-class Frenchwomen made in order to focus more time and energy on their social and wifely duties. Of course, instead of spending their days primping and prepping for salons, today's respectable French mothers are supposed to hold down a 9-5 job. So as soon as they've entered their sixth month of pregnancy (or third month in child-laden Versailles), Parisian women sign up their unborn babies for day-care. And as soon as their babies are three months old, they drop them off daily (with formula and bottles--even the French have given up wet-nurses) at the local crèche. The up-side is clear to Badinter. French mothers get to "have it all": a professional life; a feminine (nursing bra-free) identity; and motherhood. But at what price?

Catalina Sandino Moreno as Ana. [Online image] 2006.

Papers, Please

When you move to France, you learn pretty quickly what a justicatif de domicile is. You need copies of those pesky quittances de loyer and EDF bills to do everything from getting a library card to getting married. The French seem to love asking for an unseemly pile of photocopies--what they call a "dossier." With a RIB par ici and a bulletin de salaire par là, they're simply in paperwork heaven and will let you do just about anything. Just don't try pulling anything creative (like changing jobs), or you'll find yourself blacklisted from the whole system. And if there's anything the French like better than asking for a five-year paper trail, it's a chance to say, "Non."

Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains as Rick and Captain Renault. [Online image] 1942.

No Champagne for Me, Please. Or Smoked Salmon. Or Cheese. . .

Being pregnant around the holidays in France really makes you appreciate how vegans must feel during the rest of the year. Not only do certain sights and smells (fresh fish and pungent wheels of cheese at the morning market) make you go green around the gills, but whatever tempts your palate turns out to be hiding a blacklisted ingredient (a French dessert without eggs or butter is about as likely as rum-free punch at a Christmas party). So you get used to passing on pink platters of smoked salmon on tiny toasts and doilied trays of canopés slathered with foie gras mousse. Of course, while vegans can quell their growling stomachs with raw veggies (déconseillés for femmes enceintes due to toxoplasmosis risk) and sparkling trays of teetering champagne flutes, pregnant women's safest bet at Christmastime seems to be baguette and filtered water.
No wonder why Mary's a saint.

Production drawing of Sebastian. [Online image] 1989.

Finger Food

The French are experts at eating finger food. At a cocktail, you won't see them grappling for hand sanitizer or searching for the toothpicks and napkins. They're trained early on as children in the art of appetizers: as soon as they can walk, they're taught to pass demurely from guest to guest at apéro time with a careful grip on a bowl of gâteaux salés (why call a chip a chip?) or cherry tomatoes, pausing just the time needed for each person to choose a nibble or two and coo, "Merci Mademoiselle." By the time they're old enough to attend a formal pince-fesse ("bottom pincher"!) with glasses of bubbly and elegant trays of canapés, navettes, and petits fours, they're balancing two chamagne flutes in one hand while slurping down raw oysters with the other.
But we Americans have our revenge on taco night!

Tom Hanks and Elizabeth Perkins as Josh Baskin and Susan [Online image] 1988.

"Les Règles"

There's a reason why "rules" and "period" are the same word in French. They can both show up anytime, anywhere, causing pain and a terrible waste of paper. But with a little experience and a lot of determination, it can be easier to navigate through French red tape than the feminine hygiene aisle at the supermarket.
First, you have to be prepared for the dreaded "non, ce n'est pas possible Madame" to hit when you're most vulnerable. Like at the pharmacy in the middle of August when your doctor is on vacation and your mosquito-bitten body is screaming for an anti-inflammatory prescription. No point mentioning that back home, apartments come with A/C, and windows have screens. To get through to that blank, smug expression behind the counter, you're going to have to beg. And if you stick it out long enough and make it clear that you are a human being despite your léger accent, you'll have the double reward of getting what you asked for and seeing a wall of Parisian obstination slowly melt into winks and pleasantries. And once you get a French person to smile at you, you'll really feel like a woman.

Peter Sellers and Capucine as Inspector and Simone Clouseau. [Online image] 1963.

"Grève," Schmève!

In France, socialist sympathizers say the same thing about striking that right-winged people in the States say about bearing arms: "It's our right, so don't even think about messing with it!" Of course, French strikers don't risk killing innocent people by carrying out their right. They just barbecue merguez on the side of the road, organize a few manifs, and try to shut down the country for a day or two. It's how they vent, and if you ask moi, it makes a whole lot more sense for a disgruntled postal worker to close shop for a day than open fire on his co-workers.

Sally Field as Norma Rae. [Online image] 1979.

A Contagious Moment

During Obama's historic inauguration on Tuesday, we the people felt like part of history, too. We were happy to be witnesses to the Obamas' happiness. That's because cultural hegemony works in America.
In France, one person's victory doesn't make les autres feel victorious: they become critical and bitter because they don't think it will ever be their "turn."
We, on the other hand, are so blinded by the American Dream that even a taste of success (a J. Crew ensemble as seen worn by Michelle, anyone?) feels as good as the real thing. Perhaps if Carla started foregoing her usual Chanel, more people in France could have their petit goût of fame aussi.

Glynis Johns as Mrs. Banks. [Online image] 1964.

Presidential Race

My husband and I each subscribe to a weekly magazine: he to Marianne, which is politically aggressive for French standards, and I to Time. When I saw this week's editions side-by-side on our coffee table, a picture of Obama on the French magazine cover caught my eye. Below it was a foreboding question that has been omnipresent in the French media since the summer: "Will he lose because he's black?" As though in reply, Time boasted its own passport-sized snapshot of Obama with the headline: "Race is not the key to the U.S. election." I'm sure most French people would think that this was just hypocritical American political correctness talking. Call it what you like. (Personally, I prefer "rosy naïveté.") But, for once, Americans are analyzing a current event with greater nuance than the French. And I must say, it feels good to have something to be proud of again (and, no, I don't mean lipstick and Naughty Monkeys).

Katherine Houghton as Joey Drayton. [Online image] 1967.

Paris Comfort

Before I moved to France five years ago, I went through my mom's recipe clippings. I needed to write them all down: spaghetti casserole (which I haven't eaten since 1985), butterscotch pudding, pumpkin bread. . . What was I going to do if I needed to make chocolate chip cookies one night? I couldn't just get some random recipe off the internet. I needed hers.  The one I grew up with. And her recipe for playdough couldn't hurt either. (You never know when a play date might show up at your Paris apartment.) And today, as I whip up a batch of my mom's Egyptian rice with vermicelli and hear the bits of pasta sizzling at the bottom of the pot and smell the richness of the butter (or margarine) even once I pour cups of water on top, I know why all those recipes were so important to me: because somehow they take me home again. And all the madeleines and linden tea in France can't hold a candle to that.

Cher as Loretta Castorini. [Online image] 1987.

"La Rentrée"

In France, September doesn't just mean "back to school": it also means "back to work" for all those who spent most of August figuring out the best rapport qualité/prix for a bottle of rosé and the most effective way to tan under gray Atlantic skies. It means back to overcrowded métro stations and rushed evening Monoprix runs, back to cardigans and cafeteria lunches. Not to mention planning for the next holiday! La Toussaint is just two months away!

Megan Follows as Anne Shirely. [Online image] 1985.

Barley, Poppies, or Lavender

The "deuxième quinzaine" of August starts in a couple days, meaning vacation time for many here in France. And this year, I'll be joining in!
I, too, get to load up the car with maillots and robes d'été and head South (on the passenger side, bien sûr—CA licenses still aren't up to speed here), pretending to be Augustine in La Gloire de mon père (minus the kids). I've been listening to my "Relaxing in Provence" cd and am ready to nap in lavender fields. So please, cicadas, forget La Fontaine, and keep singing!

Helena B. Carter as Lucy Honeychurch. [Online image] 1985.