Functional Socialism- Wonderfully Chaotic France

Our journey to Europe started in Jersey to celebrate the 40th birthday of a friend of ours. Of course Jersey is not in Europe, not only is it 11 nautical miles off the European continent, it is not part of the EU’s political process. Jersey makes its money on finance, but it should re assess this immediately. The southernmost of the British Isles has long white beaches fringed by dramatic cliffs. The water is clear if brisk. With the current weak pound, its friendly people, and a unique sense of Britishness, the Island of Jersey is the hidden jewel of European Tourism. The aerodrome at Jersey is incredibly well connected with Britain, but not with the possible marketplace of France. Only Flybe, a pleasant enough low service airline connects the Island to Paris. We needed to be in the south of France and so took a British Airway flight to London. BA have finally changed the ancient Boeing 737-500 that served Jersey to an airbus. The Boeings were so old and creaky that most African airlines would have turned their nose up at them. (Unless someone bribed them of course)..

At Gatwick, we walked the two miles to get our bags, got our bags and hopped on an overheated but well driven National express coach to Heathrow. Our first stop was terminal five and we dropped our bags at bag drop, breezed through security and waited for our flight to Toulouse. We were starving, but all of the food outlets wanted to give us first class service and we had little time. After trying three restaurants, we ended up having a prêt a manger sandwich on an airconditioning vent. BA again carried us on a clean but well used A319 down to Toulouse. The flight climbed up through whispy clouds and after 25minutes, we passed Jersey off the starboard wing.

France was cloud covered and we only broke through over the city of Toulouse. From the air, it looked awful. The entire area consisted of the most vile Soviet looking concrete buildings. I could barely tell the difference between universities hospitals, schools, ministries and companies. The airport was little better. Long concrete corridors led to plastic floors and filthy glass. Had it been a bit cleaner this would have been an excellent set for a 1960’s airport shoot. Arriving from Britain, we had to go through immigration. This involved passing by two jovial French Police de l’air et Les Frontieres. An American turned up at the correct booth for non Europeans, but the poor policeman had no stamp. He had to ask the American to lean across to the other booth and get his stamp off his comrade. This would have been easy, if a little un-orthodox. It was only hampered by the fact that neither of the “PAF” spoke English and the American spoke no French. He found himself holding a rubber stamp between the two booths, which had tiny holes in their glass. He started to get nervous, thinking that he was in trouble.
“I am sorry, I don’t understand, what do I do with this stamp?” He asked reasonably. You could see that he was thinking that in the new socialist France he had to stamp his own passport. Surely not?
Eventually, suppressing my smirks, I enlightened him
“You need to take the stanp and pass it to the other policeman. Then he can stamp your passport”
The American looked relieved, as did the two French Policemen. In return for my translation the French policeman smiled at me, glanced at my passport and waved me through.

The shuttle to the train station was effectively a city bus with bigger baggage racks. People were packed into the aisle and stood sweating in the heat. When the bus could take no more, the driver set off through the city at breakneck speed. Cisca and I were thrown across the aisle as we fought to stay upright. My only consolation was that we should not miss our train.

The train was a small tram type affair that rattled along at 80 miles an hour. The seats were more comfortable than a British commuter train but less than an intercity. It arrived at Castelnaudary, a small town with a picturesque old city. Two taxis were waiting for us, and one agreed to drive us at breakneck speed through the hills and up to the village of Villemange. Here we met Dan and Shelley. Our faithful web site builder and his long suffering wife. After a long sleep, we went to the small cooperative shop and bought crusty French boules of bread. We ate cheese and duck and salad, with broken bread and walked in the hills.
“Just a short walk” he said and 13 kilometres later we would return. France, uncluttered is idyllic. Every day we did something different, Shelley had to return to Dubai and so we took a taxi back to Castelnaudary and dropped her at the train station. This gave Dan and me and excellent excuse to have a standard French lunch. Which to anyone else would be a gastronomic meal crammed into two hours. Replete and somewhat light headed we staggered up the road to upload more of our websites.

Our brief halt in Villemange came to an end and it was time to go to Switzerland. We boarded the French tram thingy and zoomed off.

Twenty years ago I had first arrived in Sete, a small pretty town on a hill by the sea. My friend Dave Cobb and I had been on a teenage adventure. We had only one mission, to avoid Paris, and so hopped on the first train out of Calais that ended up in Narbonne. We Sat up all night in a smoke filled compartment, bubbling with adventure, and yet wondering what on earth we were doing. The Frenchmen would come in and go out and always be smoking gauloise. At eight in the morning, we had trundled into Sete and decided to stop off and stay there. The town had been small and luckily Dave had a book of the youth hostels of Europe. We had marched up to the top of the hill and became instant members of the International Youth Hostelling federation. Our journey lasted a month and was spectacular, reasonably priced and eye opening.

In 2009, sete was surrounded by disgusting concrete, industry and more vile concrete. I was not unhappy that we did not get off the now packed train. At Montpellier we changed trains onto the Geneva bound TGV. Surprisingly everyone was badly dressed. The women who were 50 dressed like 28 year olds. The 28 year olds dressed like 14 year olds, and the men all wore golfing caps and striped polo shirts. Where was the style, the panache of Paris, or the village chic of Villemange? The SNCF train crews all had beards or facial peircings, All of them wore gym shoes and their own trousers. Their only uniform was a smart looking cap and a blue jumper or fleece. London Underground looks like the Brigade of guards compared to these chaps.

We had been sold first class tickets as far as Lyon, as economy was full. But in wonderful French style, First class was full too.

“Go and sit between the two carriages and lets see if something opens up” said the helpful, conductor with a whiff of vin rouge on his breath. The train packed up and the conductor came back to see us.
“It is impossible” He explained kindly, “But look, just stay here until Geneva, don’t change at Lyon, relax it is ok. They sold you a first class ticket as there was no space.”
“So why were we told to get on this train? I asked.”
“So that you can get on the train!”
“That is so silly”
“But yes” He replied. At this stage France seemed so utterly disorganised. And so as the TGV picked up speed to warp factor 9, we sat quietly with two small French infantrymen who listened to their mp3 players. We were in the very last section of the train, and the silence was pleasing.

The infantrymen left us in Lyon, apologetically lifting their packs which outweighed their tiny bodies. The train slowed and curled around bend after bend into Switzerland. The train was late, and the French were huffy. As we slid into the land of chocolates and bent money, I looked out of the window and thought about France. I used to love France, its excellent public services, educated open minded people, delicious food and totally ignorance of its own laws. Its common sensical attitude to life was so welcome after the rules of Britain. I welcomed the arrival of His Excellency Mr Sakozy. I hoped a thatcheresque regime would implement right wing policies that would bring France into the economic 20th century. (Yes I did mean 20th). And yet all France has churned out is anti Turkish diatribe. France used to work perfectly, have great grub, look good and merely be very expensive to live in. The food is still ok, and that’s about it. I would go so far as to say, that France is even more disorganised than Britain.

The French and realise that they have had their time. They have wasted their golden opportunities. Why the Turks want to join France in anything beats me. The French are welcome to Europe, they can ruin that too.

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