One of the many endearing things about France is that it is a country that welcomes foreigners. It made not seem like that right now, with a resurgent xenophobia due to a lack of jobs and a concentration of Islamists in the poor areas, but France is probably the European country which has succeeded the best at making its foreigners love it and belong to it. Look at Sarkozy (Hungarian background), Balladur (Armenian background), Bérégovoy (Russian background), or the names of some of the presenters on Radio France Info: McDolan, Johnson, Wittner, Beniada, Haziza, Phillips, Ferrandi, or the weather report: Kessler, Collado and Golynski.
Tonight after our coproprietors' meeting , a few of us had dinner chez my upstairs neighbor. We were talking about French national characteristics and it occurred to us that we were a typical Parisian group. More than one quarter of Parisians have at least one foreign grandparent.
A German married to a Frenchwoman-- "They don't like it when you say you're German. You have to say you are 'd'origine allemand.'" [of German origins]
A Frenchman, Franco-Français, "but my mother was Swiss"
A Frenchwoman, but spent almost twenty years in Germany and speaks perfect English
An Italian, raised in France and Switzerland
An American raised in Germany
Me
Of course, we don't live in the seventh arrondissement. That's where the French upper class is "entre nous."
True, when we lived in the 7th, we were surrounded by the bluebloods, but even they were welcoming to foreigners. Despite the well-published warnings of the American expats not to expect an invitation to a French home anytime soon, our first year there we received many invitations slipped under our front door from the François de souche neighbors.
From Sedulia: I actually find that amazing. You probably have a very open attitude yourself and a refreshing lack of complexes. Sometimes I think the French are longing for a foreigner to come along and set them free-- like the woman in the Ezra Pound poem:
In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like some one to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
will commit that indiscretion.
Posted by: isabella | 23 November 2006 at 17:36