Last Tuesday morning it was so cold that as soon as I came into the entryway I could feel a frigid breeze and almost went back upstairs to put more clothes on. There was a thin layer of ice on the balcony. I had decided to wear my rubber-soled boots after looking out the window at all the people slipping and sliding down the sidewalk.
"Bonjour María," I said to our nice South American gardienne, who was swabbing the stones as she does every morning. She looked exhausted on this morning and I stopped for a minute. "It's really freezing today, isn't it? Is everything all right?"
"Bonjour madame. Yes, it's very slippery outside. Imagine, last night my husband was coming home from work and he slipped on the ice, fell and broke his leg. And he was all alone in an empty parking lot at 3:30 in the morning!"
"Oh no!" María's husband manages a restaurant east of Paris, an hour or more away by train, and we rarely see him because he works a night shift.
"He didn't have his cell phone, either-- I bet that's the last time he forgets it! I'm always telling him. Luckily two men came out just afterwards and found him, and called the ambulance."
"Mon dieu! It was so cold last night he could have died," I said.
"Yes, but instead he is in the hospital. I went out to get him, but I had to leave him there. He'll be home on Saturday."
And here is what is different between France and the United States:
"At least, he has six weeks of arrêt de travail," she went on.
Six paid weeks off work!
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