News & Opinion - French Farce

Having just returned from celebrating New Year in France it was interesting to see the attitudes of Brits living over there. We were in the Haute-Vienne department of Limousin in south-west France in a small village. Little English is spoken by the locals and the area has had an influx of English people since we last visited in 2005.

We spent New Year's day in a restaurant that was taken over by a couple from Kent at the end of 2005. The food wasn't bad, but neither was it genuine French cuisine; apart from a group of three French locals dning it was just our group of 8 and that was it. In the bar you could hear English conversation and it was obvious that the place was becoming popular with the local English community.

The attitude of the owners was that the French are suspicious of non-French restaurateurs and that they have found it slow to attract the locals. With a fantastic restaurant established in the village, which offers plats du jours for around 8 euros (2 courses for around 12 euros) there is no reason for the French to visit a non-French venue, especially when the prices are significantly higher and the food quality significantly lower.

If the owners are trying to attract local French custom then they must stop using A-boards written in English. One day the sign read: "Roast Pork", which I am sure sent out completely the wrong signals to the locals. Imagine how many customers there would be if a Thai restaurant in the UK was written in Thai? Exactly, very few.

The other option to attract local custom would be to ensure that they are offering what the locals enjoy; in so many of Gordon Ramsay's solutions in his "Nightmare" shows is to simplify, simplify, simplify. The fact that this restaurant does fish and chips once a month is hardly going to endear the locals to English gastronomy. Instead they could be clever and offer fantastic fish dishes with frites, which the locals would enjoy without the dish having to be labelled "fish & chips".

The owners were somewhat dismissive of the locals not visiting their restaurant, but with the view that it is the French people's unwillingness to try something new misses the point and if they continue to service the English-speaking locals and UK tourists then I can't see them surviving for too long. That would be a shame, because the restaurant has potential and there is definitely a need for more good eateries, especially as tourism in this region is growing.

Getting a French chef, or at least advice from a French chef, would start to stop the rot and in my opinion they must really engage with and become part of the local community, otherwise they will be seen in the same light as those immigrants in the UK that are seen as not integrating. They must never forget that they are foreigners with its own unique set of values and customs, and that they must accommodate them or they may as well be back in Kent.

The French can and do welcome the English if you are prepared to get involved and this was brought into sharp relief during our stay in the village for 9 days. In that time we had our French neighbours round for drinks and then we were invited back to their home 2 days later. The family that we 1st met 2 years ago speak no English and with my improving French we were able to hold court for an hour or so each time. Interestingly, the English family living in the gite adjacent to our accommodation had not really mixed and Catherine, the French neighbour, was very dismissive of their lack of integration and especially the wife's lack of French (after living in the country for 3 years).

The French don't have a problem with anyone that tries and after several years of holidays in the country and having a go at speaking French has always been appreciated.

The French, rightly, have a problem with Captain Mainwarings who think that shouting in English is the way to communicate and with those that live in English enclaves, cut off from French life. If you've bothered to move to such a delightful country and want to enjoy that all that life there has to offer then you need to be prepared to give a little back, and I would say that the more you give you the more you will receive.

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