A Little Background On France

Well, here we bloody are. Waiting at St Pancreas, absolutely surrounded by a raggle-taggle cluster of various Europeans. Even the deaf bunch over in the corner, you can tell they’re French without them speaking, something about the puffing of the cheeks and the impetuous set of their brows.

I’m off for a jolly in France, who knows for how long, so I thought I’d do the chivalrous thing and share what I learn, be you deserving of it or not.

Let’s begin with a quick glance at French history to get you up to speed, give you some context in which to put all the future wisdom that I impart.

France has a long history but largely due to its proximity to our great isles. The country lay virtually empty for many centuries, until the romans passed through on their way to England and many were unlucky enough to have to remain in France due to our limited size (it’s how you use it) and the difficulties in transit. These romans were eventually joined by the odd tribe of Germans looking to expand; never happy with what they’ve got the Germans. I’m sure there’s the odd other race thrown in there but that was predominantly how the French were formed.

During the 14^th century, French was adopted in the English court ironically, on a dare by the Marquess of Dorset, and began the longest running practical joke in history. In the beginning the French themselves took some umbrage with this and, in trying to claim copyright over their language, a war broke out. This is now known as the 100 years’ war but this is, in fact, a clerical error which occurred during the conversion to the metric system. The war was closer to 18 years, 16 of those being the required time for which it takes anything to be organised in France. The British won the war under Henry V and that’s why the V was adopted as our 2 fingered salute to rub in the neighbours defeated faces, enabling us to gloat and show our allegiance to the king. Towards the end of the war, when the English were putting the locals to the sword, to avoid any future difficulties, a French heroine appeared; Joan of Ark saved the French people by taking a pair of each type of Frenchman; two cheese makers, two bakers, two bureaucrats, two mime artists etc. and putting them all aboard a large barge and sailing up the Seine to safety

The French revulsion began in 1789 when the people realised that Marie Antoinette had grown so fat on cake, she was too disgusting and no longer a fit and proper person to rule the country. They executed her with the guillotine, which had just been invented to slice the increasingly enormous cakes she had been ordering. The Tennis Court Oath was signed, where they agreed not to learn tennis.

This led on to Napoleon, who likewise had no interest in tennis, mainly because he couldn’t see over the net. Historians have decided that this made him complex. He gave the Germans a taste of their own medicine by expanding all over the shop but eventually got his comeuppance at Waterloo, which at that point, to his surprise, was not connected to the Northern line. Napoleon got lost on his way back to France, probably due to a similar misunderstanding in transportation, and ended up in St Helena (the place, not the woman). He died of parsnip poisoning in 1821.

The French flag settled on its final form in 1790. It’s called the tricolore and consists of three vertical stripes; one red, one white and one blue. The name tricolore is a combination of Latin from tricare – to behave evasively and the olore is derived from olfacere meaning smell. Hence; deceptive smell, a true representation of the country.

Another fascinating linguistic fact is that the capital Paris (where I shall be residing) is a phonetic reduction of ‘pas ici’ meaning ‘not here’, which was the response given when a then tiny town on the river was asked where they thought the centre of French government should be placed.

They were right to be concerned as France is riddled with confounding bureaucracy and it is all but inescapable in the capital. In 1925 a famous European administrator named Franz Kafka wrote The Trial, a detailed model of how he thought all government agencies should function and, in France, this has been followed diligently ever since. Kafka's influence can be seen worldwide and in recent history Haruki Murakami, an obsessive of traditional Japanese organisation, wrote Kafka on the shore, a thesis on the arrangement of family holidays.

Perhaps it is understandable that the French would crave order after the madness of the first half of the 20^th century but then England is a much more sensible place and we did most of the leg work, so maybe it’s no excuse after all.

The French managed to avoid most of World War I by tricking the Belgians into speaking French and persuading everyone else that Ypres was part of France and the others just had their maps wrong.

During WW2 they were unable to pull the same trick again due too much stricter cartography. The English had sensibly decided to redraw Europe with a smaller Germany next to Austria, to give them somewhere to expand into if they felt the need. Unfortunately, Hitler had a peculiar affinity for the Austrians and decided to go to Poland instead. This certainly wasn’t cricket and we said so to France and Russia. The Russians didn’t really understand but the uneducated masses had just taken control of the place so were up for taking their army out for a test run to see how it worked. The French set up the resistance; a resistance to learning the rules of cricket and thereby not knowing if something was or wasn’t it. This trend of refusing to learn sports is a common characteristic of their history.