{"id":8386,"date":"2018-04-02T07:01:27","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T07:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/?p=8386"},"modified":"2018-04-08T09:57:29","modified_gmt":"2018-04-08T09:57:29","slug":"france-plus-ca-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=8386","title":{"rendered":"France &#8211; plus \u00e7a change&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;Plus ce n&#8217;est plus la m\u00eame chose ! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>As I sit in my sister&#8217;s apartment on the coast of Brittany this Easter, the thought comes to mind that it&#8217;s nearly five decades since my first visit to France as a callow schoolboy in 1971.<\/p>\n<p>This realisation has prompted me to consider just how much France has changed &#8211; albeit gradually but nevertheless steadily &#8211; over the intervening years. Below are four (<em>for the sake of brevity. Ed.<\/em>) obvious changes your &#8216;umble scribe has noticed have changed, haven&#8217;t changed and are completely new.<\/p>\n<h4>Things that have changed or are now apparently rare<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>The distinctive smell of French built-up areas, the odour being composed mostly of bad plumbing and the pungent aroma of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gauloises\">Gauloises<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gitanes\">Gitanes<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Mopeds, particularly the 50cc <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mobylette\">Mobylette<\/a> or front wheel drive <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/V%C3%A9loSoleX\">Solex<\/a>, plus the classic <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Citro%C3%ABn_2CV\">Citro\u00ebn 2CV<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>In one and a half weeks here, I have yet to see someone working for the French state wearing a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kepi\">kepi<\/a>. This headgear is now only worn by Customs officers and gendarmes on ceremonial occasions and by the military on &#8220;appropriate occasions&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>The lack of public conveniences; the average small French local authority now has more public loos than even large city authorities in the UK (<em>who&#8217;ve been shutting theirs under austerity and costs-savings measures. Ed.<\/em>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_8402\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8402\" style=\"width: 392px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2018\/04\/solex_kepi.png\" alt=\"Solex and kepi\" width=\"392\" height=\"236\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8402\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2018\/04\/solex_kepi.png 392w, https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/23\/2018\/04\/solex_kepi-300x181.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 392px) 100vw, 392px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8402\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Solex and the kepi &#8211; destined for obsolescence?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h4>Things that haven&#8217;t changed<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Grumpy-looking gendarmes and police officers.<\/li>\n<li>The excellent quality of food on markets and in supermarkets and shops, plus affordable prices for alcoholic beverages.<\/li>\n<li>French motorists&#8217; psychopathic attitude to other motorists and contrasting extreme courtesy to cyclists.<\/li>\n<li>Drinkable coffee and lovely hot chocolate in bars and caf\u00e9s.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Novelties<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Ubiquitous cycle helmets, along with cycle routes and cycle lanes.<\/li>\n<li>Roundabouts working on the same principal as in the UK (traffic on the roundabout has priority over that entering) have proliferated in the last 2 decades.<\/li>\n<li>Pre-packed British style sandwiches on sale in supermarkets, along with ready meals: definitely a retrograde step.  \ud83d\ude41<\/li>\n<li>Major stores opening on Sundays.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If any readers wish to add to either list, comments are welcome below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;Plus ce n&#8217;est plus la m\u00eame chose ! \ud83d\ude42 As I sit in my sister&#8217;s apartment on the coast of Brittany this Easter, the thought comes to mind that it&#8217;s nearly five decades since my first visit to France as a callow schoolboy in 1971. This realisation has prompted me to consider just how much [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,17],"tags":[36,22],"class_list":["post-8386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-translation-and-language-related-matters","category-oddities","tag-comment","tag-language"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8386"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8444,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8386\/revisions\/8444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}