Anxious French

The prospect of having to speak French makes me feel uncomfortable. In the case of any other language I might happily shrug my shoulders and admit to ignorance but with French it’s different: I harbour expectations of myself because I “learned” it at school. Unfortunately the rudiments which remain lodged in my brain are neither scant enough to pretend ignorance nor robust enough to see me through a conversation; and occasional visits to France over the years have been too brief to progress me beyond the ‘startled rabbit’ phase.

So it proved when my partner and I spent a few days in Marseille recently. After checking in at the hotel (late and without baggage due to missed connections) we went directly in search of an authentic French bar for our first dose of linguistic-cultural humiliation. From my very first utterance the patronne could tell I was never going to manage a conversation so she, acknowledging no English, resorted immediately to sign language in order to facilitate our requirements. It was done with a smile (we were valued customers as the place was not busy) but the transaction left me feeling like a boy buying drinks in a bar for the first time. Meanwhile three unsmiling, smoking men seated on the other side of the room glanced away from the TV and towards us a few times, as if hopeful of alternative entertainment: I like to think they were disappointed. Their smoking indoors was a bit of a surprise but, given Marseille’s reputation as a haunt of gangsters, I didn’t want to make a fuss about it.

The city is, of course, noted for more than its lowlife: there is its long history, its contribution to the Revolution, its multicultural population and its bouillabase. Nevertheless tourists are relatively few and many of them, disgorged from stop-over cruise ships, congregate around Vieux-Port which is consequently a place where some English is spoken. It was here we decided to treat ourselves to a slap-up dinner in the hope of avoiding embarrassing menu misunderstandings. But, contrary to our expectation, the restaurant we chose turned out to be a very traditional, family-run establishment where maman ran front of house without concession to any foreign ways. The consequent pantomime involved her bringing to our table whole fishes on silver platters, with price tags, so that we could make our choice merely by pointing and nodding.

For a little light relief afterwards we sought a bar en route to our hotel. Outside of Vieux-Port the bars were either deserted or closing up for the night – except for the ‘Bar Friendly’ - through the window of which we spied a dozen lively looking people. We stepped into a Harley Davidson themed interior where a middle-aged man, with ear rings, tattoos and thin, grey hair tied in a pony tail, was cheerfully serving the tables. But we soon discovered that, like the restaurant, this was very French territory. Fortunately there was one English-speaking customer who did us the favour of explaining that we had just crashed a party of old friends congregated for one of their regular evenings of poetry reading and folk songs. They had just finished their supper break and were about to recommence recitals.

There was no suggestion that we should leave and, besides, having just bought a bottle of wine we were not inclined to. Serious students of the French language could not have had a better practical lesson in vernacular French but at our level the experience was confined to a polite appreciation of the spirit of the event and its unique cultural tone. But at least we left feeling just a little less British.

Thus, little by little, my fear of French is receding. One thing I did eventually deduce was that the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is not as famous amongst Marseillais as I had at first thought: I had, for a while, been fooled by their peculiar pronunciation of the phrase Aye oui, oui.