School’s out

Posted on 27/06/2023 by Mayken

Summer is here, and that means school’s out in France. Summer holidays (les vacances d’été) start around the beginning of July (or earlier, when younger students are sent home while older students take exams in the school building), and last until the end of August. La rentrée (back to school) is at the beginning of September.

But French students have several shorter breaks (les petites vacances) over the year:

All Saints holidays (les vacances de la Toussaint) around All Saints Day (November 1^st)
Christmas holidays (les vacances de Noël) at, well, Christmas
Winter holidays (les vacances d’hiver) in February
Spring holidays (les vacances de printemps) around or at least sometime near Easter

Each of these is two weeks long, and though the first two are usually at the same time for everyone, the winter and spring breaks are staggered by region (“zone”) as shown in the map below:

For example, in the upcoming school year 2023-24, the first region to start winter break is Region C, which includes the Paris area. After one week, it is joined by region A. And when Parisians and other Region C residents go back to school, those in Region B start their holidays.
Spring holidays have the same order so that all students have the same amount of weeks between the breaks.
Let’s go one year back: in the school year 2022-23, the first region to start into winter break was Region A, followed by Region B with Region C going last.
There is a regular rotation to ensure all three regions are treated equally, because it can be a long stretch between Christmas break and winter break if you’re in the last group, and a long stretch between spring break and summer holidays if you’re in the first group.

This information might be helpful if you’re visiting France and trying to figure out opening hours of places that say “pendant les vacances de la zone A”.

Enjoy your holidays!

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Don’t be alarmed at noon

Posted on 30/05/2023 by Mayken

If you happen to be in France on the first Wednesday of the month, any month, a word of warning: Don’t be alarmed when the alarm sounds.

Depending on the region, at 11.45, noon sharp or 12.15, the wail of the sirens will cut through city noise as part of the SAIP (système d’alerte et d’information des populations), to make sure the sirens are working properly and people recognize the signal.

The origins go back to the Middle Ages, when the tocsin, or alarm bell, rang to alert the population to a danger. After World War II, church bells have been replaced by the sirens sitting proudly atop the fire stations or town halls. As recently as 2019, they alerted the population of the Normandy city of Rouen and the surrounding area as a chemical products plant caught fire.

Even more recently, in 2022, these alert measures were completed by an alarm system called “cell broadcast” that will send alert messages to the cellphones in an area affected by a threat.

So don’t be alarmed by the alarm, as long as it’s sirens and not your cellphone wailing.

Paris firefighters at the Bastille Day parade

Postscript: While we’re on the subject of alarms, firefighters and emergencies, do you know what number to dial for an emergency in France? There’s a bunch of two-digit numbers to call depending on what your emergency is, but thanks to the European Union, all you need to remember is one three-digit number that will work no matter in which EU country you are, and even in many other European countries, and get you an operator speaking English:

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Market Day in Paris

Posted on 28/03/2023 by Mayken

Have you ever been to a French market? I don’t remember my first experience which dates back to a school exchange in 9^th grade, but I do remember first venturing by myself to what I think is the biggest market in Lille, the city in northern France where I began my studies. It was a little disorienting at first, all those marketers advertising their wares in loud voices, sometimes trying to shout one over the other. This is a staple of every French market I’ve visited so far.

And the sheer quantity of food on offer! There are fruit I’ve never seen before but fortunately a little sign will give me the name. There are many kinds of fish (all much fresher than those on offer in a certain Gaulish village), including shellfish, and don’t get me started on the cheeses!

Unhygienix’ fishmonger’s stall in the village of Asterix

A huge advantage of a market over a supermarket is that when you want to buy fresh fruit such as, say a melon de Charente, the market seller will ask you when you plan to eat it (Tonight? During the next few days?) and find you one with the matching degree of maturity. Another highlight of markets for me are the local farmers selling their yogurts and other fresh milk products that you would have a hard time finding on supermarket shelves. Finally, and that’s my husband’s go-to place, the chicken-roaster. Go to the Sunday market, buy your groceries, and get home with a chicken fresh from the spit (or half a chicken, or chicken legs) for Sunday lunch.

But let’s go back and look at Paris markets. According to the City of Paris website, the first market was located on the Île de la Cité in the heart of Lutetia in the 5^th century.

Though not in Paris, this is an old French market hall

Fast forward to 1860, when there were already 51 markets. One of them is the oldest existing covered market, dating back to 1615 under King Louis XIII, the Marché des Enfants Rouges. It is located in the 3^rd arrondissement and open every day except Mondays from 8h30 till 20h30, (closing later on Thursdays but earlier on Sundays).

Place d’Aligre market in the 12th *arrondissement*

As of today, Paris has a total of 95 markets, with around 9,000 marketers. This number includes food markets, flea markets, and specialized markets. The City of Paris website gives these details: 72 open-air food markets (including 3 organic markets), 10 covered markets, plus the specialized markets such as flower market, bird market, clothes market, flea markets and 2 creative markets where artist show their original art.

Generally, the food markets are open from 7am to 2.30pm on weekdays and from 7am to 3pm on weekends. Due to customer demand, five markets were created that are open in the afternoon once or twice a week.

For outdoor markets, the market team of the City of Paris sets up the “skeleton” of the market stalls. Indoor markets have it easier, everything is already in place.

If you travel across France, you will find old market halls that are basically wooden roofs open on the sides, or open-air markets in small villages or mid-sized towns. Every town in France has a market, just check their website or ask at the tourist office about market day. And don’t be afraid if you don’t speak French, you can always point at the items and hold up a few fingers.

Markets and old market halls across France

Enjoy!

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Cows cows cows

Posted on 21/02/2023 by Mayken

The International Agricultural Show (Salon International de l’Agriculture, or SIA) is a huge annual event, one of the world’s largest and most important, dubbed “the biggest farm in France”.

It lasts nine days at the end of February/beginning of March, and is open to the public for all of those, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors each year (2019: 672 568 visitors according to the official website, four of which were me).

The show is held on the Porte de Versailles fairgrounds, where it occupies most of the halls, only the one where the Concours Général Agricole is held is closed to the public.

Agriculture is written large in France, as one of the main economic activities in the country. “Don’t anger the farmers” is advice any French politician knows well to heed, or face the consequences.

So it is no surprise that the show is opened by the French president himself. Jacques Chirac (president from 1995 to 2007) was a big fan of agriculture, and his memory is honoured today with a collection of photos in the main hall.

A number of elected officials, and in election years, candidates, parade through the show during the week, and it is not unusual to run into a crowd of journalists and bodyguards around, say, the prime minister.

The main attractions of the show, according to who you ask, are either the food (two entire halls are reserved for delicacies from the different regions of France, French overseas territories, and a number of guest countries) or the animals – over 4,000 of them in the 2022 edition, representing 360 different breeds of cows, sheep, goats, horses, ponies, donkeys, bunnies, pigs, dogs, cats, and various poultry.

The stars of the show are unquestionably the cows. Since 2000, a cow has featured on the official posters, entry tickets and other promotional material. Every year, one bovine breed is in the spotlight, and for the past few years, an individual cow of that breed occupies the place of honor and becomes the star of the show. The 2022 cow, for example, was a 4-year-old cow of the Abondance breed from the Savoy Alps named Neige (Snow).

But it’s not all about the animals and the food, a major part of the show is also reserved for the presentation of technologies, companies, equipment, research, linked in some way or other to agriculture, from veterinarians to high-tech tractors to hunting outfitters.

Another important aspect of the show is educating the public. Here kids (and adults) can see up close how cows are milked, chicks hatch, and win prizes in various activities and quizzes.

Speaking of prizes, all week long, the different breeds are presented in the ring, and proud farmers return home with medals and plaques. Food also gets prizes, at the prestigious Concours Général Agricole, and the gold, silver, or bronze medal will feature prominently on the products when they hit store shelves.

My favorite part? Hugging cows, winning a useful prize (like an eggplant screen wipe or a lunch box) or adding another cow-themed object to my collection. Occasionally I get interviewed for the radio or TV, and I’ve made friends with the owner of the 2016 poster cow Cerise (a Bazadaise from the Landes, in southwestern France).

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Bones beneath the Stones

Posted on 25/10/2022 by Mayken

When you find yourself with an avalanche of human bones in your basement, you know it’s time for change.

Which is what the city of Paris did when exactly that happened to neighbors of the Cimetière des Innocents in 1774. Looking for a place to store the bones from the overflowing inner-city cemetery, they came up with the idea to put them in the decommissioned stone quarries underneath the city.

After arrangements had been made, bones from the various cemeteries of Paris, Les Innocents included, were carted to a chute in the avenue René Coty (near Place Denfert-Rochereau) to be stored underground. The name Catacombes was borrowed from Ancient Rome, even though there were no graves and funerary monuments. At first, the bones were stacked along the tunnels over hundreds of meters. It was only after the first VIP visits at the beginning of the 19^th century that the bones were somewhat organized. More cemeteries had to be closed as the city grew, and their bones were added to the ones already in residence.

Signs were added to indicate the cemetery of origin, and the gravediggers arranged skulls and bones in patterns that can still be seen today.

In 1809, the Catacombes became a museum that today is part of the Musée Carnavalet and gives visitors access to a small fraction of the tunnel network of Paris’ ancient stone quarries.

In one of the first sections of the visit, sculptures made by a quarryman in the late 18^th century can be seen. They represent sites from Port-Mahon on the Spanish island of Minorca where he was said to have been a POW.

There used to be a long line of visitors starting out from the old entrance and winding back around the square behind the eastern lodge of the barriére d’Enfer (entry point of the General Farmers’ Tax Wall), but recently, it was closed in favor of a new entrance, and the ticket sale has shifted online, so now visitors can book their spot in advance and don’t need to queue any longer.

signage in the métro station *Denfert-Rocherreau*

N° 2: *Catacombes* entrance, n° 5: *Catacombes* exit

Location of the *Catacombes* entrances on a map of Paris

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European Heritage Days – French edition

Posted on 27/09/2022 by Mayken

The European Heritage Days, based on an initiative of the then French Minister for Culture, Jack Lang, in 1984, now exist in 50 countries across Europe. In France, the Journées Européennes du Patrimoine, take place on the third weekend of September. This means sites that are usually closed to the public will be open, other sites will be free of charge, many will offer special activities and/or guided tours. Some will require reservations, but many will just let you drop in, from well-known institutions in big cities to ancient buildings in small villages. Often there will be activities for younger visitors.

At some point, when you got in line at 5am at the Elysée Palace, you might be lucky and shake hands with the president, or do the same with the prime minister after queuing at the Hôtel Matignon. I once stood in line at the Senate, the Palais du Luxembourg and indeed met the president of the Senate, the upper house of Parliament. He is the third person of the state in order of importance, after the president and the prime minister, and before the president of the national assembly.

Gérard Larcher, President of the French Senate

I am not sure though if you still queue for these institutions nowadays or sign up online, as I did to visit the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, more recently.

When you choose your visits, don’t overlook small events. You never know a hidden gem until you find it. For example, on year in the Latin Quarter, a college offered the visit of ongoing preventive archaeology digs – it turned out there were Gallo-Roman ruins on a site marked for construction, and archaeologists were trying to unearth and save as much as they could. This is something that will never be seen again!

Here are glimpses of some other interesting places I’ve visited during Heritage Days in and around Paris over the years:

The *Jeu de Paume* (ancestor of tennis) court at Fontainebleau Palace – that’s me playing!

The minister’s desk at the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs at *Quai d’Orsay*

King George VI’s bathtub at the French Foreign Ministry

different Gallo-Roman archaeological digs in Normandy

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Bilingual Brittany

Posted on 23/08/2022 by Mayken

Before Brittany became part of France in the 16^th century (see my post here), it was an independent duchy. The Breton language, a Celtic language related to Welsh, Cornish and Cumbric, was used there for many centuries, since before the year 1,000. It evolved from Old Breton over Middle Breton to today’s Modern Breton. The number of speakers fell dramatically in the mid-20^th century due to the national policy of recognizing only French as official language in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Today, however, the Breton language is part of the regional Breton movement, and there are not only over 50 Breton-speaking schools (Diwan schools) but also numerous private Catholic and public schools with Breton classes.

The Diwan school association estimates the number of Breton speakers at 400,000. (Brittany has around 3,3 million inhabitants.) However, many Breton speakers are elderly people, and few actually use it in everyday life.

Five times so far, France has chosen to be represented at the Eurovision Song Contest with songs in regional languages, twice of those in Breton: in 1996 and in 2022. Numerous books and comics have been translated to Breton, local hero Asterix among them but also Belgian reporter Tintin, as well as the Peanuts.

When you visit Brittany, you won’t see it much until you are about halfway into the region. That is where the bilingual signposts will start, and where municipalities will put up signs with “Welcome” and “Goodbye” (Kenavo). However, the deeper you advance into Brittany, and especially in the département Finistère, you will see pretty much all signage in both languages, whether street names, the tourist office, the train station, or “other directions” (da lec’h all).

If you compare terms, you will be able to figure out some words. Ty, for example means house, and ker means town. So what might a ty ker be? A town hall, of course. My personal favorite is one I discovered this summer, a municipal library, or ty boukin.

The *départements* of Brittany (including historically Breton Loire-Atlantique)

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Electing the Assembly

Posted on 14/06/2022 by Mayken

The French parliament is composed of the National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale) and the Senate (Sénat). The National Assembly is elected every five years, the same year as the presidential elections.

There are 577 seats in the National Assembly. The deputés (MPs) are elected in single-member constituencies in a two-round vote, just like the French president.

All candidates who receive at least 12,5% of the electorate (which includes all registered voters, whether they cast a vote or not) go into the runoff, unless one candidate gets the absolute majority of valid votes (=votes that were actually cast) and 25% of the electorate (=all registered voters), in which case this candidate wins the seat and there is no runoff.
In the runoff, which is held one week after the first round, the candidate with the most votes is elected.

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100 Posts on Letters from Paris!

Posted on 07/06/2022 by Mayken

This is my 100^th blog post!

To celebrate, I’ll go back to the beginning and share some fun facts of the Eiffel Tower.

The Tower takes its name from its architect, Gustave Eiffel.
Construction of the Tower took 2 years.
It was built for the World Fair of 1889, celebrating the 100^th anniversary of the French Revolution.
Originally 312m high, the Eiffel Tower was the highest building in the word l for 40 years.
The highest viewing platform, the upper level of the third floor, is at 279,11m, the highest observation platform in the European Union and the second-highest in Europe:
The antennas at the top of the tower are used for the transmission of radio and digital tv signals.

For the fireworks of the national holiday Bastille Day on July 14, the Eiffel tower is incorporated into the show.

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A little bit of Magic in Paris

Posted on 12/04/2022 by Mayken

Visiting Paris and your children need a break from Champs-Élysées and Louvre, Musée d’Orsay and Boulevard Saint Michel?

In the 4^th arrondissement, between the Rue de Rivoli and the Seine, nestled in between storefronts of the Rue Saint Paul, hides one of Paris’ smaller and less-well-known museums – the Musée de la Magie.

Enter and immediately descend a flight of stairs into the underground realm of Magic and Automatons. A hundred automatons await you and your children, wind-up toys, optical illusions, magic mirrors and more. And of course, a magic show.

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Mayken Brünings

Writing Middle Grade fiction in Paris

Category Archives: France

School’s out

Don’t be alarmed at noon

Market Day in Paris

Cows cows cows

Bones beneath the Stones

European Heritage Days – French edition

Bilingual Brittany

Electing the Assembly

100 Posts on Letters from Paris!

A little bit of Magic in Paris