24 March 2016
À la recherche du temps perdu?
by Richard Pooley
I returned from an overseas trip two weeks ago to hear some good news. Literally. The bells of the 15th century village church were ringing the angelus for the first time in over a year. The peel of three bells, repeated three times followed by a minute or so of full-on ringing, had been heard in fields, farms and hamlets in this part of the Dordogne valley for centuries. Apparently, it was meant to remind the peasants – at dawn, at midday and in the evening – to pause in their labours and say the angelus prayer. To me, it always seemed more likely that it was a reminder to get out into the fields, to have lunch and to get home for dinner. I had assumed that the silencing of the bells was in response to complaints from those, like us, who live within 100 metres of the church, and who, unlike me, no longer wished to be rung out of bed early in the morning. Instead, it sounds as though the mechanism which operates the bells needed a thorough repair. Anyway, they are back and ringing as loud as ever. What’s more, the times of each peel have not changed. They ring not on the hour but at 07.04, 12.04 and 19.04.
I have asked several villagers about this lack of alignment with the “correct” time. They don’t really understand what I am talking about. And that is because the British and the French do have a different attitude to Time.
Before coming to live in France three years ago, I had been coming here on business for over thirty years. I cannot think of a single meeting which started or finished on time. I never got the impression that any French person felt guilty arriving ten or fifteen minutes late for one of my morning courses. My sarcastic Good Evening would be met with a look of incomprehension and a cheery Bonjour. Perhaps this is why Bonmatin is not heard; Bonjour will do all day and long into the night, even when a Bonsoir might be thought more appropriate. I recently came across something I wrote long ago: “If a French manager meets someone he knows on the way to a meeting, he considers it more important to talk to that person than arrive on time for the meeting.”
The results of a 2014 survey by an agency doing research for the advertising industry was reported in France as: “Les Français – Champions du Multitasking”. 58% of French people watch television while also using their phones or tablets, the highest percentage of the 30 countries surveyed. The French are indeed polychronic, a term coined by Edward Hall, an American anthropologist, to describe people who are comfortable with doing many things at the same time. Their group meetings are often chaotic. Agendas, if they exist at all, are seldom followed (though this may be because an agenda is a diary to a French person, not points to be discussed). Discussions are held in parallel. Several people appear to be reading texts, writing emails and joining in the debates all at the same time. People take phone calls in the meeting room and disappear for private chats outside it.
This is not to say that the French do not have schedules. Of course they do. French trains and planes, in my experience, leave at the scheduled time. The good thing is that if a main-line train is running late, the departure of branch-line trains which many of its passengers are hoping to catch will be delayed so that they can do so. Can that happen in the UK?
However, the BBC’s pips must puzzle the French. French radio and television programmes pay little heed to the clock. If someone is still speaking or the music is still playing when the next programme is due to start, they will be allowed to finish. News announcers will say that it is, say, 09.00 when it is, in fact, 09.01.
The French are often criticized by Americans and the British for not having a customer service culture. The arrogance of Parisian waiters towards tourists and fellow-Parisians alike is offered as proof of this. In fact, I have seen little evidence of this stereotype. Moreover, far away from the capital most customer service is excellent. The problem is that Brits and Americans see customer service as linked to the use of time: if the customer is kept waiting, the service must be bad. This is not how French customers think.
This difference is exemplified by the service I and other customers receive at either one of our village’s two boulangeries (and at every other shop and market stall). The place is almost never empty when I walk in. There is nearly always a customer chatting to the assistant, even if the bread he came in for is already paid for and in his hands. The transaction is not complete. The latest gossip needs to be imparted and the day’s weather assessed. This can take up to three minutes (Yes, I did once time the process). Sometimes I have assumed that the end has been reached and opened my mouth to wish the assistant bonjour. But the man has just remembered something else which needs to be said and relaunches, aided by the assistant who likes to have the last word anyway. At no point does the assistant acknowledge me or anyone else. Her full focus is on her current customer. Only when he has turned for the door and countered her bon journée and au revoir with his favoured responses, will she switch on the smile and bonjour me or whoever is next in line.
I met our neighbour, the village mayor, hurrying down our street. He had three minutes to get to the top of the village to start the annual village carnival. But he had to stop and talk to me. We shook hands and wished each other bonjour. I sympathised with his need to be on time; the village children should not be kept waiting on this chilly February day. Indeed, he said. And then began to tell me how he had introduced a rule at committee meetings: they would start on time even if only one person – himself – was present. There would be no summarising of what had been discussed for those who arrived late. He described the problems he had had enforcing this rule. And all the while, I was conscious of how this was making him late for the carnival. He left me just as the church bells rang out 4 minutes past the hour.
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