The French can be an intensely stubborn race.When they dig their heels in, nothing and nobody can change their attitude or their stance.
Often the stubbornness manifests itself behind a little hopeless, yet somehow slightly supercilious smile, and the familiar words: "C'est normale."
Those words mean far more than just "It's normal". Oh no, those simple little words are code for: "Look, sunshine, that's the way it is, the way we like it and the way it's going to stay. OK?"
Even on occasions when they themselves are driven nuts by the ludicrous bureaucracy that throttles our lives here, they still shrug and say: "C'est normale."
There are close to seven million civil servants in France with guaranteed jobs for life and early, lucrative retirement. To justify their existence, so it seems, they produce and demand sheaves and sheaves of documents and copies.
If the average French household retained all the paperwork required in life, there would need to be a special room set aside, with file after file of yellowing, stamped and signed documents.
For instance, all work on a house deemed remotely structural (and that includes plumbing and electrics) has to have the bills signed off and produced to the lawyer and buyer when it comes to be sold. Even 30 years on.
Bank statements, tax invoices, utility bills, insurance claims and probably even the dog biscuits have to have proof of existence. On paper. On file.
Go to pick up any official permit such as a driving licence or a health card, or try to open a bank account, then be prepared to hand over a dossier containing: birth certificate, marriage or divorce papers, passport if an immigrant, utility bill, occasionally proof of earnings – and keep your fingers crossed that no new proofs have been added in the last 24 hours.
Occasionally a minister will mutter about moving to a paperless society, like most of the developed world. Every time he does, a civil servant quietly orders the felling of another million trees and asks for proof in triplicate instead of duplicate.
Attempt to cancel a contract, send a letter of complaint or even pay a bill by post and you must send it registered delivery.
Otherwise, as everybody knows, whatever department you are dealing with will deny its existence. Why? Why? I ask my French friends. They shrug: "C'est normale."
But it's not normal, it's insane.
Then again, if the letter arrived while the civil servant was thinking about lunch, or on lunch or getting ready to go home, it's easier to bucket it than deal with it.
Plus, unless signed for, it will also simply be "lost" due to holidays.
May is a bad month to send letters. With all the feast days and public celebrations, usually linked by employees to time owed not to breach the 35-hour week, it has been estimated that more than half the country will work just 12 days this month.
Can't it all be dealt with online, someone is probably thinking.
Ha! France pretends it is computer literate. Authorities allow you to set up payments online, key in your interminable details, then, at the end of the whole process, inform you that confirmation will be sent by post and you must sign it, drive to your bank and hand it in for it to work.
And usually it won't take effect until the following year. Is it any wonder we all turn to drink? Is it?
Unsurprisingly, as with many things here, I have come to accept that this is how it is. Indeed if something goes swimmingly forward I find myself questioning it with a suspicious: "Mais, c'est pas normale?"
However, in their stubbornness and resistance to change, many French have now taken against the simplest form of modern communication – the email.
And this is really hacking me off. I am not alone as I see from expat forums, but in my case it is professional defiance and ineptitude that enrages me.
In the past year alone I must have sent at least 40 emails to police authorities, PR companies and theatrical agencies.
In all cases I have phoned first to seek information or request interviews – all have asked me to follow up by email my specific demands. In French, naturally.
Having done so, in every case I have had to send several more follow-ups to try to elicit an answer. Nothing. I have phoned again and restarted the whole process. Nothing.
On a personal level I have now sent four emails to my insurance company about the storm damage. Nothing.
Sometimes one cannot even get a phone number. For example, former president Nicolas Sarkozy has an office in Paris still staffed and paid for by the state.
He has an address but lists no phone number, no fax, no email. The Elysee Palace couldn't give one, but did give me an email address where I might be able to get an email address. Nothing.
A former colleague, now freelancing in Paris, assured me I was doing everything the right way. The fact nobody ever answered? Well, OK, I know: "C'est normale."
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