Le Franco Phoney

Shops here in the French Alps keep strange hours. For example, the supermarket in La Clusaz is closed from 12.30pm to 4.30pm, and rumour has it that the reason for this is so that tourists have to buy their lunch from the bakeries and restaurants and thus spend more money in town. In fact, most of La Clusaz closes for the inter-season months of May, October and November. And as I’ve written about in the past, convenience stores are more like inconvenience stores, while “fermeture exceptionelle” (unexpected closure) is a sign well used here in France, and one I’ve struck when attempting to go to a Chinese restaurant in Annecy, the post office in Bonneville and of course, the government office in Annecy for car registration. When I made it to the post office in St Jean de Sixt before it closed for the weekend at midday on a Saturday, I was then told that my item wouldn’t leave until Monday because nobody picks up the mail on the weekends. Shop keepers apparently have a comfortable life and they don’t need to open as often as I’d like them to.

So why am I still surprised to see this sign? Pictured here is a sign for a shop in Annecy called “Espace Déco” (a home decorations shop). The sign then reads:

Opening hours

Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 12.30pm - 2.00pm

Monday, Wednesday, Saturday: by appointment or call (number blurred out by me)

So, that’s a total of four and a half hours per week for customers to just happen to walk past while the shop is open. Does anyone ever really bother to call a number just to touch an item for sale and discover its price? I’d feel kind of obliged to buy it if I hauled the shopkeeper out of bed or wherever just so I could browse a few serving trays. How are these shops still in business? The only reason I can think of is that people must think it’s more exclusive if the shop stays closed most of the time and then they make the effort to come back. I think I’ve found the most exclusive shop in the Alps.

Look, I know the French have a bit of a reputation for lots of red tape and striking, but this is ridiculous. Three attempts at progress yesterday failed at every mark.

Attempt 1: Carte Vitale

I applied for my French healthcare card back in March 2009 (and wrote about the nightmare here). I’ve  paid €3,500 for the card’s benefits in 2009, but have yet to receive the card. Calls in July to three separate places (diverted to a new place each time) led to someone saying I should have received a temporary paper card, and a week later, it did show up. It isn’t all that useful and I still have to pay full price for most things. So, another call yesterday — and a referral first to a number for a whole separate area of France, then a referral back to the original number, which the guy actually got wrong anyway —finally led to a woman saying that yes, sometimes it takes years and she really had no way of telling when it will arrive. Meanwhile, I’ve received a 2010 payment request of €4,650! So I’m paying for something I don’t even have, and I’m paying way more than I would claim back in a year anyway. Great. Thank you so much, healthcare people in France. I wonder how much extra stress your ‘healthcare’ causes.

Attempt 2: fuel for heating

At the start of December, a man delivered heating fuel. I have a 600 litre tank, plus two 200 litre barrel reserves. He couldn’t get his fuel filler hose into the 600 litre tank, so he filled the two smaller reserves, said the whole setup was dangerous and refused to come back to fill up again. He said he’d get someone from the company to come and have a look at it. At the start of January, with the fuel line going down quickly, a call to the company was short and sweet with the woman saying that no worries, someone would be having a look very soon. Amazingly, I received a call from them yesterday! They called me. They called me. I explained nobody had been to check out the danger and then she asked me to explain the whole thing. I did so, then she said thanks and goodbye. Before she could hang up, I asked her if that meant somebody would be visiting and she said no, it wasn’t up to their company: they just deliver the fuel. I explained that in January, the person on the other end of the phone said someone from the same company would come to check and she agreed that someone would come. I don’t know if I was more confused with her inability to stick to one story or if she just didn’t have a clue what I was saying in French. She’s going to speak to the fuel filler guy and call back today, she said…

Attempt 3: car registration change of address

Now, you might think that this would be easy, but it is not. Rewind: when I finally sent the letter from my old landlord (which he gave me two months later) to say I had left his place, my home/car insurance company asked for proof that I had also changed my address on my car registration (carte grise in French). I hadn’t even thought of that, so I went down yesterday afternoon, prepared after reading what I needed to take with me, to visit the prefecture in Annecy. I had ID, a bill in my name, my old car registration, and the long change of address form that I had to fill out. I’d noticed on their website that they were closed the day before yesterday for some ‘exceptional’ reason, but the web site said nothing about yesterday or any other day in the future. I drove in the snow to Annecy, parked the car and walked in a near blizzard to get to the prefecture. When I got there, it was closed. There was a notice on the door saying that from September 2009, the office would only be open in the mornings. Their website did not mention this. How can their website not mention this? In addition, when I do get around to changing my address, I will have to pay for the privilege and attach new number plates to my car. I moved five minutes down the road from my old house. Is this not overkill?

What really bothers me is that the French tax office sent me a form ten days before Christmas demanding tax information before the end of the year. They expect such a quick response from me, yet here I am still waiting for any and every administrative function to actually function in my favour. I don’t even know if they received anything from my accountant: I couldn’t get hold of him on the phone, so I e-mailed him an explanation and sent the forms to him, hoping he’d do something. He’s on holiday until next week, but that’s okay: the tax office haven’t sent anything else, so I’m wondering if perhaps it’s just a standard of communication in France, and in actual fact, they mean they want my tax details before the end of 2010. I’ll keep you posted.

As promised, here are some photos from le Tour de France during the stage at Le Grand Bornand and the time trial in Annecy the following day. As you can see, Le Grand Bornand was far less crowded than Annecy, which hasn’t seen the tour for fifty years. Apart from the photos below of the floats, a bed drove past, along with some fire engines branded as a bottles of water, spraying people along the way. There was also a giant washing machine, giant sweets bags, giant race horses and various other giant things. The same grappling for cheap freebies continued in Annecy where a lycra cycling t-shirt freebie that landed on my friend’s camera was swiftly nabbed by the woman in front of us who showed no guilt despite my gasp of disbelief. Neither of us wanted it, but I’m not sure she did either — apart from it being a freebie and therefore worth A Lot Of Money.

The atmosphere in Annecy seemed far more electric than in Le Grand Bornand; I guess that was from the bigger crowds and the knowledge that the competitors would be zooming past all day long instead of within twenty minutes. Most people were sporting a freebie hat (including myself) or some other free object, along with some way of identifying their nationality. Me, I wore my Australian flag like a cape, as did many other Aussies. Us Aussies are a friendly bunch even when we don’t know each other. In Le Grand Bornand, a family of travelling Aussies saw my flag (dangling over a road sign) and sought me out for a chat. Then later in Annecy, I heard: “Oi Aussie!” When I looked around, a woman in green and gold (Australian sport colours) was waving madly to me. I waved back. We then had the following conversation — from opposite sides of a very wide road:

Her: “Are you on the bus trip?”

Me: “Um, no. I live here.”

Her: “You live here? Wow you’re lucky!”

Me: “Yep.” (Now trying to catch up to my friends who had kept walking.)

Her: “So, how’s it going anyway?” (That’s Australian for how are you.)

Now, I’m pretty sure that only a fellow Aussie would yell to a complete stranger from across a road to ask how that stranger is. Having not lived in Australia for almost ten years, I was at first surprised by the question which I answered and smiled. But within a few minutes, I was feeling that lovely glow of camaraderie that Australians so often offer each other. While the tangible me caught up with my friends, the Aussie me imagined crossing the road to join the Aussie, buying her a beer, introducing her to all my friends, having a long chat about sport, and chanting “Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!” with her. Maybe at the next Tour de France.

Take a good look at this image below:

What do you see? Let me explain what’s happening. The 14th of July is Bastille Day in France, except it’s only the non-French who call it that. The French call it Fête Nationale, and it normally involves fireworks after dark and some form of entertainment before darkness. Also, the celebrations shown above actually happened on 13th July. Why? I’m not entirely sure, but it seemed appropriate, given that lots of workers were given a four-day weekend. So here we have some locals and some tourists in a little village called Chinaillon, which is just up the road (and part of) le Grand Bornand ski resort, neighbouring La Clusaz. The firemen are dressed in their old outfits and they’re using an old pump to show how firemen used to put out fires. As you can see from the photo, the firemen are actually more intent on spraying the crowd with water, and although they did so countless times, the crowd always replied with a thrill and a cheer. After watching the fire ‘fighters’ and some traditional dancing—including a local dance that showed good men (who knelt to their partners) and bad men (who turned their backs on their partners) to show that people, good and bad, can come together to dance—I headed back towards La Clusaz, and stopped in St. Jean de Sixt to watch some fireworks with some more friends.

Not satisfied with ending the night with a bang, the locals put on a ‘bal’ which traditionally, would have been a ball, but on today’s standards, it was two blokes playing instruments and singing songs such as Macarena and I Will Survive. The advantage of speaking English meant that I knew all the lyrics to these songs, while a French friend asked me about the lyrics to YMCA:

French friend: “What’s that bit say?”

Me: “Young man…”

French friend: “Oh, I’ve always sung ‘Yoplait’.”

Now, who would have thought a dairy product would ever make it into a Village People song? However, she had the last laugh when a song called le Madison came on. Supposedly an American line dancing-style dance, it’s certainly something that never caught on in Australia or the UK while I was there. While my French friend busted the moves at all the right times, the English-speaking crew were left bumping into people and turning in the wrong direction.

Of course, this all happened on Monday night, which meant we did it all over again last night in Annecy—a town that celebrated on the public holiday rather than the night before. Two nights of entertainment for one public holiday. You’ve gotta love the French!

Following the previous weekend’s theme of shiny loud things in La Clusaz, a car rally arrived on Friday night and hung around all weekend. There were loads of lovely old cars ranging from old convertible Truimphs to big old Volvos, plus Fords, Jaguars, Ferraris, Porsches, Renaults, Mercedes, Peugots and a whole swag of other lovely curvy cars. You can kind of see four of them in this photo, along with the La Clusaz church.

With all these shows in La Clusaz, plus the opening of the chairlifts for mountain biking and other sports this weekend, La Clusaz is once again busy. Yet many of the bakeries and fast food places in town remain closed. I think, perhaps, that I’m a bit too used to this laid back lifestyle because a recent visit to Switzerland to see a movie in English opened up a whole part of my memory that had laid dormant. The cinema, in Geneva, is situated on the top floor of a shopping centre, which has all the things you expect in a shopping centre: lots of commercial clothes shops; at least one supermarket; a variety of restaurants; and some cash outlets, all on a number of floors indoors. Annecy, the closest big town to La Clusaz, has nothing like this. Nothing. There’s the Courier Centre which does have a supermarket, a few commercial clothes shops and two bakeries/cafés. There’s even a cinema next door (with all filmes dubbed in French). But it’s not really a shopping center. There are lounges to sit on, but you are not allowed to eat or drink on them. Security guards check constantly. People sit down to use the free wifi (pronounced “whiffy” in French). It’s a great multifunctional centre, but it’s not set up for a serious shopper. And deep down, I’m a serious shopper. It’s only when I have these realisations that I wonder why I’m living in La Clusaz, with the cow bells the only noise at night. And then I remember the lifestyle: the ski run across the road in winter; the walking tracks in summer; the wildlife; the shopkeepers who know my name; the close community; the fresh air, and so many other things. And that’s when I realise that shopping isn’t that great. And if that realisation doesn’t kick in, Geneva is only fifty minutes away.

Today, I headed down to Annecy, motivated to sort out my health care card, called a Carte Vitale, which means I will finally stop paying for all my own medical expenses and let my taxes work for me instead. French paperwork is renowned for being tedious and lengthy: I gave up importing my favourite car (edition not produced in France) from England because the paperwork was so horrendous, and indeed confusing.

So, I left La Clusaz armed with birth certificates, passports, and as much other paperwork I could find to prevent any hold-ups. I arrived in Annecy and parked in a central car park called Place des Romains and walked to the CPAM office I had been instructed to go to. After the usual “take a number” system, the staff member who looked into my request explained she could not process a health care card for me: I needed to go to the office on the other side of Annecy and request one there. She wrote down the street and office name for me and off I went. Somehow, I found the office despite the name being completely different to the one she has written down. I explained my request to the receptionist, but she got stuck when she discovered I had no social security number.

After some phone calls and people shuffling by to check out my paperwork and tut that I had no social security number, the woman instructed me to go to the office in Avenue des Isles—the road beside the Place des Romains car park, where I had started the day. I couldn’t be annoyed at the wasted hours because I had expected this to happen. My days are much less stressful when I’ve set my expectations low, and if there’s any French paperwork to be done, I’ve discovered it’s best to set my expectations as low as they will go.

The good news when I arrived at the third office was that it was the right office and I was the first in the queue. The bad news was, when I eventually did get to see someone after a long wait in a corridor with three seats which were soon in demand as the corridor filled with others, that the woman helping me could not find my details on the computer system in front of her. More tutting; more French I didn’t quite get; more confusion on both sides of the table. She scribbled some notes on a piece of paper and sent me on my way without looking at any of my papers. No Carte Vitale, and no receipt that I had been there. I have to wait for something to arrive in the mail in order to apply for a Carte Vitale, and I’m guessing that I will be required to return to Annecy and relive today’s events all over again. I’ve included a picture of the Carte Vitale in case I never actually get to see my own.

I really should have just gone skiing instead.

1. Annecy. Last week, Annecy won the national contest to see which French city could bid for the 2018 winter Olympics. Congratulations to everyone involved so far. I’ll keep my fingers crossed until 2010 when the winning city is announced.

2. Candide Thovex was noticeably absent at the La Clusaz Free Sessions. He’s been busy working on his new project, Candide Kamera. The first video is beautifully shot, with a great opening scene looking down to Geneva airport, lots of amazing freeriding, and just a few tricks thrown in during filming. There’s also some footage of him being dragged out of a snowy river by his perplexed-looking friend. I wasn’t too keen on the ending, which reverts back to his old style, but at least he kept the time lapse footage to about three seconds, and there’s only one ‘nature’ scene of some deer. Check out the vid:

Interestingly, Candide’s website has a ‘coming soon’ page for the Candide Invitational. Does this mean there will be more in the future?

3. Bruno. Who is Bruno? Bruno is my cat, and despite this week’s new snowfall, it’s clear that spring is on the way because he has brought me his first mouse for the year. Not bad for a fourteen year-old, but I’d prefer no mouse and more winter.

Each year, Annecy holds a procession of Venetian carnival costumes, run by an association that links the two cities. I found a place in the sun to watch the people in their beautiful costumes slowly and silently meander past. This also gave me an insight into how French people tell each other off, and how those being told off tend to ignore it. More than one person tried to stand in front of me and the small family next to me. The entire family verbally harassed each person until the left. One guy was more persistent, but he too gave up and gave up once the father in the family beside me changed his tone to be more aggressive. I think he actually threatened the guy. Meanwhile, up the corridor of people a little, a woman was shrieking at the top of her voice, telling another woman who had parked herself in front of everyone to move away. An argument followed before the woman left. Towards the end of the parade, some people blocked the route entirely, causing the costumed-up people to find a different route. When an official (a young girl) tried to get people to move aside to open the route—and there was plenty of room for everyone to have a great view of the parade—not only did they stay still, but they told her off! She gave up and went for help. The correct route was eventually reinstated, but only briefly before being blocked once more. The photos below are just a tiny subset of all the costumes.