Le Franco Phoney

France and Switzerland seem like unlikely neighbours to me. The French love slow time while the Swiss love to keep time. Some of my French friends park illegally and don’t care while a Swiss person can book their neighbour for parking in a car-free neighbour’s allotted spot. France is still learning what the internet is all about while the Swiss tourism people have already embraced social networking to make personalised advertisements starring you.

In a country where the tunnels near Geneva airport sometimes smell of peach cleaning product, Switzerland takes the cake for being efficient. And that’s why I was surprised when these doors appeared across the car park at Geneva airport when I tried to leave. My passengers, eager to get on the piste, had already been held up for an hour getting through airport security. They tried to hide their impatience.

I buzzed a nearby airport intercom and explained in French that some doors were closed and I couldn’t exit the car park. The guy clearly thought I was a nutter, but said he would come down. Minutes passed so I called again. The man said he was still on his way.

Five minutes passed and a queue of cars had built. This didn’t feel like Switzerland at all! A driver asked me what was happening, then he swore into the intercom and eventually, two workers arrived and looked surprised at the closed doors. After some discussion, they overrode the automatic closure system and manually forced the doors open, grunting along the way.

Just a few minutes later, we were moving at the speed of a tortoise with a hangover thanks to a car accident and the chaos of no traffic police. I wondered if we were really in efficient Switzerland until the smell of peach cleaner returned as we crawled through a tunnel. My friends managed half a day on the piste. It would have been less had I not made a new car parking space near the ticket office.

I’ve ranted before about the ridiculous amount of paperwork in France, but I never expected it to impinge on the simple act of getting some snow tyres fitted to a car. You’d think it’d be as simple as going to a tyre shop, asking for some snow tyres, and having them fit them, but no. A friend of mine has a Renault Kangoo which resembles what we’d called a panel van in Australia: front seats only and a large, flat back suitable for carrying all sorts of big objects, although he mostly uses it for carting around his shopping. I drove down to Annecy with him so he could cart my shopping around after sorting out some new tyres. End result? No time for shopping and no snow tyres. Here’s a quick run-down:

Shop 1: “No, we don’t stock those tyres. You need commercial tyres because you don’t have back seats. We don’t stock them.”

Shop 2: ‘Those commercial tyres always sell out early. You won’t find them now. We can sell you the non-commercial tyres and put them on your wheels, but we can’t mount your wheels back on your car because you should have the commercial tyres. You’re welcome to jack up your car and remount your wheels in our forecourt once we’ve put the tyres on your wheels.”

Shop 3: “We’ll check out the back.” (30 minutes later): “No we don’t have any. We can order the commercial tyres in for you. They cost more than double the standard tyres. You’re missing a code on your car registration papers. Go to Renault because you might be able to get the standard tyres if you get those numbers added.”

Renault: “That’s very odd that you don’t have those details. I’ll check with my supervisor” (10 minutes later): “We can’t give you your car’s details. You need to go to the prefecture (car registration office, which is a depressing place), although since it’s late afternoon, they are closed. They are only open in the mornings, and they’re closed entirely at least one day during the week but I forget which day. Good luck.”

At this point, my friend gave up and we drove home as the day faded into night, having achieved nothing but a feeling of defeat.

But part of living in France is about embracing this paper trail and using it your advantage. My friend took his car to the local garage that passed his car for its two-yearly check-up recently, and it seems that they didn’t need the missing code in order to fit standard tyres.

The moral of this story? Don’t waste your time, effort and stress on official processes: it’s just not the French way.

If you ever drive in France, you need to know this road rule. It’s some weird hangover from the past that sometimes causes confusion at roundabouts and often results in accidents. This yellow diamond with a black strike through it often appears at the start of a town, and for months I thought it had something to do with a change of speed limit. How wrong I was. This sign means that roads to the right have right of way over the main road — by default! That’s right, you can swing out of a side street and into a main road regardless of oncoming traffic and still have right of way. Whether anyone on the main road stops for you, however, is a different matter. At least one of my French friends in the past year has had an accident resulting from this road rule. Worse still, there seems to be little consistency country-wide over just how much weight the priority has at such intersections. In addition, most roads have road markings that dictate that the main road users have priority over the side streets. So, much like the French language, there are exceptions to the rule.

Add in the roundabout rule of giving way to the left and you’ve got a world of confusion. I’ve been motioned through at roundabouts by locals on the left who just don’t understand why I’m not following the default “give way to the right” rule. I don’t help matters: if they’re going to give me right of way, I’ll take it, even if it’s not mine to take.

Meanwhile, these plain yellow diamond signs are often placed at the end of villages, where the speed limit increases. Once you’re past this sign, the main road users have right of way over the side street users. At last — something that makes sense! Weirdly, however, most French drivers seem to barge on in past the give way signs and dotted lines on the on-ramp of faster roads, expecting the faster traffic to slow down while they cut off a car and slowly pick up speed. All you can do is sit back, brake and say “Bof” while doing your best shrug. May as well fit right in and embrace the local customs, eh?

“What on earth is this?” was the question someone asked me as we drove under this thing. What do you think it is?

The answer is actually very simple, and the name gives it away. In French it’s called a paravalanche. During winter and early spring, this construction protects the road and those using it from avalanches. These huge tumbles of snow might look pretty, but snow is heavy, so this tunnel prevents both the road from being blocked by snow as well as death by avalanche.

These tunnels are all over the roads in the French Alps, particularly on steep areas such as this where the land cannot support much snow.

The name, however, is interesting. The jury (of me) is still out on whether it’s a joining together of ‘para’ and ‘avalanche’, or one of many uses of ‘par‘ in French, which most commonly means ‘by’. Meanwhile, ‘para‘ can mean ‘semi’. For example, a parapharmacie is a pharmacy that stocks products that do not require a prescription. It seems that neither ‘para’ nor ‘par’ means the right thing. However, both have less-common usages. I’m sticking with, ‘para‘ which can also mean ‘protection against’ in English (which the Oxford Dictionary tells me comes from French, with roots an the Italian verb which has roots in Latin). What do you think?

If you’ve ever driven in France, this photo will not surprise you. It’s something I just can’t get used to — tailgating. As you can see, even quad bikes tailgate. Apologies for the out-of-focus photo (I snapped it while driving around bendy roads), but hopefully you get the idea.

Sitting on someones tail is the norm in France, and I just can’t get used to it. If I need to stop suddenly, I can only hope the tailgating driver behind me is strapped in with a seatbelt and saved by an airbag at impact. But what does this guy have as protection? If the car in front of him stops suddenly, will his helmet save him as he skids across the road leaving torn clothes behind him? He sat on my tail for some time before overtaking, and the constant buzzing of his engine just added to that nagging feeling that he wanted to get past. I wasn’t going slowly, but I wasn’t going at Savoyarde speed (suicide fast) either. So, what’s the best ting to do? Part of me wants to wave the guy down and tell him off, mum style, and part of me knows that shrugging is probably the only thing I really can do. What do you do?

A shop in Annecy a few weeks ago had these mannequins displayed in their window. The one facing the front is alright, but the other one looks like he’s having a wee. At first, I was surprised and amused in equal parts, and then I realised it was totally normal. French men regularly wee on the side of the road. I have lost count of the private parts I’ve unwillingly glimpsed at whilst innocently driving past, and part of me wonders whether the person who placed the mannequin in this position was just mimicking a typical situation on roads in France.

I asked a French friend about it here in the Alps. “It’s nature so it’s nicer than using a public toilet, and it doesn’t hurt the environment,” he said. He told me of the time he reached the top of a drag lift when skiing with his girlfriend and two other couples. The warm sun at the end of the season had prompted the other two couples to have a little kiss while they waited for him and his girlfriend to get off the drag lift. His girlfriend needed to wee and so did he, so he walked five metres in the snow and let rip. His girlfriend, unhappy, asked why he made her wait when they could have skied down so she too could go to the toilet, noting also that the other couples were loved up while he relieved himself, annoying her further. He shrugged and said if he had the choice of looking at mountains and scenery or being in a smelly environment covered in wee, he’d take the mountains any day. Can’t argue with that. I’m not sure if the mannequin needs to enforce it though.

The road between St Jean de Sixt and Bonneville is sketchy at times to say the least. If it’s not boulders falling onto the road, it’s local drivers doing crazy speeds to catch up behind you and tailgate you around the twists and bends that ensure the average person stays in second gear most of the time. Add in slippery, snowy roads in winter just to make things more exciting.

It’s hard enough to drive along this road in a car or small van unscathed in let alone a truck. I do not envy the driver of this log truck. Those logs are longer than this photo can justify, and you can see how close some of them are to the rocks which often overhang the road, causing the driver to take up both sides of the road to avoid scraping his or her cargo. Height, as well as width, is therefore important on this road! The cargo made it through the pass unscathed.

During the ten minutes of being stuck behind the truck, we had to stop twice to let oncoming traffic clear so the truck could get around the next corner.

I was relieved to be behind the truck despite my longer presence on the road increasing the chance of falling rock landing on me: the local who zoomed up behind me didn’t bother tailgating me once he saw what lay ahead. Now that’s rare.

My mum arrived a few days ago, and I’m enjoying seeing France through her Australian eyes. She’s reminding me of all the great and odd things about France that I’ve become so used to that I barely even notice. The scenery is the most obvious of things, with chocolate box-style chalets dotted around and hills of grass topped with white snowy peaks. Beautiful and enormous, I’ve grown to take the scenery for granted.

Meanwhile, she loved our visit to the post office. “Wow,” she said, “THIS makes a nice change from MY post office visits in Australia!” Why? Because the guy behind the desk said hello to us both, then asked how we were, then chattered away while weighing my two items of mail, then licked each stamp and attached them for me, then popped the envelopes in the mail outbox before finally tallying up the total. He also said goodbye and wished us a good day as we left. I’d never really thought about it before, but I can’t imagine any Aussie Post worker licking my stamps or posting my mail.

On a less positive note, there’s the roads. Clinging to her seat, my mum was terrified as I drove around bendy, narrow mountainous roads at a speed that she didn’t think possible. I’m not a fast driver, nor have I ever had an accident. Gripping her seat, she had to look away from the drop on one side of the road which had no barrier to prevent any cars from just dropping off the side. She’s lucky there was no fog, like on the road pictured, or random obstacles such as herds of sheep or tractors. Down in Annecy, we left a three-lane, well-made motorway/freeway and took the off-ramp directly onto a pot-holed mess of a road that had no road markings until beyond the first small intersection. “It’s like we’re in the sticks,” my mum said, while the car bounced between pot-holes, “except this is still the centre of town, right?” We certainly weren’t far away. However, back at home in St Jean de Sixt, it’s clear that we are. “I don’t hear any car horns,” she said to me, suspiciously. She’s right: outside of peak season, the only time the car horns go are for weddings on Saturdays, when the procession of wedding guests behind the happy couple toot their klaxons the whole way to the reception. She’s got that to look forward to at the end of this week — along with the clanging Sunday church bells which start at 8am.

French advertisements can be really funny, and this one for Citroen cars makes me giggle every time I see it:

What do you think? Funny or lame?

For years, I’ve lived in France and been confused about a few signs on cars (and on roads, but we’ll save that for another time). I thought this black and white sign was a graphic version of ‘Baby on Board’ with a mother and a baby, or maybe a pregnant woman. I never looked closely enough to properly check. Turns out it’s a steering wheel rather than a baby.

So what does this sticker mean? The steering wheel clue has probably given it away. The text, if you speak French, has probably also given it away. I’m just not that observant. It actually means that the person driving is learning how to drive, and it’s known in France as conduite accompagnée or ‘accompanied driver’ in English. In other words, the driver is being yelled at in French by someone who already has a license to drive. However, there’s every chance that the person driving has a license already: it’s not obligatory to remove the sign when the learner driver stops driving.

Now here’s a tricky one. When I first moved to Annecy, I thought that perhaps this sticker was an A for Annecy. That would explain its popularity on so many cars, right? Wrong.

My next guess was a learner driver (remember, I thought the previous sticker was a pregnant woman), because the French word for the verb to learn is apprendre, which, of course, begins with an A. Sorted! But also wrong.

This sticker stands for apprenti which pretty much translates to ‘apprentice’ in English. Basically, when someone has finally jumped through the gigantic hoops required to get a license (including trick questions on the theory), this sticker must be displayed for either two years or three years, depending which French person you ask (there’s a 50/50 split amongst my French friends). Either way, it’s the equivalent of a the good old P plate I had to display when I got my license in Australia, and requires drivers to drive more slowly than the speed limit allows. I’ve yet to see any car with this sticker going at less than 10km over the speed limit, let alone that much under.

Although it’s not mandatory to know what these things mean (I managed to get through years of living in France with no clue about them), it’s handy to know what they are anyway. Otherwise, you might be wondering why so many people in Nice are fans of Annecy.