WRITING ABOUT the culture of political protest in France, Lara Marlowe recalled the case of a "middle-aged, middle-class woman lawyer" she once met at a Parisian student march. The woman had no particular reason to be there. But, as Lara suggested, she was an enthusiast for Frances de facto national sport. " Jadore manifester!" ("I love protesting!") she explained.
The story reminded me of a humorous essay written a few years ago by Adam Gopnik, the New Yorkers then man in Paris, about his attempts to join what promised to be a new, American-style gym in the city.
The attempts were bedevilled from the start by mutual cultural misunderstanding. First, the enthusiasm with which he took out advance membership was not matched by the gym’s urgency to open. But even when it did open, he found his Anglo-Saxon athletic philosophy – “no pain no gain” – thwarted at every turn.
The gym seemed to regard itself more as a social club than anything else, inviting him for wine-and-cheese evenings and offering complimentary chocolates any time there was a problem. Also, the most committed type of gym member its business plan initially envisaged was the extreme-sports type who might turn up as often as once a week.
A little embarrassed, Gopnik explained that it wasn’t unusual for Americans to work out, er, three or four times a week; or even – whisper it – every day, before breakfast. So, having absorbed this appalling news, the gym management offered him an unlimited-attendance package. But when the glorious day came that he finally managed to work up a sweat on the exercise bikes and then went to reception to ask for a towel, mutual incomprehension descended again.
In the silence that followed, Gopnik thought he had forgotten the correct French word for “towel” and so started to explain what he needed: ie (Im paraphrasing from memory) “a cloth object for removing moisture from the body’s surface”.
Whereupon the centime dropped, and the attendant – also now just a little embarrassed – explained that the acquisition of towels was envisagé . But that was a longer-term plan.
His general experience had taught Gopnik that sport was not as central to people’s lives in France as it was in the US. There was no equivalent of that trusted American fallback in stalled conversations: “How bout those Knicks?” Or if there was, it was politics. Comments on a politician’s performance on television the night before – especially if it was bad – served the same purpose of ice-breaking and male-bonding as comments about sports stars did back home.
But he had also noticed that almost every French person he knew had a antagonistic relationship with some government department or municipal official. This might last several years, during which the antagonists spent a significant amount of time every week jousting on the phone, or in the various public offices.
It was the cause of much frustration to his French friends, but also of frequent small triumphs, and even occasional bursts of euphoria when a major breakthrough was made.
In short, as Gopnik now realised in a blinding epiphany, battles against bureaucracy served the same purpose for the French as gym workouts did for Americans.
There was a similar sense of struggle in a good cause: of gaining through pain. And there was the same feeling of virtue when they emerged from these sessions, tired but happy, having prevailed against the machine.
The “burn” involved would not necessarily keep the weight down, but then it didn’t have to; the French diet was taking care of that anyway.
EVERYBODY HAS heard of Waterloo by now, if only through Abba’s Eurovision-winning song. But another North European battle-site of that era, whose name also suggests plumbers, is not nearly so well known. I refer of course to Flushing, in the Netherlands: where 200 years ago this month, the Legion Irlandaise fought for Napoleon against a combined British-Dutch force.
That battle is one of many examples of the friendly relationship that has existed down the centuries between France and Ireland, and that was celebrated at the annual Bastille Day party at the French embassy on Tuesday night. I attended the latter event myself, as usual, and very pleasant it was. But forewarned by Gopnik and others, I did not attempt to make small-talk about sport with any of the French guests.
It wouldn’t have helped that in Ireland, sport – especially the national games of hurling and Gaelic football – is heavily tinged with politics. Nor that the GAA had revolutionary origins. Nor even that its nationalist identity is sometimes tangled up with the history of France.
On this last point, for example, it is interesting to note that the French embassy’s Dublin 4 neighbours include Clanna Gael Fontenoy: one of several GAA clubs (Down and Monaghan have them too) with that suffix: which derives from the site of a famous Franco-Irish military victory in 1745.
Amid the generally-sparkling conversation at the embassy on Tuesday night, inevitably, there were one or two lulls. And as always at such moments, the Hiberno-Saxon urge was to fill the silence with inane comments about sport. During one particularly awkward lacuna, I nearly heard myself blurt: “How bout those Fontenoys?”
But I bit my lip in time and, mercifully, the moment passed.