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FRANCE EXPLAINED

Snobs, beaches and drunks – 5 things this joke map teaches us about France

A popular joke 'map' of France, widely shared on social media, has sparked endless jokes at the expense of certain regions of France.

Published: 5 July 2021 12:45 CEST
Updated: 6 July 2023 14:03 CEST
Snobs, beaches and drunks - 5 things this joke map teaches us about France
People walk on the beach as seagulls fly at sunset in Le Touquet, northern France (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

But while the map – created by cartesfrance.fr – is clearly intended to be comic, it teaches us some important points about France’s regional divides, local stereotypes and in-jokes.

Here are some of the key points.

1. Everyone hates Parisians

The map is purportedly France as seen through the eyes of Parisians, and contains a series of snobbish and rude generalisations about every part of France that is not maison (home) in the capital and its surroundings. The great majority of the country is labelled simply as paysans (peasants).

The general stereotype about Parisians is that they are snobs, rudely judging the rest of the country which they regard as backwards and full of ploucs (yokels) apart from small areas which make nice holiday destinations.

Like all sweeping generalisations, this is true of some people and very much not of others, but one of the few things that can unite people from all areas of France is how much they hate les parigots têtes de veaux (a colloquialism that very roughly translates as ‘asshole Parisians’)

2. Staycations rule

Holidaying within France has been the norm for many French people for generations.

As the map shows, Parisians regard the southern and western coastlines as simply plages (beaches) which they decamp to for at least a month in July or August. In the height of summer French cities tend to empty out (apart from tourists) as locals head to the seaside or the countryside.

READ ALSO Do France’s traditional summer holiday tribes still exist?

In winter the Pyrenees and Alps are popular ski destinations.

3. Northerners like a drink

There is a very widespread stereotype, although not really backed up by evidence, that the people of Normandy, Brittany and the Nord area like a drink or two. Many suggest this is to cope with the weather, which does tend to be rainier than the rest of France (although has plenty of sunshine too).

READ ALSO Does it really rain all the time in Brittany?

Official health data doesn’t really back this up, as none of these areas show a significantly greater than average rate of daily drinkers, although Nord does hold the sad record for the highest rate of people dying from alcohol-related liver disease.

What’s certainly true is that Brittany and Normandy are cider country, with delicious locally-produced ciders on sale everywhere, well worth a try if you are visiting.

4. Poverty

The map labels the north eastern corner of France as simply pauvres – the poor.

The north east of the country was once France’s industrial and coal-mining heartland, and as traditional industries have declined there are indeed pockets of extreme poverty and high unemployment. The novel The End of Eddy, telling the story of novelist Edouard Louis’ childhood in a struggling small town near Amiens, lays out the social problems of such areas in stark detail.

However poverty is not just confined to one corner of France and the département that records the highest levels of deprivation is actually Seine-Saint-Denis in the Paris suburbs.

5. Southern prejudice

According to the map, those from the south are either branleurs (slackers) or menteurs (liars). 

This isn’t true, obviously, there are many lovely, hard-working and truthful people in southern France, but the persistent stereotype is that they are lazy – maybe because it’s too hot to do much work – and slightly shifty.

Even people who aren’t actually rude about southerners can be pretty patronising, as shown by the reaction to former PM, Jean Castex. 

Castex has a noticeable south west accent which sparked much comment from the Paris-based media and political classes, with comments ranging from the patronising – “I love his accent, I feel like I’m on holiday” – to the very patronising – “that accent is a bit rugby” (a reference to the fact that TV rugby commentators often come from France’s rugby heartlands in the south west).

READ ALSO Why all the snobbery around French regional accents?

In his first year as PM, Castex undertook a dizzying schedule of appointments around the four corners of France and since leaving Matignon he has taken on the ambitious task of sorting out the problems of Paris’ RATP public transport network, so hopefully the lazy myth can now be put to bed.

And anyone tempted to take the piss out of his accent – glottophobie (accent prejudice) is now a crime in France.

For more maps that reflect France, head to cartesfrance.fr

Member comments

  1. Unfortunately it looks like the unscientific misinformation spread by the vegan community is now aimes at reducing consumption two of France’s highest quality and most nutritious foods: meat and dairy. By implementing managed grazing as Allan Savory has taught, ruminants can graze in marginal climates where it is difficult to raise vegetables sustainably and at the same time draw down Historic Carbon. Ruminants properly raised are a climate positive and more profitable for the farmer/rancher. This will preserve France’s position as producing the highest quality cheese and meat and reduce greenhouse gasses faster than vegetable crop monocultures which require more pesticides and fertilized inputs. This should be the area of focus and not the restriction on ruminants which can turn “straw into gold” with no chemical inputs by producing nutritious and delicious meats and cheese from otherwise inedible weeds and agricultural byproducts such as straw.

  3. It’s not the translation I had 50 or more years ago and is said to cause blindness. It begins with a ₩ and ends with an r !

    1. I think no-one who has ever watched an episode of Spiral/Engrenages can be mistaken about the real meaning.

      1. No, the translation is accurate. While the term literally translated is indeed as hinted above, the way it is used is different. No one uses it as we would the w* term above, everyone uses it to mean lazy. Interesting how very differently the French and the British regard the activity alluded to isn’t? To the French, it is something you do instead of working, so just a pleasurable self-indulgence. To the British, it denotes poor character and a tendency to be obnoxious. And they wonder why the stereotypes about the British and their troubled relationship with sex endure. 🙂

        1. Interesting. I think you’re too restrictive in your definition of the usage of the w* word. As far as you go that’s OK but it’s used more widely, I think, to mean someone who’s ineffective or has delusions about their own importance, as is the cognate term ‘tosser’ (which is probably less pejorative). Which seems to me to be quite close to the meaning implied in usage in French films and TV shows (my friends are respectable and don’t use such terms).

          Essentially what you are implying is that self-abuse is acceptable to the French but not to the British.

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LEARNING FRENCH

Is the English language really just ‘badly pronounced French’?

A French linguist has been making waves with his boldly-titled book 'The English language does not exist - it's just badly pronounced French', but does the professor actually have a point?

Published: 23 April 2024 14:35 CEST
Is the English language really just 'badly pronounced French'?

The French linguist Bernard Cerquiglini is clear that the title of his book should be taken with humour and a pinch of salt, beginning his work by explaining that it is a ‘bad faith proposition’.

Clearly, the English language does exist and equally clearly the French are a little uneasy about it – with numerous laws, national bodies and local initiatives attempting to fight back against the anglicisms that now litter everyday speech, from ‘c’est cool’ to ‘un job’. 

But Cerquiglini argues that the supposed ‘influx’ of English words that are now used in France, especially tech-related terms, is nothing compared to what happened when French literally invaded English in the Middle Ages.

And the close similarity that the two languages enjoy today – around 30 percent of English words are of French origin – speaks to this entwined history.

“You can also see my book as an homage to the English language, which has been able to adopt so many words… Viking, Danish, French, it’s astonishing,” he told AFP.

The history

The key date in the blending of English and French is the Norman conquest of 1066, when Duke William of Normandy invaded England with a small group of Norman knights and made himself the English king William the Conqueror.

What happened next was a radical re-ordering of society in which English nobles were displaced and William’s knights were installed as a new French-speaking (or at least Norman-speaking) ruling class. 

The use of French by the ruling classes continued into the 13th and 14th centuries, by which time French was the official language of the royal courts, diplomacy, the law, administration and trade – meaning that ambitious English people had no choice but to learn French in order to take part in official or legal processes. 

Cerquiglini says that half of all English’s borrowings from French took place between 1260-1400, with a heavy slant towards words related to nobility, trade, administration or the law.

But a large group of non-native speakers meant that the French spoken in England was already starting to evolve, and the French words ended up with different pronunciations or even a different meaning. 

As early as 1175, the records show a Frenchman in England snootily remarking that: “My language is good, because I was born in France”. 

English and French started to part ways from the mid-1400s, by which time the two countries no longer shared royalty (the last English possession in France, the port of Calais, was lost to the French in 1558) and gradually systems such as the law courts and trade began to be conducted in English.

French remained widely spoken as a second language by the nobility and the elite right up until the early 20th century and French is still the most widely-taught language in UK schools.

The similarities

It’s not always easy to distinguish between English words that have a French root and those that have a Latin root, but linguists estimate that around 29 percent of English words come from French, another 29 percent from Latin, 26 percent from German and the rest from other languages.

But many of the English words that do have a clear French root are related to nobility, administration, politics and the law.

For example the French words gouvernement, parlement, autorité and peuple are clearly recognisable to English speakers. Likewise budget, revenus, enterprise and taxe, plus avocat, cour, juge, magistrat and evidence.

Amusingly, the French and the English obviously found time to share many insults, including bâtard [bastard], crétin, imbecile, brute and stupide.

Adaptation

But most of the people in England who were speaking French did not have it as their mother tongue, so the language began to adapt. For example the French à cause de literally translates into English as ‘by cause of’ which over time became the English word ‘because’.

There are also words that started out the same but changed their meaning over time – for example the English word ‘clock’ comes from the French ‘cloche’ (bell), because in the Middle Ages church bells were the most common method of keeping track of the time for most people.

When the mechanical clock began to appear from the 14th century onwards, the French used a new term – une horloge – but the English stuck with the original.

The differences

One of the big differences between English and French is that English simply has more words – there are roughly 170,000 words in the English language, compared to about 135,000 in French.

And at least part of this comes from English being a ‘blended’ language – that English people hung on to their original words and simply added the French ones, which is why you often get several different English words that have the same translation in French eg clever and intelligent both translate into French as ‘intelligent’.

Another difference represents the class divide that the Norman invasion imposed between the French nobles and the English labourers.

For example the words pig and cow both have Anglo-Saxon roots, while pork and beef come from French (porc and boeuf) – so when the animal is in the field being looked after by English peasants it has an Anglo-Saxon name, but by the time it is on the plate being eaten by posh people, it becomes French.

There’s also a tendency in English for the more everyday words to have Anglo-Saxon origins while the fancier words have French origins – eg to build (English) versus to construct (French). In French construire is used for both. Or to feed (English) versus to nourish (French) – in French both are nourrir.

Faux amis

One consequence of English and French being so closely linked in the bane of every language-learner’s life – les faux amis (false friends).

These are words that look and sound very similar, but have a completely different meaning. If you don’t know the French word for something you can have a stab at saying the English word with a French pronunciation – and often you will be right.

But sometimes you will be wrong, and sometimes it will be embarrassing.

READ ALSO The 18 most embarrassing French ‘false friends’

Often, faux amis are words that have changed their meaning in one language but not the other – for example the French word sensible means sensitive, not sensible – which is why you can buy products for peau sensible (sensitive skin).

But it once meant sensitive in English too – for example in the title of Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility – over time the meaning of the English word adapted but the French one stayed the same.

The title

And a word on that title – La langue anglaise n’existe pas, C’est du français mal prononcé (the English language does not exist, it’s just badly pronounced French) is actually a quote from former French prime minister Georges Clemenceau.

He did apparently speak English, but doesn’t appear to have been very fond of England itself – his other well-known quote on the topic is: “L’angleterre n’est qu’une colonie français qui a mal tourné” – England is just a French colony gone wrong.  

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