A wee bit of French cultural advice

We had lived in France for a matter of weeks when it first happened, and my wife and I were both speechless. A gentleman from EDF turned up as promised in his blue van, to come and do some preliminary work on our antiquated and borderline dangerous electrical system. He parked at the end of our driveway, and I acknowledged his arrival with a businesslike wave that said "I can see you’ve arrived". He got out of the van, un-zipped his overall trousers and took a leak at the edge of our garden.

Now nobody would describe us as refined and reserved people, but frankly we didn’t know what to make of it. "Why didn’t he just ask to use the toilet?" I whispered as we stood trying not look like it had bothered us at all. It turns out that this is not just an accepted part of the French male culture, it is practically a birthright.

This was best illustrated at the British Open Golf Championship this year at Royal Birkdale, where one Benjamin Herbert, a promising young French golfer, thought nothing of nipping away off the 6th fairway and dropping his strides, despite the presence of large crowds and many TV cameras. Many French Golf fans expressed shame at his actions, but why should they have taken the moral high ground when it is a well documented fact that French men prefer to pee outdoors.

In Paris, nipping for a scoot against a wall is considered a growing problem, so much so that architects have come up with ‘le mur anti-pipi’, a wall with an undulating form that fires the urine back at the offender. This following a growing realisation that the streets are starting to reek a bit.

I’m no saint. After trying to drink my own body-weight in premium lager, I have occasionally transgressed and nipped down a side alley in Newcastle to relieve myself, but in general we British are just too polite and refined to wee in public. It just isn’t the British way. We form orderly queues, drink tea and talk about the weather a lot.

There is a little-known condition called Paruresis, or shy bladder syndrome, which affects many people in the UK. So much so that there is a UK Paruresis Trust, a charity which offers support to sufferers who are not just unwilling, but are unable to wee in public, even in a public convenience. Just standing next to someone at the next urinal momentarily stops the function of the bladder. I doubt that my French friends would give the idea any credence at all.

I’ve played Sunday league football in and around Newcastle for many years, and therefore feel there is little that would shock me in terms of the behaviour of men, so why is it that it just feels wrong to take a leek outdoors? Indeed, at a Bastille Day party, I was openly ridiculed by fellow males for having used the portaloo at the edge of the field. Like I was letting the side down.

I’ve been at a local hunting-club banquet where a number of the gentlemen forewent the offer of a moderately clean toilet, to brazenly leave the building to relieve themselves in the car park. When I asked why one of the men hadn’t just used the toilet, as after all it was closer, he gave a typical Gallic shrug and said that he just preferred it.

To sum up, if you’re a man who wants to fit-in living amongst fellow men here in rural France, then frankly you’d better get used to publicly splashing your boots at social gatherings.

Richard Stewart writes for www.guide2poitoucharentes.com - the number one guide site for the sunniest region on the French Atlantic coast.

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