No part of springtime in France is more fun than the long and lovely month of June. Nationwide, the calendar is full of cultural events, fairs, vide greniers and music in the streets.

No part of springtime in France is more fun than the long and lovely month of June. Nationwide, the calendar is full of cultural events, fairs, vide greniers and music in the streets.

From Fêtes de la Musique and Cinema and open air opera to Marseille’s Garde’n Blues Festival, a Fairy Tale Festival in Bordeaux to Gay Pride and Nice’s Festival of Sacred Music, the events on offer are so diverse, there is something for everyone.

It’s truly the time of year when we expats remember why we came, and why we stay. And it’s also the perfect time of year for the newcomers amongst us to get out and about and meet some of the natives.

Whether you chose your expat status or whether it chose you, you’ll probably agree that it takes a certain kind of person to live abroad, to assume the life of a foreigner. Apart from a predisposition for adventure, you also have to relish the prospect of new challenges. And as we all know, making friends is the first and the most enduring challenge, in whatever part of France you live.

Whether you prefer to hang out at le Frog ‘n Rosbif or on the local golf course exchanging news of home; whether you’re someone whose accent makes you blush just asking for a baguette; or whether you’re an expat of long duration who’s chosen a way of life somewhere far from home precisely because that’s where you feel the most at home, your first point of reference will usually be a community of other foreigners.

These days, we’re everywhere, from Normandy villages and Left Bank lofts to Alpine ski schools and Dordogne farmhouses and, it seems, we’re here to stay. I’m only one of nearly five million British men and women who now live abroad. According to figures released by the British Foreign Office last year, 300,000 of us live in France , while published estimates of the number of Americans living in Paris range between 100,000 and 200,000.

Now that’s a lot of bad pronunciation for our civilised hosts to tolerate. But as we all know, there are certain advantages to speaking a foreign language. Indirectly, the confidence you lack as a French speaker may mean you’re more inclined to listen and observe, to prompt speech in others rather than to hold forth. A certain linguistic camouflage makes it harder to pigeonhole people – their origins and social status – and be pigeonholed.

Expatica is now one of many websites and online forums that offer readymade communities and a variety of ways in which you can get to meet fellow foreigners. But as any longterm foreigner will tell you there’s nothing more effective than simply taking the plunge – getting out there and talking to people.

A perfect introduction to your local community and a lot of fun at this time of year are the vide greniers – whether you want to buy, sell or simply observe. More modest affairs than the street brocantes and more intimate than the overwhelming puces, the vide grenier (literally ‘empty attic’) is closer in spirit to our car boot or jumble sales and has a unique neighbourhood feel.

Last Sunday I met with friends for a vide grenier at a favourite bobo haunt – la rue Marie et Louise in the 10th arrondissement. The terraces of the surrounding cafes and restaurant were spilling over, an orchestra of ukuleles kept the non-shoppers entertained, while hundreds of small children – further proof, if any were needed, of France’s baby boom – mooched among the wares. It couldn’t have felt more local. Yet of the many people I spoke to only a handful were true-blue Parisians – I counted Portuguese, Canadians, Spaniards, Irishmen and Dutch women.

It’s hard to imagine that the origin of these now fashionable affairs dates back to banishment of the chiffonniers (or rag-and-bone men) to beyond the city walls, giving rise, of course, to the modern day flea markets which we find at the gates of the city at Clignancourt, Montreuil and de Vanves.

These days, flea markets, like foreigners, are no longer kept at the city limits – so now they’ve invited us in, lets make the most of it.

Copyright Expatica, updated June 2008

Subject: Life in France

photos PRA