BREXIT, Brawling and the Value of People

We had some sad news this week; the lovely quincaillerie is closing in March.

You may have read little comments in my previous posts about this wonderful treasure trove on our doorstep and the warm people who run it. I went in there the other day to buy some diy resources and was asking about whether I could order some paint in the future. It’s been a struggle to get my head around the fact that I didn’t need to, and in fact shouldn’t, travel all the way into town to buy diy resources when I could just walk across the street. I guess the fact that we all seem to have moved away from local stores have developed unconscious habits in us.

As I was talking to the woman, one half of the husband and wife team that owned the shop, she told me that after March they would be closing. So if I hadn’t ordered by then….

It took a little while for what she was saying to sink in – language fog. When I realised what she meant I asked if they were retiring. No, the business and the bills associated with it had meant that they were having to shut their doors.

I was so sad for them. I had told her how my parents had owned a little grocers store in the uk when I was young. Then when supermarkets became more the norm their business dwindled to a trickle, and eventually that trickle was not enough to sustain our families in spite of our small lifestyle.

It’s for that reason I had been making the effort to retrain myself to use this business.

In France the people are warm, but the formality of yester-year still remains. In business settings and on first introducing yourself it’s often Monsieur and Madame. There is, of course, the formal vous. There is no spilling of your secrets when you are first introduced to someone in a way to gain their confidence and friendship. In fact, if you want to turn down an invitation to somewhere there isn’t even a need to share the reasoning; I can’t is enough.

However the similarity between my parents business’ demise and this little shop’s struck me. I actually held the woman’s hand as she handed me something; “Je suis désolée”. I explained how I had tried to get in the habit of going there, and was sorry that I hadn’t come more. She replied, with sadness, “Mais, vous êtes venue”.

In the UK we have watched as villages and towns have been ripped apart. The big businesses that promise so much in price and efficiency (and I’m as guilty for this as anyone) have cost us so much more in the long run.

This brings me to my second topic. Brexit.

I didn’t vote for Brexit: I had my qualms about the democratic nature of the EU, but I wouldn’t have voted out as I knew I would be voting with my feet anyway. I knew I intended to come here to live, if need be on an Irish passport. So I felt it was not my right to vote on such a long-standing issue just prior to leaving the country.

On the other hand, even though I doubted the EU’s democratic nature, I evidently liked the idea of an EU. I was very sad when the vote was returned as leave and empathise with those upset by the result.

Yet here on the other side of the channel some things strike me.

It appears we are watching the Thatcher years unfold here in France. As firemen have now started to fight with policemen in the year long battle with the gilet jaunes, I’m reminded of sitting at home and watching on the television as miners burned wood to keep warm, fighting for the survival of their way of life when I was a young girl.

That way of life died and with it the towns and counties surrounding it. The consequences of which has echoed down through the generations and even those people who will readily accept that the one has led to the other have contributed, in part, to how the legacy of that has led to Brexit itself.

It seems to me that for years it’s been enough to put a tick in the right box come election time, to post the rights comments on Facebook and to rubbish ‘the Tories’ as a means to dismiss any collective guilt we have for families and communities to be left behind.

People never wanted hand outs from the government. They wanted the dignity of work and a means to hold their head high through their own efforts.

We talked of being in solidarity with these people, then we bought cheap produce from a global market.

We talked of saving the environment and bought ‘stuff’ that cost little in money, but the earth and our fellow man in reality.

Even with the intention of changing my habits, decades of consumer behaviour has made it harder for me to change.

Living here in France I hope to contribute to this country and learn from a society where, until recently, social solidarity has meant a lived, every day experience. If ou are howling about you and your families diminished opportunities today, may I ask if this is a lesson you need to learn?