Mid-January to mid-February marks a special time to all people in France who care about their budget, which nowadays amounts to almost everyone that doesn't live in West Paris or isn't named Sarkozy. It is a glorious time of year featuring what is known as les soldes, or "the sales". This is unlike in the US, where one never knows when the real sales are going on unless there is a line of tents outside of Best Buy, and because WalMart's prices are always falling while Sears seems to come out every other week with its lowest prices of the season, whatever that means. In France, real, legitimate mark-downs of the 70% variety happen only twice a year - between January and February and again from mid-June to mid-July. You know this because it is regulated. Stores are not allowed to have sales at any other time without special permission from the authorities.
In her insightful book "60 Million French Can't Be Wrong", Julie Barlow explains this is leftover from the practices of the merchants' guilds in the Middle Ages. The guilds of that time served to protect merchants from competition from other villages by regulating prices. This was enforced by a sort of medieval policeman called the Provost. The Provost would enforce the law by breaking the legs of any offenders. The Provosts eventually evolved into today's local policemen. Today it is still the local authorities who insure that businesses can only reduce prices more than 10% during the approved periods, or else face severe penalties. These sales in France pre-date the founding of America. To go out and look around at the mall during this hallowed time is more than just shopping. It is participating in French history. At least that's what Dalene tries to tell me.
Since necessary things like shoes and coats and man-purses at normal prices in Europe usually require a decade-long layaway plan or government bailout to afford, these sales are something not to be missed. So typically on a day like today, the last Saturday of les soldes, we were out in minus-5 degree Celcius weather with the rest of the country, jammed into stores with interesting names like Babou, Tati, and LeClerc, which is kind of like a Super Walmart with a better bread selection and without AARP greeters.
Today, we happened to need to grab a quick lunch at KFC. Now most French will bad-mouth our American fast-food for its poor nutrition and quality, and rightly so. But all sense of taste must have gone out the window, because the lines were coming out the doors and there wasn't a seat in the house. This was also caused by the school winter holiday schedule. Different areas of France have their holidays staggered. But at least a third of the country's holiday makers at any one time, find themselves in our vicinity of southeastern France. All the skiers who had spent the week of the school holiday up on the slopes above Grenoble, were on their way home, while a new batch of snowboarders and sledders were coming from another part of France to take their place. And every one of them got hungry for the Colonel's secret recipe at the exact same time.
Skiers and shoppers, there we all were, brought together by an act of fate and the State. And yet there was no hate. Despite the crowds and the waiting, there were no angry outbursts or beligerent customers. Everyone seemed to take it in stride - even the dad who was getting up from the table to leave and had his drink knocked out of his hands and into his lap by an overanxious kid trying to sit down quickly to stake out the imminently vacated table. Maybe a lifetime of regulated sales and school holidays makes jostling crowds just part of the expected for the French. Long lines, traffic jams and spilled cokes tend to make most Americans have an aneurism. Maybe the French are experts at staying cool and composed. Either that, or they're still afraid of that Provost still lurking around somewhere.
