La Vie: A year in rural France

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Kedward quite rightly calls French education "the main vector of a unifying culture", consciously asserting the risks of losing what was so painfully and often violently fought for. The French are acutely aware (this is part of their anti-Americanism) of the difference between their enlightenment republic and the far more powerful version across the Atlantic - for the cause of which France bankrupted itself before its own revolution: America kept religion, enabling a return in recent years to the worst period of messianic empire-building and the assertion of an aggressive individualism which excludes the poor. For the French republic is also the interventionist state - thanks in part to the solid strength of the communists among the working class as well as among writers and intellectuals before and after the war: hospitals are excellent, trains run on time, city centres are relatively clean and civilised (though media-bloated insécurité has become a recent obsession). Economic liberalism, and France's various recessions, now threaten one of the most cherished values of the republic: to care materially for its citizens. It reminded me all over again of why I threw up everything for the magic of La Belle France' Carol Drinkwater, author of The Olive Farm The idiom is so widely recognized that it titles various works in popular culture. In 1965, duo Sonny & Cher released “Sing c’est la vie” while the band Stereophonics came out with their own “C’est La Vie” in 2015. John Lewis-Stempel has permanently moved to France and become a self-sufficient farmer in the Charente region, living in extremely rural France or “la France Profonde”. A number of English-language books about French life and culture incorporate c’est la vie in their titles, such as the 2017 self-help book C’est La Vie: The French Art of Letting Go.

The rise and fall of the communists, the parti des fusillés, makes up one of the most interesting threads, along with the fortunes of the left in general. Kedward is sympathetic to the left's cause, while the right (most of it on the left side of Tony Blair) fares less well. Giscard d'Estaing's attempt at meeting the left in the centre draws Kedward's admiration, however, while a kind of subliminal despair is reserved for the anti-semitic extremism of the Front National's predecessors - groups such as Action Française or the Croix-de-Feu in the 30s, which made Vichy possible and thus the zealous deportation of more than 75,000 Jews to near-certain death.

I first heard of Lewis-Stempel through my subscription to The Times newspaper. He writes some of the nature watch pieces. Don’t get me started on her sisters, especially Lily. Actually, let me rephrase that. Don’t get me started on her Mom. Goodness gracious, they were all unbearable and Rose definitely should’ve cut all ties. It’s an unhealthy dynamic all around that clearly is serving nobody. The rituals of rural France, whether queuing for a baguette or sipping a noisette (espresso with a ‘nut’ of milk) while watching the world go by, are effective barriers to the rush of modern times. Somehow, in France, at least outside of Paris, Marseille and Lyon, there is still time. Time to be. Time to do nothing at all.

This book is good. I do feel like the first half is very dense and in some points, it becomes a little repetitive. I think the book could’ve been shorter and at the same time I felt like there were some parts of the book that were incomplete. The second half was really good. The “mystery” was interesting, and I wish it was mentioned or talked about more. Sometimes rural France is older still. While we were house-hunting and renting the mill in the hedged bocage of northern Deux-Sevres the birdsong was of medieval intensity. Here, in our corner of woods and arable fields in eastern Charente-Maritime, we are at Renaissance level. The most dramatic shift in society and culture is the post-war, post-colonial "transformation of France from rural to urban" - the ending of a traditional, still Catholic-based society in "a choreography of affluence": consumerism, in other words, happening in the context of a multicultural, globally porous environment which France is doing its best to accommodate. This marvellous book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand why the survival of the French republic is more than one country's concern. Lewis-Stempel’s best book in an age; my favourite, certainly, since Meadowland. I’m featuring it in a summer post because, like Peter Mayle’s Provence series, it’s ideal for armchair travelling. Especially with the heat waves that have swept Europe this summer, I’m much happier reading about France or Italy than being there. The author has written much about his Herefordshire haunts, but he’s now relocated permanently to southwest France (La Roche, in the Charente). He proudly calls himself a peasant farmer, growing what he can and bartering for much of the rest. La Vie chronicles a year in his quest to become self-sufficient. It opens one January and continues through the December, an occasional diary with recipes. The deepest division is not just between "right" and "left", as it was until recently in Britain, but between revolutionary and counter-revolutionary, secular Jacobin and Catholic royalist, still impassioned by the legacy of the revolution. Only recently has consensus, along with non-party issue politics and both localised and European campaigns, blurred the divide - the symbolic moment being perhaps the sinking of the Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior by the French secret services under a socialist government in 1985.He has moved with his family, dogs, and various animals. The aim is to reconnect with nature, to farm for the person rather than for money, and to become at least 50% self-sufficient by the end of the year. I watch Jean-Francois make his way from the Boulangerie to the Maisonette de la Presse. A journey of fifty yards, but it takes Jean-Francois quarter of an hour. A former notary in his early seventies, Jean-Francois shakes hands or bisous five different men and women - France is the republic of handshakes and kisses - and exchanges greetings, gossip and news with them all. These same people then greet and talk with others in a slow, slow quadrille.