Fosse and Bother - France - page 162

Fosse and Bother
La Rentrée is a major week in the French calendar. It's huge. It is much more than just the
start of the new school year, it's like the whole country is drawing a line under the grandes
vacances and everyone must knuckle down again. Not only do the kids go back to school, but
everybody else comes back from holiday too and if not literally, then mentally. La Rentrée is
a mindset: it's like New Year, a new beginning, a fresh start.
However, living in rural France means that, as far as business is concerned, there is very little
difference between Les Vacances and La Rentrée anyway, and that's a good thing. It's quiet
and sleepy and that's just the way I like it, it's why we moved here. You can tell it's La Rentrée,
however, because the lunchtime news, in its continuing battle to ignore anything that happens
outside of France, stops showing reports of booming French resorts and their markets that can
barely cope with the demand for locally produced moules and now starts showing reports of
French resorts unwinding in the late summer sun where locally produced moules are in plenti-
ful supply. By far the biggest staple of French lunchtime news during La Rentrée, however, is
the evergrowing size of a child's cartable , and I'm with them on this.
The cartable is the school bag, traditionally a satchel-shaped affair worn as a rucksack and
which carries the child's books for the year. They are enormous and they cost a fortune. The
first day back at school is different here; whereas children elsewhere may be comparing train-
ers or something, French kids are comparing their cartables ; the size, the shape and whether
it is an officially endorsed product of this week's fad, Beyblade, Ze Voice, etc. none of which
will still be fashionable by the end of the school year. They are big business and at between
€40 and €70 aren't cheap, and every year they get bigger; news bulletins regularly broadcast
reports desperately concerned for the future of the French backbone as the pressure on small
children's frail bodies as they return to school is very real. These reports are always accom-
panied by soft-focus images of small kids entering the school gates with these enormous, wide
wingspan bags on their backs like they're wearing gaudy, slap-on wings, and having to turn
sideways to get through the door.
They're right to be concerned too, these bags are utterly ridiculous, but after nearly nine
weeks at home with their offspring you'll find very few parents moaning that vociferously
about how it's affecting their kids. Nobody is keeping their child at home for fear of potential
spine damage; the summer holiday is over, they're glad of a bit of peace.