A lifetime love of France, from childhood to now

It feels slightly odd to write this because, being English, I grew up feeling we’re never really supposed to admit when we’re rather fond of the French. I can’t quite explain why. Some hangover from the war, perhaps, or from the moment de Gaulle told us we weren’t welcome in the European Economic Community. Twice, just to make the point.

Whatever the origin, it lodged itself somewhere in the British psyche and the media has kept up this polite, good-natured grumble ever since, even though half the country still pours over the Channel the moment school breaks up. Though for my generation, something else quietly softened that stance. Arsène Wenger and then Thierry Henry arriving at Arsenal, Eric Cantona redefining what a footballer could be. Suddenly the French weren’t aloof or awkward. They were intelligent, stylish, principled and just a little bit dangerous. That shifted something too.

For me, France was part of life long before I understood any of that. I went a few times as a kid and those memories remain sharp. Camping near Saint-Tropez in a place that smelled of pine and hot dust. Long, shimmering days where everyone ate too much bread and even a can of Orangina felt impossibly glamorous.

Then Brittany, in a little gîte with stone walls, damp mornings and that wonderful sense of being somewhere both familiar and entirely other. I was younger than ten and spent a lot of days looking for crabs and the odd Second World War bullet cartridge in the beach rock pools, but something stuck. A mood, a quieter, slower kind of summer.

The Eiffel Tower and the Louvre came soon after, on another trip entirely. I’m fairly sure my sister got her first camera for her tenth birthday, which she then used to photograph absolutely everything. And then a bit later, my first ski trip with school at fifteen to Les Deux Alpes via a flight to Grenoble.

A neighbour just two kilometres away

These days France is practically down the road. The border sits two kilometres from our house in Basel. Popping over for lunch or a slightly unruly supermarket shop doesn’t feel like travel. It feels like stepping sideways into another rhythm.

And that rhythm has always suited me. I started learning French at ten in a draughty classroom where our teacher rolled her r’s as if auditioning for the Comédie-Française. Somehow it stuck. Even now, when I cross into Alsace, those old phrases float back up.

Living on the border, there’s a shift the moment you enter France. One minute you’re gliding through Swiss precision, the next you’re easing towards Colmar or le Markstein near the Grand Ballon with your shoulders dropping of their own accord. Then come the places that have settled themselves in my imagination. Annecy, the postcard that never fades. The Presqu’île de Giens, long and windswept. Dijon with its unshowy elegance. Arcachon with its wide Atlantic light.

France teaches its history quietly

And then there are the places I’ve experienced for different, heavier reasons. Places where you fully understand why the European Union is so essential. Verdun, where the weight of futile death lingers in the soil. The Somme, where the landscape still seems to breathe fragments of Owen’s doomed youth. The Normandy beaches, impossibly peaceful now yet carrying more history than most of us can hold. The Maginot Line, both ingenious and tragic. And closer to home, the trenches at Hartmannswillerkopf, where the air feels thick with memory. Walk those paths and the past gently taps your shoulder. France teaches its history not with drama but with atmosphere.

The Paris that almost became home

Of all the what-ifs I’ve collected over the years, one of them sits here. I once had the chance to work in Paris but chose another option instead. Every so often I still wonder how life might have looked if I’d taken it. Not regret, exactly. More the soft curiosity of a road not taken.

And Paris, of course. I’ve been so many times now that it’s edging towards feeling as familiar as London. Yet it never loses its charge. Even the first bars of La Marseillaise drifting across a TV screen can still give me the same small spark you feel when the Eiffel Tower appears around a corner. That little lift in the ribcage. It never gets old and the best Christmas I’ve had as an adult in 2024 involved taking the kids there for the first time followed by a weeks skiing in Megève (so Emily in Paris).

Familiarity, food and the old dance between us

The food ties it all together. For all the mythology around French cuisine, I’ve realised I like it simple. A Quiche Lorraine, Vol au Vents, Tarte Flambée or a Croque Monsieur and I’m heureux comme un cochon dans la boue. Comfort masquerading as lunch.

But the affection runs deeper than the food. It’s the shared threads. Their devotion to rugby and football. The way a Six Nations match becomes a village-scale event. The war memorials in every town, tended quietly as part of daily life rather than a once-a-year obligation. It mirrors home. Normandy lanes that could pass for Sussex. Windswept coasts that feel like Cornwall with better bread. Centuries of tangled history binding the two countries more tightly than either will admit.

This is the France I love. Not just the glossy postcard but the lived-in version. The one I knew in that Brittany gîte. The one just two kilometres down the road now. A place that feels both foreign and faintly like home, nudging you to slow down, breathe and enjoy whatever quietly lovely thing happens to be in front of you.