Frenchparents Blog: For Parents with an interest in the French Culture

Here’s news about two good recent French movies playing in July in San Francisco.  The fact that they’re jewish is not central to me, the fact they’re good is!

Description  and playdates from the French Alliance in San Francisco:

• Mauvaise foi (Bad Faith)

Directed by: Roschdy Zem
Language: French, English subtitles

Clara and Ishmael are gorgeous, happy, in love and in Paris.

How nice is that? Like many cosmopolitan Parisian couples, the fact that she is Jewish and he is Muslim barely crosses the minds of these oh-so-secular lovebirds…until Clara announces that she’s pregnant.

That’s when the troubles start in this charming and timely romantic comedy whose title could have been “Guess Who’s Coming to Shabbos Dinner?”

- > For full schedule and prices, go to:
http://sfjff.org/festival_2007/film/472/

Co-presented by the Alliance Française de San Francisco.

• Screenings:

> Castro Theatre: July 22 2007 5:00pm
> The Roda Theatre: July 29 2007 6:45pm
> Aquarius Theatre: July 31 2007 6:15pm
> Smith Rafael Film Center: August 4 2007 6:30pm

• Comme t’y es belle! (Gorgeous!)

Directed by: Lisa Azuelos
Language: French, English and Hebrew subtitles

“Gorgeous!” really earns that exclamation point. In this tale set in the City of Lights, director Lisa Azuelos and her co-writers have crafted an inviting comic drama that celebrates the au courant Parisian woman. They’ve whipped up a coterie of breathtaking Sephardic femmes whose witty, rat-a-tat-tat dialogue crackles with energy.

The entire film vibrates with their smarts, charm, guile and not an insignificant amount of sex. Isa (Michele Laroque), Lea (Aure Atika), Alice (Valerie Benguigui) and Nina (Geraldine Nakache) are nobody’s fools as they stare down traditional gender roles, the tax system, the beauty business and the institution of marriage - such as it is in France.

- > For full schedule and prices, go to:
http://sfjff.org/festival_2007/film/484/

Co-presented by the Alliance Francaise de San Francisco.

France has a 4.5 day work week for students ( and their teachers). Meaning our dear little ones must rise and shine early on Wednesday morning, only to be asked to stay home after lunch time. Not very logical you have to admit. On the other hand they spend long days in school compared to a lot of Anglo Saxon countries: 8:30AM to 4 PM.
Some cities and private institutions demanded an end to this system and they can now choose to adhere to the ‘ Four Day School Week’, meaning in this case there is no school on Wednesday. These schools must then make up for the half days when the children are not being taught. The way this is done is unfortunately, as illogical as the 4.5 day School Week, most likely because the calendar is still set by the French Ministry of Education, an institution even Kafka would not have dreamed of…

For instance this year in those areas where the Four day School Week is in place, back to school day is Wednesday, August 29. Why shorten children’s summer and trouble parents who may have access to vacation rentals that run from one Saturday to the next?

Especially given that six weeks into the school year, arrives another 10 day vacation period for them, except this time its Fall, with its drizzle and cold in most areas of France. The dates are quite absurd as well: october 26 th to Thursday November 8th… Why not just break for a week? And why come back on a Thrusday? Make it a Monday!

I remember escaping to Washington, DC to see beautiful foliage and celebrate Halloween where its a fun time for kids the last time that break came around.. And of course, the children missed a couple days of school.

You want a country that likes things complicated? Choose France!

-> The official national school Calendar and a link to The Four Day School Week calendar by area ( in French)

Just so you know, the country is split up in three major zones ( A, B , C) with different school vacation dates, to limit the amount of people traveling for vacation at a given time…

E-Enfance is an association with a superb web site and blog and a new TV campaign here in France that seeks to inform the public of the dangers of letting children surf the Net without adult supervision. Far from representing a rejection of the Web, they embrace this technology, but simply wish to see it used wisely. They are sponsored in part by BNP Paribas, one of France’s major banks and the one behind a sort of think tank focused on high tech: L’Atelier.
Many parents in France don’t yet realize that letting their children surf the Web alone is akin to letting them loose on the street. E-Enfance points out some startling numbers. The group is also launching a TV campaign showing disturbing spots on the troubling encounters young people can make on the Internet.
TV spots from E Enfance:

• Tonight, Kevin and Arthur discover what S & * is on their computer screen

• Thanks to her blog, Olivia will appear on a po**o movie

Children’s Internet Use in France in 2005-2007:

* Internet

• 95% of 12 to 17 year olds surf the web and prefer it to television. (1)

• Nearly 50% of children access the Web without adult supervision.(4)

o 60% of 12 to 17 year olds use instant messenging and chats to make friends. (1)

* Mobile Telephony:

• 66% of 12 to 17 year olds use a cell phone. (2)

• With the development of multimedia features on cell phones, use of mobile internet access is exponential.

* Explosion of Online Gaming:

• 60% of chidren connected to the Web do online gaming. (3)

(1) Source : Credoc November 2006 and December 2004
(2) Source : ARCEP june 2005
(3) Source : European Council
(4) Source: Mediametrie study for a the French Education Ministry, December 2006

–> E-Enfance.org blog and TV spots ( in French)

France’s officials and many of its citizens often boast about the quality of their educational system. For one who’s a parents of primary level children here, in a priviledged area west of Paris and who was taught by this system about 30 years back, it’s quite distressing to see how low demands on children are on average today, in the 21th century.

Dozens of books have been published on this (links are below) , by concerned teachers, school principals, and researchers. Change is such a slow process here that despite the alarmingly low level of children coming out of the school system over the past tirty years, not much has been done to truly combat the bad habits a few doctrinaires enforced on the system in the 1970s.As was seen in the US at that time, they claimed that learning had to be fun, an activity of discovery. We have no problem with that, do we? However that does not mean that any sort of formal learning has to be eradicated from the teaching all together, does it? And that reading the classics also has to discarded as an activity from another era…

The consequences were that classes of 8 to 18 year olds starting studying what rappers lyrics were about or started choosing milk cartons as class reading material. Spelling has become a creative exercize in approximation for many youth who are taught to photograph words visually and learn them by heart rather than learn that ‘ b’ followed by ‘ a’ sounds like ‘ ba’. Teachers who refused to follow the Ministry’s official requests for this new approach to teaching were hindered in their carreers, even though their effects on children were clearly positive.
The most recent element on this topic is a study published by two university researchers, which indicates that Grade 7 students in France today have the same level of knowledge of spelling as Grade 5 students twenty years ago…

Links to elements - in French:

• A teacher-to-be’s blog, about the absurdity of the curriculum she is following and of the French educational system:

Le Billet de profette

On Amazon.fr:

• JM Le Bris’s Book titled: “Et Vos enfants ne sauront ni lire ni compter” (And your children will neither know how to read nor count)

• Danièle Manesse et Danièle Cogis : ‘”Orthographe, a qui la faute” (Spelling, Who’s Fault is it?)
• JP Brighelli : “La Fabrique à crétins” (The idiot factory: Failure of the School system)

How vicious can a company get with its customer in France seems to be the big game around here.

Internet access, cable TV and cell phone service providers seem to top the list, but banks are not bad either.

Take two cell phone providers I’ve tried so far (between 2004 and 2007).

One is Bouygues Telecom, the other is Neuf mobile.

Both (and all others to my knowledge) have the same great policy:

• When you’ re a prospective client, you can contact them for free,
• As soon as you indicate your wish to sign up, you’re charged for any attempt to contact them.

And I don’t mean peanuts, I mean phone numbers with a surcharge compared to a regular number! The rate these days is .34 Euros per minute, and the hold time is charged as well! Is that believable for my American reader? Probably not, yet its the trend here.

• I lost my cell phone after 3 years with Bouygues, and what do I get as a thank you? The option to get the lowest quality model for 30 euros with another year term contract, and to buy a new sim card at 25 euros!!

Can you imagine charging a current client 25 euros for a 1 euro component, when they have no cell phone and are prone to changing providers? Is that customer service or customer vice?

Of course changing is not so easy here because we are tied in to one year or two year contracts and owe whatever months are due on the contracts. But the feeling from clients is ” Hey, why so much hate?”

With Neuf Mobile I recently joined, it started earlier than with Bouygues. They indicate we should call a number with a .34 euros a minute charge or use their web site to register our phone once we receive it and get our number. I tried both, both automated systems told me I failed miserably in registering my phone. So I had to call the expensive customer service line again, wait to be put in touch with an operator, give my SIM card number yet again and wait, online, while Neuf kindly activated my phone. The rep did not seem one bit surprised by my call. What a vicious way to make a few extra dollars and lose all customer trust in the company at the same time…

As for Internet access providers, Club Internet, despite being considered better than others on customer service, regularly resets my connection without indicating this to me.

At the beginning I spent 45 minutes on the expensive customer help line to try and find the reason for the access failure - given they acted as if I was a retard and the connection had not worked already for months before quitting- and then I found out just reinstalling the software and restarting the ADSL modem got my connection up again. Isn’t that a pathetic, vicious attitude towards customers?

You have to live it to believe it, really…

I’m sure the Francophiles and French speakers among you are often wondering what smart and fun videos and DVds in French to get for your children? I mean DVDs and Videos where they might actually learn something and enjoy themselves.
Here’s a suggestion for ages 4 to 10 I recently discovered.

Its a series of shows available in DVD, VHS and now VOD (Video on Demand, from your PC) format and produced by the French television channel France 3. It’s called: ‘ C’est pas sorcier ‘ ( Translations could be: ‘It ain’t magic‘ or ‘ It ain’t rocket science‘).

They cover history, nature and science topics galore and have the truly unique characteristic, in particular for a French-made product(!) of being both extremely informative and fun to watch. Even us parents watch when they’re on, if that’s a good enough sign for you.

The three main individuals who narrate alternate live scenes and theoretical explanations with perfect timing so they don’t lose us. I’m a toughie for good content, be it for kids or adults, and trust me, this is good, quality stuff.

Some of the titles you can get (all are in French):

• A History of France ( from the middle ages to modern times)
• Beware, fragile planet
• A History of Civilization
• Volcanoes, Earthquakes and other Shakes
• The Human body
• Mountains
• Space (The Moon, the solar system, the stars…)
• Conquering the Sea

Prices for DVDs and VHS range from 17 euros (about $23 these days) to less for special 3 DVD packs priced at 27 euros ($35).

For VOD, a 26 mn episode can be downloaded for 4 euros. Nice to see their videos are apparently compatible with Windows Media PLayer 9 for MAC OS X.

- > C’est pas sorcier site

- > France Television online boutique C’est pas Sorcier section

- > Video on Demand for C’est pas sorcier

Have you given real thought to what your seven year old might stumble upon when peforming an Internet search for the world ‘ girl’, if she was looking for images of little girls to decorate a birthday party invitation? How about famous cartoon caracters that are used to attract them to sites having nothing to do with the characters. There was an incident in 2006 with Care Bears being used in this fashion on a site showing the bears battling it out…
Among the things missing today for me as a parent on the web is a search engine that would show only kid appropriate sites.

The limitations of child protection software

Yes, you can use child protection software to protect your children when they are surfing, by blocking improper sites. I find this a little cumbersome and necesarily imperfect. It first requires each individual family to acquire, install and configure the software. This is not which easy for all, for financial reasons, and in terms of comfort level with IT.

It also in my view either screens out too much or too little, since it only uses machine generated filtering and has the imperfections associated with this type of approach. Between two sites hat mention the word ‘ Girl’, the ‘machine’ will not know the difference between a site that has photos and text relating to sexual themes and a site that talks about girls education or activities for instance. Unless its truly well thought out, and includes other criteria to help select the proper from the improper sites. But I have my doubts as concerns screening out images. How does an automatic filter see the difference between an image acceptable to a child and another?

A search engine for kids to access the world safely, not a search engine for kids content

I ‘d like to see Yahoo, Google or AOL create a search engine to be used by kids specifically, where I ‘d feel safe sending them. This would not mean only kids’ related content would be on it à la Yahooligans. No thanks to sending my child content limited to the idea a corporation has of child-appropriate content, complete with commercials and product placement. No, I’d like my child to have access to the world, but a safe one, not the real one that we parents access with a Yahoo or Google search.

Common Sense Media non profit tracks quality of media for parents - and they’re liberal

I found a site that partially addresses this need. Its called Common Sense media, and is, you guessed it, out of my dear old San Francisco… Common Sense media has taken note of the fact our children are bombarded with media and that we as families are not very well equipped to manage these various media sources so we keep some control over what our children see and hear. They are not part of the Religious Right either! They provide an old fashioned editorial team’s review of movies, TV shows, web sites, and other media and rate them on criteria like sexual content, violence, commercialisme, message ( what is behind the entertainment?).

Pretty darn neat - and a .org too!

-> Common Sense Media site 

The French publisher Playbac Presse who pionneered the concept of a daily newspaper for kids starting age 5 (kindergarden) in France, just launched (in November 2006) MyDaily10.com, a daily news site for kids 8-10.

Just like its French paper cousin, this is a paid subscription-based service, starting at $8.99 for 4 weeks ( 20 issues).

My hunch is a lot of you would be quite interested in a French language online newspaper for your kids, either because they’re learning French in school or they’re native French speakers who need to keep up their French.

Am I wrong?

Some questions for you:

• What do you think will be the reaction of American families to this offer? Do you think they’ll go for it?

• Where do your kids go for news, if at all?

• What educational sites do you like to send your kids to? Watch for a post up soon on a good reference for sites for kids.

This publisher has about 200 000 old and new subscribers who were ready to pay $36.50 for a six months subscription ( for France). The price obviously skyrockets outside of France because of postage fees.
Quoti, Mon petit Quotidien, Mon Quotidien and L’Actu, which constitute the range of daily news titles covering ages 5 to 17, are also used by teachers in the classroom.

-> Info on the French kids dailies
- > MyDailyTen kids daily news site

The world truly is not sensitive to families’ needs, where no city or neighbourhood has thought of putting together a service for working parents so they can shop easily on Saturdays while their children play in a center designed to welcome them.

True, isn’t it strange this isn’t here yet? Could it be too many men with little responsability for managing children and the household have been in charge?

Why not put in place play centers housed in the cities’ day cares and schools that are today closed and empty on weekends? The initiative could be a joint one from city or neighbourhood officials and shop keepers and service providers. Parents might pay a reasonable fee. It could also be reduced based on the parents’ spending in the area, to encourage shopping.

Who’d win?

• Children: Instead of having to tag along in stores, they ‘d play with neighbouring children.
• Parents: they’d finally be able to purchase whatever it is they need, peacefully. Hell, they may even get some pleasure out of it!
• Shop owners and service providers: They’d get more relaxed clients, and would not have to monitor uncontroled movements from small humans around their precious merchandise.
• Public officials: They’d get hoorah’s from parents, maybe even a statue, and would surely get good press and visibility among their peers as innovators.

Mc Donalds and Ikea have long ago taken into account families’ needs, as has the Cyrillus clothing chain to a lower degree, with their small play area in its chic stores. These companies seem not to be faring too badly, do they?

Looking forward to the next generation finally taking the family out of its social ghetto…

The French are so spoiled. I didn’t consider myself spoiled before coming to the US, mind you. I thought I was paying so many taxes to the government, giving away all that hard earned cash to health care, social security, retirement and unemployment benefits for the unemployed plumbers of our land. But I was in fact, spoiled. Spoiled and nurtured like a baby, really. I didn’t need to think one instant about going to see a doctor or a dentist. I knew I wouldn’t have to pay a dime, and the doctor would normally see me within one to 3 days if there were an emergency. He might even come to my home if I requested it.

France was spoiling me so bad, making me totally ignorant about my own body’s manifestations. If I felt like something was not quite in place in the old machinery, I wouldn’t try to figure out what was wrong myself, I’d just go see a doctor- whichever doctor was appropriate for my illness of discomfort. No questions asked, no money downÖ

Americans are raised differently by Uncle Sam (isn’t it funny the US is represented by a man whereas France is embodied in a woman figure? There’s a cultural tip fur yaÖ). Their health care system is such that for the majority of them, getting sick is not a desirable option. Even for those fortunate enough to be able to have health coverage, the US has devised things like HMOs, PPOs and other Managed Care organizations that make choosing such coverage a headache.
Started out of the sensible notion that managing the way medical care was administered would be more efficient than letting individuals make their own health care decisions freely, the US allowed private insurance companies to handle its population’s health.

Whether in a company or at the individual level, one has to confront the different plans offered by these different types of organizations in order to decide which one will better suit one’s health care needs, both financially and from a quality of care point of view.

While HMOs offer the financial security of low payments, they force you into first seeing a General Practitioner (known as a PCP) before ever letting you see a specialist. This can take some time, so you will learn to tolerate painÖThey will also make you think twice before letting you see your general practitioner, asking you to contact a screening service (called an ‘Advice Nurse’) to help you determine whether you REALLY need to see someone or not. Furthermore, if your time is of limited value, you will not mind the long waits associated with seeing any doctor, be it a PCP or a specialist.

For those with a little more money or a greater need for freedom, there are PPOs. These plans warrant higher monthly premiums but in exchange, they will let you see an “in-network” specialist at will. You will only be partially reimbursed for your visit though (80% to 90%). Hey, this is a free country, but freedom has a price- around $ 2,000- $3000 a year in most cases! So does time. When you see a doctor as a PPO affiliate, you will generally barely have time to peruse the waiting room publications, and will be given ample time to explain your case to the benevolent practitioner.

Oh, and this is only for basic medical coverage. If you want to protect those teeth and those baby blues against any health conditions, you’ll have to choose additional coverage. Teeth are a luxury in today’s era of mushy fries, burgers, and milk shakes consumption, aren’t they?

What was I telling you about being spoiled? I was giving around 10% of my paycheck to state health insurance in France, but boy, did I save on aspirin for those headaches the US system is giving me, and on self-help books with titles like: “Fight for your health” or “The Every Day Remedy Book”. Well, on the positive side, I feel lucky its only aspirin I need, and I am becoming more self-sufficient every day. I now know what a yeast infection is, and what to take when I have a sore throat. (”Throat Coat” herbal tea really works!) If only my grandmother was around…