Nope, it’s not about President Sarkozy’s diminutive stature which the French ridicule almost as much as we do. The fact that he wears Cuban heels with high insoles is not the problem. The problem is that he married a 6ft ex-model who has to wear flat shoes when she would look great in high heels. That’s the crime.
It’s not about the credit crunch either. France keeps its problems pretty close to its chest. We (aaaagh – we ???) don’t shout about it like Gordon Brown does in a vain attempt to lift his flagging stature as a statesman. OK, the housing market has slowed, but that’s mainly the Brits who see their pound losing value by the day and who are waiting to get €1.40 to the pound before they come back into the market.
Nope – it’s about the ‘yellow vest’.
France, it seems to me, passes laws on a whim. A couple of years ago they passed a law which said everyone with a pool had to have a fence around it. If you didn’t do it you could face a fine of up to €40,000 by the secret police, so everybody (except me) went out and bought a fence. Despite the fact that there were no real specifications about the fence you needed, multiple firms managed to sell hundreds of thousands of fences to the unsuspecting, attempting-to-be-law-abiding public. A few years later the specs came out and yes, most of those who bought a fence had to change them because they weren’t up to spec! Good ol France !
Then, this year we had the ‘yellow vest law’ where each vehicle had to have a yellow, reflective vest and a red warning triangle in the vehicle. The vest had to be kept inside the car (or truck or whatever) so that, in the event of a breakdown, you had to put on your vest before you got out in order to place your warning triangle 30 metres behind the car. On the face of it, a good, sensible law but one I suspect which had more to do with the French economy getting a €250 million boost overnight than any attempt at motoring safety. It’s all very well being protected by a bright yellow vest when you break down but what about the idiots who travel so close to you that you think you’ve got a trailer attached? They don’t do anything to stop that. I’ve now devised my own method of sorting out these idiots. In daylight, I gradually slow down until I’m almost at a stop and it really gets up their gallic noses. In darkness, I simply switch out my lights and imagine the panic which goes through the idiot’s mind as the car he (or she) is trailing simply disappears – dangerous but hilarious!
So- the big debate. It’s about the fact that thousands upon thousands of yellow-vest drivers now put their vest on the spare seat like you would hang a jacket on it to stop it getting creased. It doesn’t really bother me – I just think they’re stupid but this is what the debate is about. It was even brought up in the Time’s French Correspondent’s blog the other day. There are numerous on-line forums protesting about the practice. It’s a big talking point.
I reckon, for those who do it, it’s a way to try and prevent the police pulling you over for a check to see if you’ve got a jacket, the rationale being that if the Police see one hanging over the passenger seat, they are less likely to stop you and ‘do’ you for having bald tyres or no MOT. But I’m sure reverse logic applies here. If I was a Policeman and I saw some pratt with a yellow vest showing, I’d simply assume that there was something wrong with the car and I’d pull them over.
It’s almost as hilarious as the law in California where if you have a passenger in the car you can use special lanes which are less congested, and so each Californian went out and bought a blow-up dummy to try and convince the highway patrol that there were two people in the car. Being California, of course, there was no shortage of retailers selling blow up men or women!
And so I have my vest, tucked away in the underseat compartment and my triangle in the boot. J says however, that some of my sweaters and shirts mean that I have no need of a bright, yellow vest! Bah humbug!
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