How French culture is adapting to the coronavirus crisis

As president Macron put it in this speech: “we are at war”.

We are now in a global pandemic in which we are all fighting against a sneaky, invisible, pervasive enemy.

To fight this enemy, all we need to do is stay home, meet no one and wash our hands.

But us French are famous for going to cafés everyday, kissing everyone we meet and disrespecting the rules.

How are we coping with this?

That’s what I’m sharing with you today. Specifically, I will share 4 different ways that the French are adapting to this unique situation.

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Measures taken in the European Union

I’m French myself, but I have been living abroad for almost 10 years. That gives me a particular, hopefully less biased look on my own culture. I live in Vienna, Austria, so I also get to see differences between two European cultures. It’s only about 1000 kilometers away, but man it’s pretty different.

You can think of the European Union a bit like the US: there’s a federal governement which no one really cares about, a bunch of countries who make their own laws, and no borders in between. One big difference is that most of us don’t even know who’s president of the EU because that changes every six months, while unfortunately, we all know who’s president of the US.

So each country is taking their own emergency measures, and trying to find ways to flatten that curve. The goal is to make the locals stick to social distancing as much as possible, even if their culture may not help at all.

Right now I’m very grateful that I live in Vienna, Austria. I get to walk around as much as I want. I just need to make sure that I’m alone and stay more than one meter away from everyone else.

The police are making sure that people aren’t meeting in groups, but if they find a group, they just tell them to go home.

Meanwhile in France, you need a certificate to even go outside of your home. You can write your own certificate but it needs to feature the day & time of your outing, and a valid reason, such as going to non-avoidable work, basic grocery shopping or helping a person in need.

If the police catches you outside without a certificate, or if the reason on it isn’t valid according to them, you’ll have to pay €135 (US$ 145). And €200 (US$ 216) if they catch you more than once.

Contrary to the Austrian, the French aren’t prone to respecting the rules just because they are told to.

So there are a lot more sanction & coercive measures in the French culture because of that.

You can see a similar trend in the subways. If you’ve been to Paris, you’ve seen these machines that only let you through if you insert your ticket, one person at a time. In Vienna, we just walk onto the plateforms with no restrictions at all. When there’s a control, almost everyone has a ticket.

Sometimes even fines & bad consequences doesn’t stop the French from breaking the rules. But maybe it would help if the message came from someone they trust.

So 80 French youtubers among the most influential have come together to create this video, telling people to Rester chez vous! (Stay at home!)

The video was then posted on all 80 of their channels. This brings me to my next point:

A wealth of video creation

Overall, when you’re stuck at home, you tend to use the internet a lot, and so do the French. Right now many new videos appear around the topic of quarantine, epidemics etc. (Actually this article+video combination is part of the trend too!)

This trend is the perfect opportunity for me to recommend some more content for your daily French bath. You didn’t think I’d make an article without sneaking in some daily French bath, did you?

By the way, if you’ve never heard of the daily French bath, here’s a video where you can learn all about it.

I’ve found 4 different categories of French YouTube videos that are inspired by the corona virus situation.

Informational videos

For example, Hugo Décrypte makes a video every day with verified information about all that’s going on during the pandemic.

This is very needed. A recent statistic states has shown that 26% of the French believe that coronavirus was created in a lab. This is course is completely untrue, and the rumor was already debunked but some people still believe in it.

2. Advice for people in quarantine

For example, here is a video about what to do at home by La vie en Rousse:

Or a video about how to cope when several people are in quarantine in a small space, by Vivre avec:

3. Funny videos just to have a laugh

The huge channel Topito definitely rocks in this category. They are constantly innovating, and bring us daily videos that just help release the tention.

For example, they’ve made funny videos showcasing the non-glorious daily life of the French who are stuck at home, what they do and what they think.

They also creates videos with funny fake subtitles, such as “advice to the French” by Vladimir Poutine or Kim Jung Un. Obviously this has nothing to do with what they’re actually saying, but the French don’t understand Russian or Corean.

4. Serious videos about various topics

French experts (just like myself) take this opportunity to shed a particular light on their expertise.

For example, Stan Leloup of Marketing Mania explains why we didn’t see it coming & the cognitive biases at play:

Thibault Giraud, a.k.a Monsieur Phi explains medical ethics and how to make ethical decisions when we cannot take care of all the patients:

Time for l’apéro!

Once the French have spent a big part of their day with their computer, either working from home or doing their best to keep themselves entertained, it’s time for l’apéro.

You know! L’apéro, the holy practice of going to a café, or visiting a friend and having drinks before dinner.

Yes, we can’t go out, and yes friends can’t come in, but we aren’t going to cancel l’Apéro!

Now, we have l’Apéro-Skype, also known as Skypéro.

It’s the 3rd way the French adapt to the being stuck at home: take out the chips, crakers and beverages of your choice, bring them next to the computer and talk to your loved ones via skype at the same time. It’s almost as good as the real thing.

As you might now, a descent apéro typically has no end-time and it might well last until 8pm, which is when your next French corona activity is scheduled.

At 8pm, clap your hands!

Every day at 8 pm, French people open their windows or get on their balconies and they just clap their hands. Here’s some footage of this happening in Paris.

Why do they clap?

Well because, not everyone is fighting this war by staying at home and coping with social isolation. So we clap for those who are doing the actual fighting: our medical staff.

Over the past weeks the situation has become more and more critical, with a lack of materials and supplies, and saturated hospitals. It’s becoming harder and harder for the medical staff to do their job and keep themselves safe, but they keep fighting courageously nonetheless. So every day at 8pm, French people clap to celebrate, thank and encourage these heros.

The trend started in Spain and has since spread to other European countries like Portugal & Switzerland where the population is also in home quarantine.

If you're in home quarantine as well, maybe you can adopt this practice too.

I hope you’re enjoying this article and the insights into the French culture.

There are many other things that the French do; but I had to leave them out because it would have got way too long. So if you’d like more videos & articles like this one, let me know in the comments and I’ll make a part 2.

Are you stuck at home too?

If you are currently at home, here is the perfect article + video for you to discover next. It will give you 6 things you can do right now, to make the most of your environment & learn French from home.