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When I planned my move to France, I partially imagined that I’d have French friends, and that we’d speak in French all the time: erudite conversations about new-wave cinema in late-night cafés and jokes about Sarkozy amidst Gauloise smoke. The reality so far has actually been more interesting, and introduced the dilemmas of being a “foreigner” in a strange land.

Thursday night tango at Place Saint-Anne, Montpellier

So far, all my friends in France speak English. Which is not to say we all speak English together often. But it is something we all have in common. My friends fall into three broad categories:

• British and American expats (they are unavoidable, and the ones I’ve met aren’t annoying)
• French citizens who are bilingual from birth (ie. they had an anglophone parent)
• French citizens who learnt English as a second language and may have spent time in anglophone countries

Conversations with all these people often take place in French, but sometimes we switch between English and French mid-stream, depending on the subject matter and whether we think one or the other language can express an idea (or tell a joke) better.

Context plays a role: for instance, it’s ridiculous to speak to my American or British friends in French, but if a francophone friend walks into the room, we’ll switch to French so we don’t seem like we’re rudely talking in a foreign language behind their back.

Abandoned shopfront, Montpellier

I’m coming to the conclusion that my relationships in this country will always pivot around the unavoidable fact that I am a foreigner, and an anglo-saxon to boot. Perhaps this is why my friends here all speak English – at some level they all relate to the challenge of sitting inside and outside a culture at the same time.

The nature of being a foreigner does not make friendships less genuine or more distant here. It’s just a question of becoming comfortable with your role as an intermediary between two languages and cultures. Given my accent and life experience, it’s impossible to be accepted as a French person, so it’s not worth trying. But in the end, I didn’t move to France to become French.

Maybe life in France is a bit like finding oneself in an ocean – swimming in French but breathing in English. Both languages are necessary to make progress and to stay afloat.

The mouth of the Hérault river at Grau d’Agde

Wanganui/Whanganui – a nice town. Pity the mayor talks without thinking.
(Image: JuergenSchulte)

Let’s rant for a few paragraphs about the apparent ignorance of Michael Laws, the mayor of Wanganui. He’s complaining about the New Zealand Geographic Board’s plans to consult the public on the names for the North and South Islands, which may (shock! horror!) involve officialising the Maori names for the islands, alongside English. Michael Laws claims that double-naming is impractical, disrespectful and not-done-elsewhere:

“Where else could you go in the world and the locals have actually two different names for everywhere?”

Well, um, lots of places. Especially in Europe. Bruxelles/Brussel has got along fine for years with names in both French and Flemish. In France, Strasbourg/Straβburg/Strossburi and many other Alsatian towns feature bilingual roadsigns. All license plates in the Republic of Ireland feature the county of registration in Gaelic, and Wales is increasingly bilingual in its place names and administration. Amazingly, none of this has led to the collapse of civilisation.

Even Montpellier-Montpelhièr, which thanks to its university has been a chauvinistic outpost of French usage in an Occitan-speaking region since at least the time of Louis XIV, acknowledges its Occitan heritage with Occitan street-signs in the old town.

I wouldn’t mind so much if Mr Laws was displaying his ignorance in a private capacity (he is reasonably well-known media personality in his own right in New Zealand). But his statement was made in an official press release in his role as mayor: that’s unacceptable.

Mr Laws is of course rather more exercised about this issue than some mayors, since there has been a decades-long dispute about the spelling of Wanganui (in the local Maori dialect the river and the eponymous town are rendered with an aspirated “wh” sound as Whanganui). Wanganui is largely accepted among European-descended inhabitants, while local Maori claim precedence for Whanganui.

Rennes-Roahzon-Resnn (France). Image: graham chandler

I’m always slightly ashamed how many anglophones view bilingualism as some kind of threat. In everyday practice in bilingual regions of Europe, locals go on using whatever name they feel most comfortable with, and everyone understands. In most cases, it’s not a big deal.

Bilingualism is not “cultural zealotry”. As the one place in the world where English and Polynesian languages coexist officially, New Zealand’s linguistic particularities should be encouraged and highlighted. It may even be a competitive advantage: my French classmates were fascinated to see that my NZ passport is printed in English and Maori.

Maybe Wanganui/Whanganui should be twinned with a few other cities around the world that get along fine with two versions of their name. Perhaps Biel-Bienne or Turku-Åbo ? These cities might teach New Zealand how to become more adult in its treatment of language.

Street names in Turku-Åbo (Finland). Image: ansik