La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life (12 page)

The game of linguistic seduction is played every day, in every social class and in every corner of France, with two little words:
tu
and
vous
. Anyone who speaks even a hundred words of French knows that
vous
is the formal, polite form of “you” and
tu
the familiar, warmer form.

Moving to the familiar is a way to offer yourself, to make yourself available to the other. “Why don’t we say
tu
to each other?” suddenly moves the relationship to a deeper level of intimacy. Because the transition is so loaded with significance, knowing how and when to switch simultaneously pleases and shows respect. It must never, ever be crass.

For some situations, there are rules to rely on.
Tu
is safe to use with family, friends, and children, and usually with colleagues of the same but not higher or lower hierarchical level at work. Beyond that, things get tricky. In Spain or Italy, moving to the familiar form comes quickly in a new acquaintance, but in France it is better to wait. In a romantic relationship, where both parties know that intimacy is the goal, the right approach is supposed to be clear. A couple is expected to use
tu
once the relationship becomes intimate. As Léon Blum, the twentieth-century Socialist leader, wrote in his literary essay
Du mariage
, the switch to
tutoiement
“follows sexual penetration almost immediately. And this is true for young brides as well as for easy women.”

The
tu
brings with it a dangerous point of no return. Going back to the
vous
is like telling someone you only want to be friends after you’ve slept together. But for some couples, the
vous
can signal increased intimacy, a complicity only the two of you understand. “The most beautiful friendship is one in which, in the end, you are rid of all familiarity,” Raphaël Enthoven told me.

My problem with
tu
and
vous
is that I sometimes forget whom I’ve agreed to
tutoyer
. There are moments when I find myself in midsentence awkwardly changing course.

The etiquette of
tu
and
vous
is so subtle and fluid that even the French are permanently kept on edge. Some businesses use
tu
to foster team spirit and dynamism.
Tutoiement
is often mandatory in high-tech, communication, publicity, culture, press, design, and architectural offices, but banks stick to
vous
. When a subordinate uses
tu
to address the boss in a meeting, it usually is a coded message of a more personal relationship.

In his French law office, Andy uses
tu
with his two closest French male colleagues. One is older and more senior than Andy in the hierarchy; the other is younger. The younger colleague uses
tu
with my husband but
vous
with the older colleague.

On popular television, just about everyone uses
tu
, perhaps a way to keep the issue from distracting the audience.

Even within the family,
tu
and
vous
may have complex meanings. Bruno Racine, the president of the Bibliothèque Nationale, told me that his parents use
vous
with each other in front of other people but switch to
tu
when they are alone. They address their middle-aged children with
tu
, and the children reply with
vous
. As a child, Bruno was allowed to use
tu
with his mother. “It was the privilege of the
petit dernier
,” the youngest child, he said. When his mother got angry with him, she reverted to
vous
. Then when he turned eighteen, he was required to address her with
vous
. “As you see,” he said, “nothing is simple.”

Arielle Dombasle used the formal
vous
with Bernard-Henri Lévy (but in front of me she called him “
mon ange
” and kissed him on his lips). The
vous
, even between spouses, is a lingering habit of the French titled and upper classes; Jacques Chirac and his wife, Bernadette, are said to use it with each other. But Arielle’s reason was different. It keeps the excitement alive, she told me. “Le
vous
, this is a caress.”

Laure de Gramont told me that, years ago, she had used
vous
with Woody Allen in French, and he told her to use the
tu
form. “I told him, ‘You are a genius, and I can never use
tu
with a genius,’” she said.

Nicolas Sarkozy tends to use the informal
tu
instead of the formal
vous
with his foreign counterparts, his colleagues, and journalists. When he used
tu
in addressing Barack Obama at their first joint news conference and at a public event with Chirac, his predecessor, he was criticized for irreverence. Indeed, not everyone appreciates the closeness he imposes on them. In his memoirs, Jean Daniel, the director of the weekly magazine
Le Nouvel Observateur
, criticized Sarkozy’s everyday behavior as too familiar. “He addressed me as ‘
tu
,’ that irritated me!” Daniel wrote. That struck a chord with me as well. I personally don’t like it when someone I hardly know says, “Let’s use
tu
.” What if I don’t want to?

Shéhérazade Semsar de Boisséson, who is Iranian-born, American-educated, married to a Frenchman, and the head of her own company, has devised her own strategy. She hangs tough. She never uses
tu
in business dealings. When the other side moves to
tu
, she fights back with
vous
, even if the verbal warfare lasts for an hour. Eventually, the other side gives in.

I learned early on that reporters tend to
tutoyer
each other quickly, especially if they are traveling together. But I tend to use
vous
because I know the French complain that Americans are much too friendly in the beginning of a relationship.

Still, I have always known that
Le Nouvel Observateur
is exceptionally
décontracté
—informal—so when François Armanet, one of its editors, called one day, I immediately launched into
tu
. We continued talking for several minutes, but it was too much for him. “I’m still using
vous
and you’ve moved to
tu
and we never talked about whether we would do it,” he said. “It’s charming.”

Oh God, I thought, he thinks I’m
dragué
-ing him. (If you say of a woman, “
Quelle dragueuse
,” it means, “What a flirt!”)

I decided to keep the conversation light. I laughed and told François the story about how I had apparently insulted one of his colleagues by using
vous
when she had moved to
tu
and that I wanted to avoid insulting him as well. That led to a discussion about intimacy.

“The move from
vous
to
tu
is a fragile moment,” François said. “It’s a radical change. It implies certain complicity. It can be a great privilege.”

I suggested we move back to
vous
. He resisted. I suggested we start over but leave open possibilities. We could go back to the
vous
, then meet one day, perhaps for a coffee or lunch. Then, at some point, maybe we would look at each other and decide to go all the way to
tu
.

He thought that was a swell idea. Then he got around to the real reason for his call: a bit of journalistic business. We resolved it with efficiency, elegance, and
vous
.

The French find beauty in the French language itself. Their very identity is wrapped up in it.

“France is the French language,” the great twentieth-century social historian Fernand Braudel proclaimed. In the 1990s, Prime Minister Édouard Balladur created a High Council of the French Language. He told its twenty-nine members (seriously) that defending their tongue was “an act of faith in the future of our country.”

Then, in 2007, Maurice Druon, a hero of the French Resistance in World War II and a writer who became the defender-in-chief of French, led a fruitless campaign to persuade the European Union to adopt French as its chief language. “Italian is the language of song, German is good for philosophy and English for poetry; French is best at precision,” he said.

Yes and no.

Centuries ago, French was chosen as the primary language of diplomacy in part because it offered negotiators both precision and maximum flexibility. The indirect approach survives in French today. It adds to the mystery. In her 1986 book on language,
L’implicite
, Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni observed that “‘It’s warm in here’ never means that ‘It’s warm here,’ but, at some point, ‘Open the window,’ ‘Turn off the radiator,’ ‘Can I take off my jacket?’ ‘It is cool elsewhere,’ ‘I have nothing more interesting to say.’”

Then there are double negatives like “There’s no reason to think the contrary” that drove me nuts when I was first learning French. One day at lunch I asked my researcher, Florence, if she’d like a piece of cake from a new bakery nearby that was so fancy it put individual pastries under bell jars as if they were jewels. She didn’t say, “Yes, please,” but “This is not the kind of question that can be answered with a ‘no’!”

Then there is
pas mal
. Literally,
pas mal
means “not bad,” which in English can mean “so-so.” But in French, it can mean “Wow, you look fabulous!” or “Absolutely fantastic.” Saying it with a flat and serious tone makes it even more powerful than if it is uttered with enthusiasm. On the day Andy and I moved to a new apartment, I realized that our big but very old American General Electric refrigerator would have to be replaced. The mover rattled off brand names he said were “
pas terrible
.” Knowing that
pas mal
could mean “terrific,” I figured
pas terrible
must be even better. I was wrong. It means “pretty bad” and definitely to be avoided.

In both everyday and formal language, expressions that sound pretentious or effeminate to American ears are considered elegant and appropriate in French. The tradition has its roots in the seventeenth-century literary movement called
préciosité
, based on gallantry and characterized by an ideal of manners and behavior.

In a business letter, “I appreciate your delicate attention” is not obsequious, but proper. In polite society, circumlocutions, hyperbole, and superlatives are to be embraced. Adhering to standards is a sign of gentility. Even grim news can be delivered with a frisson of the poetic. I needed an MRI at one point for a severed hamstring. Perhaps the radiologist thought it would have been too direct to say, “You have destroyed your hamstring forever.” Instead, he told me, “You really did this beautifully, madame.” Pausing for effect, he added, “The tendon. It floats. In a sea of blood.”

The French give themselves the right to be intellectuals, even if their professions say they do something else. If they play the role badly or to excess, they might be guilty of
touche-à-tout
, or “dabbling.” But if they do it well, they are admired. In France, it is a compliment to be called a “generalist,” a concept originating in the seventeenth-century ideal of the
honnête homme
, a kind of Renaissance man who has mastered both the humanities and mathematics. In the French law firm where my husband works, at least two of the partners are published, well-reviewed novelists.

For me, the model is Bruno Racine. I first met him in the 1990s when he was the Foreign Ministry official responsible for policy in the Balkans. I caught up with him later when he was working on France’s possible reintegration into the military wing of NATO. After that, he went to Rome as director of the French Academy, then back to Paris as president, first of the Pompidou Center and then of the Bibliothèque Nationale. He represents the French government in international forums on nuclear disarmament, collects nineteenth-century French paintings, lectures on Petronius, writes novels, and fences. (He specializes in the saber.) He insists he is not an American-style workaholic. “I’m not someone who leads a monastic life,” he said. “I don’t get up at six in the morning to write.”

A more practical intellectual is Alain Minc, a financial adviser and former chairman of
Le Monde
who has written thirty books ranging from the history of economic thought to a novel about Spinoza. He now runs a consulting company out of swank offices on avenue George V. He is also an informal but trusted adviser to his close friend Nicolas Sarkozy.

“Nothing is more pleasurable for a previously published author than to frolic in a discipline that is not his: the feeling of intellectual freedom…is unmatched,” he wrote in a 483-page tome on the history of France, from the Gauls to Sarkozy.

“What do the French mean by the word
intellectuel
?” he asked himself during one of our conversations. “It’s someone who gives himself permission to speak about things he does not know but is able to master through cleverness or culture. Our culture is less deep but much broader than yours.”