Place Grenette, c.1900

In the second part of John Lubbock’s brief history of Grenoble he finds himself scratching beneath the surface of the city and discovering a ”post-apocalyptic 19th century parallel universe,” among other things.

I had long been puzzled by an impressive fortification system which stands near my house on one side of Parc Paul Mistral, completely hidden by trees and currently hosting a bmx/mountainbike track on one side. I had to telephone the resident historian of the Maison de Tourisme to find any information about this structure, which turns out to have been constructed in 1813 by the celebrated military engineer Générale Haxo (who also later reconstructed the Bastille) to protect against a possible southern invasion of France by the Austrian Empire.

The Austrians indeed eventually invaded the same year and were repulsed by the city defences, but returned to occupy Grenoble in 1814 and again in 1815. These walls, or enceintes, as they say in French, (the same word is used for pregnant as well as for hi-fi speakers, which is clearly intended to confuse and frustrate learners of French) were later demolished to make way for roads like Boulevard Jean Pain, leaving them an impressive ruin overrun by trees that makes you feel like you are in some post-apocalyptic 19th century parallel universe.

In the 19th century, modernity finally arrived in Grenoble with the construction of the railways. Aristide Bergès, a paper manufacturer, installed a modern paper factory in the Grenoble valley in 1867, where he invented the first hydro-electric motor to power the factory’s turbines. He called this new source of electricity Houille Blanche, or White Oil, which is still used in French to refer to hydroelectricity.

As I said, there is no statue to mark Bergès’s achievement in Grenoble, except for some ugly student housing and a CROUS named after him. However, one look the disservice done to his memory by the invention of photography will tell you that he’s not nearly as sexy as how French romantics imagined Bayard to look. I mean, he doesn’t even have an English language Wikipedia page, which is actually more of a damning criticism of his historical importance.

Bergès, and Bayard. No comparison.

And so to bring us up to the most important century, being that in which most of us were born: the 20th. Since all history is inevitably self-centred, why not congratulate ourselves for being born in the best century – that is if centuries are judged on some kind of Tarantino-esque scale of awarding points for most limbs severed or ears sliced off.

Exposition Internationale de la Houille Blanche et du Tourisme

After the First World War, Mayor Paul Mistral began various social and cultural projects, including the 1925 Exposition Internationale de la Houille Blanche et du Tourisme. Though what these two subjects have in common is something of a mystery; perhaps they couldn’t drum up enough interest in either one by itself. For the occasion, architect Auguste Perret constructed the Tour Perret in Parc Mistral, whose blue lights can be seen from miles around, shining as a beacon to the ability of architects to create Freudian symbols of power.

It is the sole remaining construction from this exhibition, and was used at the time to transmit radio emissions throughout the whole of France, though probably not with much success considering analog transmissions find mountains to be rather a hurdle to overcome. The tower was classed a historic monument in 1998, and a restoration plan is currently à l’étude.

There was a large wave of Italian immigration into Grenoble after the Second World War to help provide workers for the new factories. They stayed after discovering that the French loved eating cheese and bread, but had never thought of combining them inside an oven.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Nazi invasion was stopped in the south at the Battle of The Alps, though Grenoble was occupied by the Italian army in 1942-3 after they heard how easy it was to get good pizza there. Unfortunately, the Nazis found the Italians to be a little too laissez-faire about rounding up Jews and resistance fighters in Grenoble, and decided to occupy it themselves in 1943, escalating resistance activities, the most spectacular of which was the destruction of the Bonne barracks and arsenal in December 1943.

American tanks in Grenoble, 1944.

After the war, Grenoble rebounded economically by marketing itself as a winter sports destination, aided by the construction of some hideous new brutalist buildings and ski resorts like Chamrousse for the 1968 Winter Olympic Games.

The last half of the 20th century saw the arrival of new immigrants from North Africa and the realization of the globalized and multiethnic modern character of Grenoble.

Well, there you go. That’s as far as Wikipedia will take us, so I suggest you stop procrastinating on your computer and go outside and make some more history, or else there won’t be anything else to write about, will there? Go on, outside, now …  shoo!

Grenoble in 1944

Want to impress your friends with your knowledge of Grenoble’s past? John Lubbock has condensed the history of the city into two short blogs so that you can show off about how much you know.

While the French are justly proud of the things their culture does well throughout the country, such as cheese, ignoring things that aren’t their business, and electro-pop, they’re not so fond of regional particularism, and perhaps this feeds into the lack of promotion of Grenoble’s interesting historical buildings and cultural heritage. Have you ever walked past an old building and thought ‘what is that thing?’, or been inside an unassuming bookshop in the centre of town, only to be confronted by a medieval-looking interior? Perhaps it’s just that Grenoble is a city so obsessed with the future that it doesn’t have too much time for the relics of the past.

Well, I for one am a big fan of relics of the past, and if there was a facebook page for relics of the past, I would be lining up to be their cheerleader.  So, Anglophones with a passing interest in ‘istoire, I know you’re busy people, so we’ll see if we can’t cover 2000 years of Grenoble history in the space of just two short blog posts. Ready? Let’s start with those good old Romans then.

Grenoble is at the crossroads of three valleys, and has been a garrison town since it became part of the Roman Empire in 43BC, when it was called Cularo. The omniscient deity, wikipedia, tells us that the penultimate Emperor of the whole Roman Empire, Gratian, was so touched by the welcome of the people of Cularo that he elevated it to the level of a Roman ‘City’ and began constructing walls to protect it.  Cularo was renamed Gratianopolis in 381 in honour of the Emperor. This name transformed over the next millennia to Graignovol and, after its incorporation into the kingdom of France, changed to its modern pronunciation through association with the word ‘noble’ in reference to the King.

After the fall of the Empire, the city was involved in a game of Merovingian pass the parcel, as it became part of the Burgundian Kingdom, Middle Francia, Lotharingia, and was also pillaged by the Lombards in the sixth century, and by the Ummayid Saracens in the eighth and ninth century. In 1030 it became part of Arelat, territory of the Counts of Albon (later Dauphins de Viennois), a protectorate of the Holy Roman Empire. The appellation Dauphin appears to be a noble title of no more meaning than ‘Compte’, due to the medieval belief that dolphins were the kings of the fishes. Modern anthropology carelessly forgot to tell them that Dolphins are not fishes, and one look at the coat of arms of the Dauphiné will tell you that its creator never saw a water-dwelling creature larger than a pike in his life.

The Coat of Arms of the Dauphiné

No doubt the Dark Ages of Grenoble history were full of peasants shouting ‘Help, Help, I’m being repressed’ for many centuries (see Monty Python and the Holy Grail for illustration) without making so much as a stain on the pages of history, and thus we are left with a dull list of the names of royal managers which resembles the Roll of Honour in the boardroom of a third division football team that nobody cares about. But worry not, for with the arrival of feudalism, interesting things were about to happen to Grenoble that would forever be commemorated by histrionic statues of romantic chevaliers.

In 1349, the last Dauphin, Humbert II, negotiated the “transportation” of Dauphiné to France. An ‘ambitious spendthrift’, Humbert supported several religious foundations, founded the University of Grenoble and sponsored a rich court. He went on Crusade and came back bankrupted, his wife and son having died during his leave. Having run out of luck at the medieval casino, he decided to cash in his chips, sell the Dauphiné to the King of France and retire to a monastery which he presumably pimped out and invited MTV over to try the indoor waterslide in his new ‘crib’.

In 1515, King Francis I appointed Bayard, the “fearless and blameless knight” Lieutenant-General of Dauphiné. Pierre Terrail, lord of Bayard, was born in Pontcharra, near Grenoble in 1476. He fought very bravely during the Italian wars, and Francis I asked Bayard to knight him on the battlefield of Marignan (1515). In a brilliant piece of Quixotic irony, Bayard was killed in 1526 by bullet from an early gunpowder weapon. Modernity – 1, Chivalry – 0.

Despite this exciting tale, Grenoble suffered heavily during this period as the city was burdened with having to support a large military presence, and the plague killed many people. A romantic nineteenth century statue of Bayard stands in Place St. Andre, giving encouragement to all the young Frenchmen who aspire to feats of arms such as combat contre neuf Espanyols and laying siege to Naples. As far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be a statue to the Grenoblois who invented hydroelectricity, but then that’s just not as sexy as a guy with a sword who excelled at killing foreigners.

In the sixteenth century, the Wars of Religion saw Grenoble caught in the middle of a sectarian struggle about which it is difficult to make many jokes, so we’ll keep it short. The Dauphiné was an important settlement for Protestants influenced by the Calvinist theology emanating from Geneva. The Huguenot leader, the Baron des Adrets, pillaged the Cathedral of Grenoble, destroying the tombs of former Dauphins in one of many acts of iconoclasm.

In 1575, Lesdiguières became the new leader of the Protestants and allied himself with the pragmatic King Henry IV (who converted from Protestantism to Catholicism to gain the throne, quipping “Paris is well worth a Mass”). However, a Catholic movement, the Ligue, took Grenoble in 1590, refusing to make peace. After months of assaults, Lesdiguières defeated the Ligue and took back Grenoble (which he starved into submission), becoming the leader of the entire province.

Lesdiguières served as lieutenant-general of the Dauphiné until 1626 and began the construction of the Bastille in order to protect the city. He also ordered the construction of new walls and constructed the Hôtel Lesdiguières, which faces the river on one side of the Jardin de Ville. But the religious trouble was not over, and when Louis XIV started oppressing Protestants again in the seventeenth century, the emigration of Huguenot gantiers left Grenoble’s glove industry with no competition, and it became the main industry of the city. One can only imagine that the number of duels skyrocketed as aristocrats always found themselves within a few inches of a glove with which to slap the face of a rival who had questioned the honour of their mistress.  

Prior to the French Revolution, Grenoble was the scene of popular unrest due to financial hardship from the economic and financial crises. The famous Journée des Tuiles (1788) in Grenoble is seen as one of the first popular revolts that started the revolution. The government sent troops to put down a meeting of the Estates of Dauphiné which had convened in Grenoble. The people of Grenoble climbed onto the roofs, where they threw down tiles onto the troops, thus giving the incident its name.

Rue Raoul Blanchard, painted by Debelle a century after the event, and today.

These events influenced two prominent Grenoblois, Barnave and Mounier, who represented Dauphiné in the in the Estates General in Paris. Both sought to stabilize the rapidly shifting political ground, and both became suspected of supporting the Ancien Regime, for which Barnave was executed and Mounier forced to flee to Swizerland. During the revolution, the Bastille was renamed in support of the storming of the Bastille in Paris. Grenoble itself was renamed Grelibre, though they wisely changed it back when Napoleon was crowned Emperor, in recognition of the fact that nobody had become any freer, and that the name itself was rather silly.

Since you will undoubtedly be feeling jet-lagged by such a rapid fast-forward through 1800 years of Grenoble history, we will save the last 200 years for a second blog post, and thus leave you desperate to know how the story ends (spoiler alert: Napoleon meets his Waterloo).

p'tit vélo dans la tete on campus - photo: www.ptitvelo.net

Are you a student or a new arrival and want to know how to live in Grenoble on a budget? Expatriated Brit John Lubbock has learnt the hard way, and has kindly agreed to share his tips and experience with Grenoble Life readers.  

Grenoble is not a bad place to be poor. But, like a tramp with a favourite patch, you have to know your environment; or like a foraging bear, where the best pickings are to be had. You may need to change some of your bad, foreign influenced habits to make the most of your insertion into French culture (beer is expensive apart from Stella, which isn’t one of the best things about French gastronomy, is it?). 

Tourists, as we all know, are naive sponges who deserve to be squeezed dry, so try not to seem like one. People will often poorly attempt to converse with you in English when they realise you are not a native, but insist, “Je suis en France, il faut que je parle en français“, and they won’t despise you as much for usurping their language as the world’s Lingua Franca. It is mostly from lack of better information that tourists agree to pay higher prices, so I intend to give you some information to help you make better spending choices.

Accommodation

If you do not want to spend your first month in France on a sofa or in a hostel, it pays to research accommodation before you arrive. There is an association called OSE Club which you can join for €30 which will find apartments for you in a designated area of the city, if you want to be near to a university. Then there are websites such as www.appartager.com and www.vivastreet.com, which have petites annonces for flats, but these are generally only useful if you pay the €10 fee to see the telephone numbers of the advertisers and call them up directly as they don’t answer messages on the site.

Watch the French film L’Auberge Espagnole before you go to get an exaggerated idea of being interviewed by your future flatmates and the kinds of hilarious European stereotypes you are likely to be cohabiting with. If you are not a student, it is even more important to find a flat quickly, because without a rental agreement, you will not be able to get a French bank account or contract telephone, and will thus be considered a SDF (Sans Domicile Fixe) by the French. This will mean that you are forced to become a baba cool (hippy) and sit in the street with your dogs holding out a frying pan to ask for spare change.  

N.B. If you are staying for less than a year, it is worthwhile getting a contract phone, which will be cheaper than pay as you go, the phone will be nicer, and there’s little they can do about it when you tell them that you’re leaving the country before the contract finishes and close your bank account. But don’t tell anyone I told you.  

If you have never lived in the socialist paradise that is France, you may not be aware of the kinds of social benefits available to people living there. The CAF’s housing benefit system could pay for some of your rent if you are a student or living on a low wage, although like most bureaucratic systems in France it takes about six weeks to get anywhere with it, and since these forms are all in French, it is more like a test of your reading comprehension which you need to pass to gain entry to French society.  

Learning French

If you are (un)lucky enough to be a political refugee, asking at the Préfecture (a big administrative building which makes you feel like Josef K from Kafka’s The Trial, wondering if you’ll ever be told what you’ve done wrong in order to end up there) or at the Conseil Général can get you free French lessons, which can otherwise be obtained by calling the ADATE organisation. I am not sure if you can get lessons with them without being a refugee, but I am considering telling them that I have been forced to flee from the UK as a result of the impending government takeover by a bunch of Tories with accents so posh and annoying that they constitute a form of social oppression. If you have to go to the Préfecture for any annoying bureaucratic reason, like to obtain a carte de séjour, don’t ask anyone which ‘queue’ you should stand in. The French for queue is pronounced like ‘que’, while saying ‘queue’ sounds like the French word for something rude.  

Transport  

When it comes to transport, if you are poor, the bicycle/vélo will become like your husband or wife, or perhaps the god to whom you pray for benevolence. If it works well, you love it and praise it, and if not you curse it. There are three main places I know of to obtain bikes cheaply. Firstly: on the street. I found three bikes lying in crumpled heaps on pavements in the first month I was here. The problem then is to take them to somewhere you can repair them. So either have a bike repair kit (Decathlon, around €15), or go to the second place to get cheap bikes – Un P’tit Vélo Dans La Tete meaning something like ‘A little bit biked in the head’.

This atelier (workshop) sells bikes that have been repaired for between €15-60, or you can go there to fix your own by paying a €15 abonnement (subscription). It is a good place to practice your French, as there are lots of guys who can help you to fix your bike, and they have a handy board on the wall with a picture of a bike and the French names for every part of it indicated. However, fixing bikes takes time, and if you have a second hand bike, or one you bought at P’tit Velo, it will break down roughly every two weeks. On the plus side, you will get very good at repairing bikes. The third option is Métrovélo, who will give you a generic yellow bike for €75 for six months (plus €50 deposit) and repair it for you if it breaks down.  

Of course, you can always chance a free ride on the tram, but getting caught by the officials will land you with a €65 fine, unless you can pretend to be a totally clueless foreigner. The tram tariff is €24 a month for students, but Grenoble is the flattest city centre in France, and waiting for a tram and slumming it with Joe Public are hidden costs not worth paying in my opinion. That’s why liberté comes before egalité and fraternité: because it’s more important.  

If you want to go further that the city limits, go to www.covoiturage.fr and find someone who is making the same journey as you to go with. It will be far cheaper than any other method of transport, and the people I’ve met doing it have all been nice.  

Food  

Although many people come to France for the food, as an impoverished young person, this will likely be one of the areas in which you sacrifice quality in order to live within your means. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, a man who lives within his means has no imagination; but you will likely be finding your culinary options limited by the exigencies of having little money to spend. Ed is a cheap supermarket, and it happens to bear the name of some of my friends, although since the name Edward doesn’t exist in French, they call it “Ee-de”, which sounds much more corporate and less friendly. It is worth taking a notebook around to the supermarkets to write down prices of items you buy regularly, because while vegetables may be cheaper in Ed, Géant may have cheaper milk, for example. Unfortunately, I have just been informed by my collocataire that Ed is closing down – evidently the world of modern commerce is too cruel for such friendly-named businesses – but Lidl is almost identical in that it has hardly any choice of products and brands you have never heard of, but they are all usually cheaper than the Géant/Casino equivalent.  

Yet if one just bought the budget Casino brand pasta/rice/couscous to eat with with vegetables every day, you might end up wanting to kill yourself. So for the minimum luxury of not cooking the food yourself, you can go to a CROUS canteen, near the gare, or in Domaine Universitaire. These are supposed to be for students, but you can just pay the €2.90 it costs for a meal there in cash without showing any student card as well. You get bread, salad or cheese, a main meal of canteen standard chips/pasta/vegetables/etc. and some meat served with customary indifference and a bad attitude by people who look deeply unhappy about serving ungrateful students who could pay their wages with their tuition fees (those who go to an École supérieure anyway).  

Working  

Of course, if you really want to make things easier on yourself financially, you could get a job. “A job? What’s that?” I hear you cry. “I am a student – they don’t work. Then I wouldn’t have time for all the drinking and Facebook which the energy I consume from crisps and Red Bulls goes into”. Well, you could work part time. If you are a native English speaker, you could get employed by a soutien scolaire company, telling kids what they did wrong with their homework. Believe me, it’s satisfying to be on the other end of this after receiving homework corrected in red-teacher-ballpoint ink for 10 or more years. Don’t be put off if you don’t have a TEFL or CELTA qualification, I didn’t find this a hindrance, though it may help to say you have experience of private teaching even if you haven’t.

If there’s one thing I learned looking for jobs here it’s that it doesn’t pay to be honest: always tell them you are available to work, always tell them you have the experience. It took me a while of offering my services to language companies (Grenoble Life already has a useful list here), universities and other places like the Chamber of Commerce and Rectorat before I was employed, but once you have your foot in the door, you will hear about other teaching  jobs that are advertised within teaching circles.  

The Pôle jeunesse on Avenue Agutte Sembat has a useful wall full of job and accommodation offers. But if you have a degree, they will tell you that they can’t help hoity-toity types like you and that you should go instead to AFIJ who have an office at 29 Avenue Felix Viallet near Cour Jean Jaurès. These guys mostly have offers for internships or well paid jobs, so if you are just looking for a petit boulot, the Pôle jeunesse might be more useful.

You could try working in a bar, but the French can be quite snooty if your linguistic skills aren’t up to scratch. This matters less when applying to one of the studenty bars like London Pub or Sun Valley, but you will invariably have to call a Frenchman ‘boss’ (and thereby lose all the nationalistic self-respect you have built up living in your own great land), and traipse around the campus putting up flyers just for the pleasure of sacrificing most of your evenings for €9 an hour. There are also lots of agencies you can work for who hire waiters and other restauration workers for company or other private functions, but I personally found them somewhat useless, though Adecco is worth a try. Then you can try the listings in Pôle Emploi, which is like the JobCentre in the UK, but with more paperwork.  

Of course one of the reasons why you came to Grenoble is to ski, so if you are a student, join the École de Glisse, and try to obtain some cheap equipment from one of the second hand ski places like Boite aux Skis. There is no way of getting around that skiing is expensive however you do it, but hopefully you will have saved enough money in other areas to afford the silly ski-pass prices. And if you injure yourself, just remember to have your European Health Card handy. Good luck, mes amis.