Montessori school shelves with toys. Photo: 3neus

In a three-part blog Camille Bromley describes a day in the life of a teacher at the Montessori International School of Grenoble. Read part I.

7:38 am

Bus stop, Place Verdun.  As the number 31 bus to Meylan: Maupertius approaches I’m hastily devouring the remaining third of my Big Chocolate, freshly purchased for 1 euro from Sandwich House located behind the Maison de Tourisme tram stop, outgoing side. Ordinarily the Big Chocolates from this Sandwich House are not especially good pain au chocolat, but they’re easily the size of two regular pain au chocolat, a good bargain at 1 euro (the American in me is always a sucker for bargains), and in the morning when they’re warm they’re still pretty darn tasty.

The Big Chocolate is the ritual first step in my once-weekly workday as an English teacher at Montessori International Primary School in Meylan, as this is the only day in the week I exit the house early enough to catch one while still warm. The other days of the week I work as an English assistant in public primary schools.

Teaching at Montessori International School is not like teaching in French public school.  It’s vastly different, in fact.  If you’re not familiar with what’s called the Montessori Method, I’ll briefly explain: The Montessori Method of children’s education was originally developed in the early 20th century by an Italian educator named Maria Montessori. It’s an alternative approach to schooling, encouraging a child’s individual self-directed learning using the support of materials and teacher observation. 

From what I understand, while many schools worldwide function under the heading of Montessori School there are no defined guidelines for the specific practical application of this education system. However, the general idea is that children learn best when they follow their natural instincts and interests. In other words, it’s self-study for kids; less academically-put, the kids do what they feel like.

This “do-what-you-feel-like” philosophy is most decidedly not the norm in French public schools, from what I’ve seen in my year’s experience there, the essential part of a teacher’s oral utterances consisting of phrases such as, non, tu n’as pas le droit!; vous levez la doigt pour avoir la parole!; TAISEZ-VOUS! [yelled shockingly loud]; vous êtes insupportables aujourd’hui! [tone of resignation and accompanying sigh]; and finally the much-loved Bravo!, with exaggerated sarcasm. Thus, Montessori International reputedly offers an alternative to parents who prefer their kids to receive more positive encouragement than negative during the first 6–9 years of their educational development.

However, I haven’t given an entirely clear picture of the Montessori International School in Meylan. This school is foremost an international school, with instruction provided in French and English. I am the English-instruction teacher (on Mondays anyways), and a woman with a confounding last name, Martine Grzelak, functions as school director and French-instruction teacher. 

We take care of the primary-age children, age 6–12. The children in this group, about 25 of them, are mostly Francophone, with a solid group of Anglophones and couple French-English bilingual kids. There is another, separate class of students at the school, the pre-school age group (ages 3–6), also Francophone or Anglophone or both, headed by Emilie Ballivy. The pre-schoolers are called Les petits castors, which gives an accurate impression of their work ethic and focused accomplishment under the guidance of Ms. Ballivy.

The school makes use of an impressive collection of Montessori materials and supplies, and the curriculum is organized around the French National Education program, so that children are expected to cover a similar material to public school students. More on the Montessori Method as the day progresses.

Part II

Part III

Part III

12:00 pm

Lunchtime. The microwave cart is wheeled in, desks are cleared, chairs fetched. The students eat in the classroom. The children are expected to be settled quietly in their chairs, ask to go wash their hands, and then ask to get their lunchboxes before they are allowed to eat. Meanwhile, the child in charge of setting the table this week goes to get the silverware and dishes.   

12:30 pm

Everyone is finally sitting and has more or less the complete tableware set in front of them: plate, fork, knife, little yogurt spoon, and plastic cup (Martine’s cabinet has slowly but surely been rid of all the glassware glasses, not intentionally).

The table setting procedure always takes much longer than is logically necessary, probably because the child assigned to set the table is for some reason 90% of the time the same small boy, who due to his diminutive size and severely ADD nature seems the absolute worst person in the room to give the task of distributing various separate pieces of cutlery to students sitting in disorganized clumps around the big room, not to mention that when you see him trying to lug the heavy glass water pitchers around to each table you get the sinking sense of futility of watching someone trying very hard to complete a Sisyphean task. Half the pitcher will have been emptied on the floor by the time he gets to the table, and he’ll be sent to get more in five minutes.

I send the children in groups of two or three to the cloakroom to get their lunchboxes. I imagine that you can tell a lot about the home life of individual children from their lunchboxes. A lot of the older children seem to have the freedom to creatively fashion their own concept of a meal; there’s a group of three girls (who aggressively defy the assertion that social cliques don’t exist in small schools) that bring their lunches in family-style portions to share with each other: a bag of Lay’s potato chips, a Tupperware box of pasta and sauce, an entire sleeve of Speculoos cookies.

The Anglophone children belong to a different breed of household, one that clearly holds in contempt the irresponsible consumption of low nutrient-to-calorie ratio foods and environmentally unfriendly packaging. S—, a six-year-old with extraordinary feminine style (how a child of that age is able to exude such class is beyond me), declares matter-of-factly that she hates ice cream and cake. Her treat of choice is the green pressed seaweed paper that sushi rolls come wrapped in — in French it’s translated as algae, which expresses better, I think, the total bizarreness of a six-year-old reveling in the taste of a seaweed wrap (imagine an apple cheeked little girl saying with a charming missing-front-tooth smile, “My favorite food is algae”).  

1:15 pm

The kids are fairly hopping to get outside after a full morning of being together in one room. They go into the cloakroom to remove their slippers and put on their outside shoes, most of which resemble work boots or what English people call “wellies” rather than the slick bright white Pumas or the metallically shiny girl-sized heels (!) public school children wear. This is because the playground provided for amusement and the venting of various child frustrations during the lunch recess is not actually a playground, it’s an empty field behind the Montessori school building accessible only by a quick jump across a ditch (a wide step for you or me, a brief air-bound thrill for the 11-year-olds, and an unbreachable chasm for the 3-year-olds, who nevertheless enjoy the jump immensely so long as you’re holding their hand.

Supervising, I can’t help thinking that innovative playground developers, with their tangle of curved colored bars and knotted rope systems, are entirely missing the point — the kids have more fun rolling around in the grass and throwing rocks at trees than with any preconstructed equipment education authorities can buy. I’m reminded how innocent and sweet children are at heart when I hear G— and S— playing a sort of tag-zombie game which seems to consist of yelling “I’m going to suck your brain!” and attempting to grab the skull of another player.

2:00 pm

Emilie and I file the children back into school, past the company workers in button up shirts and pencil skirts taking their smoke break. Monday afternoon is devoted to art class and Spanish class, and the children are sent in small groups to participate in those activities. Otherwise, the students can continue the projects of the morning. The students complete impressive individual projects throughout the year that don’t sacrifice depth or quality for the lack of collaborators.

S— is working on a postcard project; she’s contacting friends and acquaintances across the U.S., asking them to send her postcards at the Montessori school address, teaching her about their town or state. She’s gathered a large number of postcards and will organize them into a visual presentation. O— has completed a project about the state of Israel, its history, people, and culture, and the poster is hanging on the classroom wall.

One of the goals of the Montessori school is to effectively link all subjects together in the child’s mind; to create a truly interdisciplinary understanding of the world. This objective makes for very creative project ideas, and the results are evident in the variety of student-made artwork and presentations on display around the school.

3:30 pm

The school day is over, but many students will stay for the next one to two hours, playing the gymnasium or participating in an activity Martine or Emilie has organized. I, however, say my rounds of “See you next week” and am out the door.

The next day I’ll be at one of the public primary schools in Grenoble. Not being an education expert, I’m not going to offer my judgment of the effectiveness of the education system in public schools compared to the Montessori approach. The purposes and needs of the two school systems are vastly different and require different methods of teaching and classroom management. Montessori schools may give more individual attention, but they also provide a lot less guidance and structure. This may or may not work well, depending on the character of each individual child. One thing I do know, however, is that I’ll be doing a lot more yelling in my public school.

Part I

Part II

For more information:
http://www.montessori-grenoble.com/UK/school-montessori-grenoble.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori

Part II

8:12 am

Terminus on the number 31 bus line. The bus halts in front of a grouping of new, enterprise-y looking buildings with big reflective glass windows framed in a shade of blue that suggests innovation and forward-thinking. The school is rather unexpectedly housed in one of these buildings, towards the back of the complex, sharing quarters with some kind of company that requires men and women in business attire to enter and exit through the same doors as the free-spirited, frequently-in-high-speed-motion Montessori kids.

The school is essentially three large rooms, the primary schoolroom, the pre-school room, and the gym, which is carpeted and doubles as an art studio and Spanish nook. There is also Martine’s office, a nap room for the preschoolers, a storage room, and a cloakroom where the children hang their coats, bags, and change their shoes into indoor shoes. They are only allowed to wear slippers inside the school, as it is carpeted. This reminds me of Japanese schools, except that here the children are allowed to bring their own slippers. In Japan the slippers are part of the uniforms and must be regulation color and design.

8:45 am

The kids wander in the room one by one and are by this time more or less all present. After some general comments and reminders, Martine starts the weekly routine of designating “responsibilities” onto each child. This is performed by use of a chart listing cleaning tasks to be completed each day and a small canvas sack containing the names of each child on Velcro tabs.

It took me a few months to figure out that the responsibility entitled Muffin referred to the class hamster. Insisting that the responsibilities be assigned by a random pull from the bag, Martine cheats openly on her own rule by fishing for names that she believes merit a particular nasty chore this week. The kids either suffer tremendously from the injustice of this favoritism or get a kick out of it, depending on how you choose to interpret the situation.

The responsibilities I find to be an ingenious system for ensuring an attitude of collective care and respect from all the students towards the cleaning and upkeep of the school room and materials. By being allowed to choose, in a fashion, what chore they do each week the child is given some autonomy and feels like she’s making a voluntary decision to contribute. This is probably a distinctive Montessori touch. Japanese schoolchildren also clean the school as part of their daily duties, although there they are responsible for the bathrooms as well, which I remain convinced is a mistake (imagine how what kind of clean job a second-grader might do on a bathroom — then repeat that every day for the whole year).

8:52 am

Work time. The children are either broken up into groups or sent to a desk to work individually. All the primary school kids, from 6 to 12, work in the same room, some in groups and some independently, and they pursue different activities. Martine keeps an eye on all of them and remains aware of how they’re doing and what progress they’re making, a remarkable feat for about 15 different students and different levels.

There are no set subject periods or age groups. The children have more or less the choice to work on one activity the entire morning or change subjects freely. There’s no morning recess, although there is a snack, which the children are expected to provide, following a rotation schedule. If the children tire of one activity and want to do some less-strenuous but still constructive activity such as reading, it is permitted within reason.

I take the group of English speakers. There are two first grade girls, a third grader, a fifth grader, and sometimes a first grade boy. We either do a language-arts activity all together, harder versions adapted for the third and fifth graders, or I split them up to work in pairs or alone. It’s my choice based on what we’re doing that day and how well the children are working together. When the English speakers take breaks to work on another subject, I choose a group of French children to do an English language lesson.

11:00 am

With Martine in the room, the classroom functions smoothly. With some notable exceptions, the children work quietly, although their rate of productivity is subject to debate. Clearly, some children are more ideal Montessori students than others. A group of three boys writes a bilingual dialogue together concerning an inept motorist and a driving instructor for their upcoming play. Another boy does French grammar exercises on the computer. A girl visualizes multiplication with wooden beads and a counting board.

Meanwhile, little G— sulks at his desk, complaining that his work is “too hard” and he doesn’t “understand nuffing,” and I— doodles on the margins of his essay and gazes out the window. I remind I— to get back to his work and Martine appears over G—‘s shoulder to investigate the veracity of his claim.

Part I

Part III

L'art Qui Parle

Elizabeth Stone Matho is an American psychotherapist and art therapist with a private practice in Grenoble. She talks to Grenoble Life about an art therapy exhibit of the artwork of cancer patients she has organised for June 10–27.

Grenoble Life: What is the theme of this exhibition and who has organised it?

Elizabeth Stone Matho: The exhibit theme is L’Art Qui Parle, and it’s the artwork of cancer patients in art therapy with me at the CHU Grenoble or in an outreach program in St Ismier. 

It will take place at Ancien Musée de Peinture, Place de Verdun, Grenoble, June 10–27. To coincide with the exhibition there will also be a conference and discussion on art therapy, June 18. More details at the bottom of this article.

GL: What kind of illnesses have the artists involved had to cope with and how did this artistic process help them cope?

Elizabeth: All of the artists have had to cope with cancer. You’re asking such a great question when you ask how the artistic process helped them cope. I think that the answers to that question will become so much clearer than I could explain here in a few words, when you see the exhibit.

Each piece of artwork has a text or title, written by the artist, to help the viewer understand something about the internal processes involving the confluence of creativity, illness, experimentation, personal expression, hopes, fears, wishes and so much more.

Each patient in art therapy experiences the creative/therapeutic process a little differently. For some, it helps to bring solace, for others, it helps to forget, for yet others, it helps to recover one’s identity, femininity, integrate the body image that’s been ravaged by illness and its treatment so that one emerges stronger, more aware of one’s own needs, with more insight about oneself.

First and foremost, the artistic process is non-judgmental, without expectations of an aesthetic nature. It follows the path that seems to be right for each patient, each individual, whether in terms of materials used, content of imagery, form, personal themes expressed. I think that most patients emerge from the very first sessions feeling that in spite of the destructive forces of the illness and its often aggressive treatment, they tap into a vitality that is very much there, very much alive.

GL: In what different media are the artworks?

Elizabeth: Primarily, gouache, clay, and a variety of drawing materials such as pastels, oil pastels, colored pencils and the like comprise the basic materials we use. However, other materials can be added, depending upon what is requested by the patient, as their creative/therapeutic evolution unfolds. I have to add that AGARO (Association Grenobloise d’Aide à la Recherche en Oncologie) has been very generous in providing me with all the high quality materials I requested. 

GL: In what context where the artworks made: did you facilitate them?

Elizabeth: To answer your question, both yes and no. Yes, in the sens that I was always present, offering a climate of freedom and respect, with an understanding of the therapeutic and artistic processes that would be involved. I offer a broad spectrum of possible ways of working, whether from imagination or from even a postcard, which stimulates feelings and thoughts that are also present and need to be voiced.

At the same time, I have to say no in the sense that I usually don’t tell people what to draw or even start with a general theme. I resist the idea that what I might suggest will be correct for them; rather, I prefer that as they get to know the materials, they will generate their own creative and therapeutic processes.

I also believe that in spite of a climate of freedom, people have the right to defend against important feelings and unconscious material. Not every feeling or experience should be brought to light at once because people are often not yet ready psychologically. 

GL: Were any of the artists involved initially resistant to using art as a therapeutic process?

Elizabeth: Yes, in the sense that they didn’t imagine themselves using art as a therapeutic tool, however, generally they had a certain sense of curiosity about the process which mitigated their resistance, or, for some, a feeling that they had tried everything else (medically) so far to treat their cancer and that now, maybe art therapy could be of some help to them. 

GL: Are the artworks all very centred on the artists’ experience or are some more representational or abstract?

Elizabeth: There are all types of artwork, from personal feelings, representational, abstract, with meaning emerging in various ways. Some started out to express something specific; sometimes the result was that expression, or sometimes it changed. Sometimes the meaning emerged only afterwards. Sometimes the meaning of an earlier work became clearer only after other work was done. And, some were even created to forget. I don’t push people, but we do talk together about what the process was like, what the final result might say to them.

————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Art therapy exhibit of the artwork of cancel patients: L’Art Qui Parle
Ancien Musée de Peinture (Place de Verdun, Grenoble)
June 10th to 27th • Wednesdays through Sundays • 1pm–7pm
Association Grenobloise d’Aide à la Recherche en Oncologie (AGARO)
Elizabeth Stone Matho, art therapist, psychoanalyst

Conference and discussion on art therapy: Art therapy: As a discipline in and of itself, and its role in cancer treatment. 
June 18th, 2010, 5pm
La Plateforme (Bibliothèque), Ancien Musée de Peinture (Place de Verdun, Grenoble)
Elizabeth Stone Matho, art therapist, psychoanalyst
Fabrice Chardon, music therapist
Seating limited to 100 people – reservations suggested:
06.12.17.27.11 or 04.76.87.17.60

LEROY & SCARPA: neutral-toned, softly-chic faux-fur throws and pillows

Nearly one year on from their first meeting, Grenoble Life catches up with Kris Leroy, the American founder of Grenoble-based soft furnishings design company LEROY & SCARPA, France, previously Chic Throws.  

Grenoble Life: Why the name change? 

Kris Leroy: As Axelle and I are now associates, both managing the company and aiming to launch a luxury brand, we definitely needed to change the name for a fresh start. Chic Throws was also impossible to pronounce in French! I had originally had a direct e-commerce strategy for the business in place but realized that it was best to focus on my designs, our originality and leave the B2C to others more specialized. 

As most designers, it is important to keep your name in the frontlines and not hide behind a meaningless company name. We have invested in our new name/logo which I think reflects a more luxurious brand. 

GL: Who is Axelle? 

Kris: Axelle Scarpa and I used to work together at Ericsson Hewlett-Packard Telecommunications (EHPT) over 10 years ago. We have remained friends ever since and over lunch I’d told her my dream associate would be someone like her, an expert in supply chain management and purchasing. She was just finishing her tenth year at HP and was ready for a serious change in environment as well as an entrepreneurial challenge and quality of life improvement. She said, why don’t I come to work with you and I’d thought she’d had a bit too much wine at lunch …

Since April we’ve combined forces, and mutually thank each other for ‘our new life’. It’s great as we prioritize family time (i.e. working four days a week) however often meet online after hours to achieve our goals. We have moved our offices to a business park where our communications agency was located. It’s only 100m away from our last office but we have much better natural light (so I don’t have to go out on the roof to see the true fabric colors) and air conditioning! 

Kris Leroy and Axelle Scarpa

GL: What is there to do now that you’ve joined forces? 

Kris: We need to basically start all the business filings again in SARL format with the Chamber of Commerce and choose partners with whom we want to launch our new brand. (accountant, notaire, fabric suppliers, communications agency, etc.) You are only as good as your partners.

I am working on the new Winter 2010 collection for the first professional fair in Annecy in June. This will be the test for the B2B market where originality should prime over the traditional ‘mountain décor’ suppliers to ski areas in France, Switzerland and Italy. We are really targeting the chic boutiques in the ski areas in Megève, Chamonix, Courchevel, etc. and hope to ‘wow’ them with our new collection, for their international clients. I have spared no expense on the fabrics that come from top and unknown designers in France, Italy and the UK for the Courchevel Chic collection. 

Since the crise clients are craving color and that is what we will bring them as well as neutral-toned, softly-chic faux-fur throws and pillows (see top image).

GL: So you are ready to hit the market now? 

Kris: Now that Axelle is on board, I finally can focus on my added value which is sales and marketing. This past year has been spent getting our supply chain in place and prospecting both the B2B and B2C markets. I literally haven’t had a chance to really hit the pavement running with our collections. All sales have truly been through word of mouth. 

We just need to finish the website, the catalogue and the samples for each collection, photograph all and then I’m set to meet clients and take orders … Now that production is confirmed and we have about a two week lead time on production (better than our competitors who are importing from abroad), we can really stand out. 

Also, we need to perfect photography which is difficult to capture a large throw on a thumbnail-size photo and is quite a challenge for our internet resellers. We are currently testing photographers and have a great photo shoot in place that should all come together in May.

Leroy & Scarpa

GL: In terms of design are you comfortable in this new market? 

Kris: Axelle and I just came back from London where we attended the Kelly Hoppen school of design. This program really helped me fine-tune what I was designing to be in harmony with Kelly Hoppen’s style which caters to the same clientele. I have finally overcome my fear of neutral linens and can expertly decipher the difference in taupe and sand tones.

We have also joined forces with our communications agency and www.ateliermartinberger.com to create www.cocotte-design.com, which is a blog for girls who like to talk about girls in design. We are having loads of fun with this project that just launched last weekend and are meeting a lot of interesting people in design. 

GL: What has inspired the new collection? 

Kris: I have found three new fabric designers that are really in tune with my style and blend well with what we have already. I have also found a sculpture-designer that can make the buttons that I’ve been trying to find worldwide as a final touch to the collection. We will also be designing our own buttons as finishing touches with our new logo. 

As we are actively targeting the ski areas, we are using a lot of faux-fur in bright colors and neutral tones. We only use French and Belgian top-quality fabric and the result is an ultra-soft, emotional / sensual product. It’s not just a throw! 

We are also launching some furniture at the fair in June: plush, patchwork chairs and cube tables. 

We have been lucky as the press has sought us out and especially the new magazine ‘Cosy Mountain’ which is the first ski-area magazine for contemporary design. Once our packaging is complete with the new logo, we should have a four-page spread in their fall issue. 

GL: And then what? 

Kris: Once summer arrives, I need to start designing the Spring Collection for 2011 which will include outdoor fabrics (pillows, lounge covers, poufs, plush chairs). We also have lighter throws planned for cool evenings and brightly colored pillows to match. 

I am also working with a graffiti artist to design some eclectic throws for artsy and adolescent clients. I am inspired by Banksy’s wall art in the UK and hope to transfer others artists’ designs onto throws, headboards, etc. 

We are working on our first chic-boutique deal in London and then who know where outside of France … For the moment we will focus on our home-base and slowly branch out to Switzerland, Italy and other foreign markets. 

We do want to maintain a ‘boutique-brand’ and not sell to large department stores. The idea is to remain exclusive and maintain a smaller, very happy clientele.

'Retour à Grenoble'. Photo: Loin des yeux

Without wireless in Grenoble? Don’t want to use an internet café or pay to buy a clé USB from SFR or Orange? Read on for sites of reliable and free internet access at various points throughout the city. 

By Anne S.

Pain et Cie
1 bis, rue de Lafayette
Tram: Sainte-Claire les Halles (B)

Pain et Cie is located very close to Place Notre Dame and is a great brunch/lunch/breakfast place. It’s a casual, relaxed spot with long wooden tables and a nice outdoor terrace as well. They have a bunch of tartines and jus de fruits bio and an incontournable spread of brunch items – it’s usually packed on Sunday mornings with everyone from students to families to young couples. They have a good free wireless network (although one or two times it didn’t work for me) and the big tables are excellent working spaces.

Pros: I’ve seen quite a few people working on computers there and the food is really good and reasonably priced. The restaurant as a whole has a nice atmosphere and the people who work there are also very friendly. Definitely my favorite wifi spot in Grenoble proper (excluding the university).

Cons: Pigeons sometimes fly in and out, which is alarming, but has nothing to do with computers. Also, there are only a few outlets, so bring your computer fully charged. 

Université de Grenoble
Saint Martin d’Hères campus
Tram: Bibliothèques Universitares (B/C)

This was my preferred point of Internet connectivity in Grenoble, as I was a part-time student at the university. The Bibliothèque Universitaire has plenty of tables, plugs, and excellent connectivity, as do a number of other sites on campus. The Fac also offers an opportunity for connection that is not a coffee shop or eating establishment, so it is theoretically one of the few “free” hotspots on this list.

Pros: The majority of campus buildings are wireless, and the Internet is fast and reliable.

Cons: You must be enrolled at the university to gain access to the network, if I’m not mistaken. It’s locked unless you have a login from their registrar. 

French Coffee Shop
3 place Claveyson
Tram: Sainte-Clare les Halles (B) or Maison de Tourisme (A/B)

This coffee shop is actually a chain with a number of locations around France. I got the impression that it is modeled after an American-style coffee shop (think Starbucks, Peet’s Coffee, or Tully’s), with blended ice drinks, smoothies, and muffins. It attracts a relatively young clientele, including a considerable amount of foreign (mostly American) students. The wireless network here was secure (password protected) and very reliable, and there are also a number of outlets to plug a power cord.

Pros: Outlets! Comfortable couches! And if you’re not in the mood for pastries, excellent chocolate muffins!

Cons: Do you really want to spend all your days at a place called French Coffee Shop?

Le 5 (Musée de Grenoble)
5 place de Lavalette
Tram: Musée de Grenoble (B)

Le 5 is the restaurant attached to the Musée but, of course, you can eat there with out paying admission to the museum. I’ve sat in there some afternoons with a coffee or a tea doing work on my computer and it’s a nice, quiet place. 

Pros: Quiet place to get things done, nice tables. At the Musée which is a nice change of pace from the average internet cafe. 

Cons: Like all museum restaurants, prices are a little higher. I also felt a little weird using my computer in the restaurant, but in the afternoon (around 4ish) when things were slow and I was lounging around with an espresso it seemed to be fine. 

Casino Géant
76 avenue Gabriel Péri, Saint Martin d’Hères
Tram: Neyrpic Belledone (C)

I’ve never actually tried this one out but I’ve been told that the shopping center here has free wifi. Where you’d use it in a grocery store is beyond me, but that’s that.

Around town

The ville de Grenoble has launched a public wireless access campaign, which gives users access in a variety of public spaces around the centre ville. Right now these spots include Parc Paul Mistral, Place Grenette, Place Saint-Andre, Place Victor Hugo, le Jardin de Ville, and le Jardin des plantes. The network (wifigrenoble or Ville-de-Grenoble) is somewhat reliable, with varying degrees of connectivity depending on where you are, but last time I checked the wifi in Parc Paul Mistral did not allow access to various media sharing sites such as Facebook, Youtube, Hulu.

Pros: Internet is accessible almost anywhere in the centre ville, including cafes or restaurants near the hotspots. I never lived in centre-ville proper, so I wouldn’t know if it is accessible if you live there, but maybe someone else can answer that question.

Cons: Checking your e-mail in Parc Paul Mistral? Really? It’s kind of awkward. Also, I have never seen anyone using a computer in that park, and when it’s sunny you get that whole problem of not being able to see the screen. You’d also run a higher risk of getting your computer stolen as it’s pretty open public place. More information here.

Also, I was told last spring that the Bibliothèque in centre ville was getting wifi, but am not sure if that has happened yet. Can anyone confirm this?

Still searching for the right path in Grenoble?

Grenoble Life’s Shonah Kennedy shares her experience of coming to the city on the “coat-tails” of her husband and discovering she was not the only woman in Grenoble who had temporarily placed their life on hold to be with the man of their dreams.

Heading back to Grenoble after a mini-break in Switzerland I wondered why I felt a little apprehensive. Then it hit me. I was going back to Grenoble AND going back to work! That is right – after what seemed like a formidably long time – I have a job! So, on the return journey to Grenoble, and inevitably to work, my thoughts were consumed by the metaphorical journey I took to get to where I was … it felt like a round-the-world trip, with multiple stopovers!

Until I had coffee with a lovely American girl, I felt that I was on the aforementioned sojourn alone – I imagined I had been the only one ever to have temporarily placed my life on hold to be with the man of my dreams, to live his dreams for a while, as mine simmered on some distant stove-top. However, as we chatted it emerged that she had decided to take a slight detour from the road she was traveling on when her husband received a job offer here. I felt relieved – even though she had been through many of the bureaucratic and emotional ups and downs that I had had to endure – as I was not alone anymore. Actually I would come to learn that the round-the-world was almost over-booked!

Even though my dear husband was very supportive and really encouraged me to get “out there” and look for the job I now have, and be able to write about it here, I really felt as if I had started this metaphorical travel with no preparation – I hadn’t purchased the latest guide book, I didn’t know the sites to see and I didn’t even think to take a language course … so when I ended up on the road, I felt as nervous as if I was going to hitchhike solo the whole way, and just hope that I arrived at the destination I was intended for.

After the coffee with my, now, dear American friend I started thinking there must be others out there like me, wandering around in the wilderness of a round-the-world which wasn’t entirely self motivated. In fact, I found a conglomerate of women living lives they would otherwise not have expected.

Now I have a job, in a profession I adore, and feel a somewhat useful part of society my lost days are few and far between. However, I have spoken to some women who still feel lost, after many years of being here. The decision was not entirely theirs in the first instance, to move to Grenoble, they “followed” – for want of a better word – their husbands here and have never really found their Grenoble feet. These women left good jobs, independence and a place where they felt at home to be with the one they love, but sadly the love of the town has never found them.

Then there are the women who have had a wonderful transition (are these the ones who acquired an upgrade to first class on their round-the-world, I wonder?!) and have not felt as if they have given up their path in lieu of their partner’s, but more taken a segue for a limited period and see many positives in the entirety of the adventure – new place, new language, new friends and an experience they would not otherwise have had.

After speaking to many women (and I know I keep mentioning women, it is not that I assume this situation only happens to women, but during my discussions on the topic of partners following partners, I only heard two separate rumours about men who came to Grenoble because their wives had jobs here) being in Grenoble for many different reasons – marriage, husband’s job, husband’s contract, boyfriend’s research etc. – I came to the conclusion that even though we are all on the same metaphorical journey we will all come home with different travel stories. Some may suffer from travel sickness, while others don’t. Some are in first class, while there are many of us in an overcrowded economy. Some get the interactive TV screens, while for some it is offline for a while, and they must wait for it to be reset. Whatever the situation the journey itself is seemingly memorable.

I would like to thank all the women who shared their stories with me, and I would like to make you aware that each of you has enhanced my round-the-world more than you will know!

Les Halles Sainte Claire, Grenoble

Grenoble Life’s Christina Rebuffet-Broadus walks Les Halles Sainte Claire, Grenoble’s foremost covered market and former convent, now site to a “divine experience of another kind”.

France wouldn’t be the same without the places that fire the wanderlust of francophiles everywhere. There are the cafés for people-watching and sipping an espresso in the sun. There are the Gothic cathedrals with spires straight out of a Victor Hugo novel. Then there are the open air markets, a sort of grand mass for the foodies of France. Almost every Sunday, I show up for service at Les Halles Sainte Claire for my weekly indulgence.

The Sainte Claire site once offered a divine experience of another kind. From the 15^th century, Clairisse nuns saved the city’s soul from inside the convent that once stood here. As industrialization conquered 19^th century France, the citizens of Grenoble needed physical rather than spiritual nourishment and the city decided to build a modern marketplace—the Halles Saint Claire, in 1874. The Grenoblois have been “going marketing,” as Julia Child would say, at Place Sainte Claire ever since.

Inside the Eiffel-esque glass and metal building, all those things that we expats love about French markets swirl about. There are a few cheese stalls with wide selections of what France does best. A baker offers classic baguettes and an assortment of more sophisticated pains. There are meat, fish, and poultry sellers for the protein. A few stands offer ready to eat delights if you can’t face the stove or wait to get back home to dig in.

There are a few stands that have upped my consumption of certain dishes. I’m almost on a first name basis with the sauerkraut lady (I said almost) of La Fée Maison. This young woman is like my French food fairy godmother. Ever tried to find good take-home choucroute in Grenoble? Well, here it is. This woman hails from the hearty land of Alsace and regularly goes back to select her cabbage farmers. She’ll also help you pick out the meats to serve with all that fermented cabbage—there’s a secret to choosing, but you’ll have to ask the expert.

Al Dente is the other stand that makes mush of my will power. Their homemade gnocchi measures up to the store bought stuff about the same way discount Carrefour glace does to artisanal Italian gelato. They always have a few olives set on the counter for sampling, but it’s the colorful antipasti and dried fruits that will catch your culinary eye.

Les Halles Sainte Claire isn’t just about the food—the sellers are as much a part of the experience as the food they sell. There’s the Harley riding chicken man that invited my husband and I to a rockabilly soirée at a neon-lit biker bar somewhere on the route nationale between Crolles and Chambéry. If you’re looking for a juicy poulet de Bresse or a jumping Teddy Boy joint, he’s your man. Catty corner to the chicken man, there’s the Chesire cat-grinning butcher. This man was born to be a butcher. Not so much for the kooky smile as for the savory paupiettes de veau that he ties up by the dozen. Go early if you plan on picking some up.

In fact, go early period, especially on Saturdays. Like anywhere in France, Saturday is synonymous with shopping crowds and trying to navigate the alley ways with a caddy full of groceries can be an exercise in patience and learning to live without personal space. Accept now that you will be trampled by little old ladies. That’s when it’s time to shop not in the halles, but around the halles.

“Ooh, pour ça il faut voir avec ma femme là-bas, c’est elle qui fait la cuisine et je suis pas encore mort! C’est que c’est pas trop mauvais!”

More brouhaha from the fruit & vegetable man?

Much of the brouhaha outside comes from the vegetable man who converses with his customers as if they all wore hearing aids. That’s how everyone in line learned that the secret of sautéeing buttery chanterelles baffled me. But I got a good recipe from his wife, not to mention a free bouquet of parsley, and a complimentary kiwi before being sent off with a few kilos of fruits and vegetables (my mom would be so proud) for around 10 euros. The quantity of produce carted away always seems to defy the low price and really, who doesn’t love those hollering market sellers?

The market at Les Halles Sainte Claire is convenient as the sellers set up shop every day except Monday, until around 1 p.m. On Fridays and Saturdays, the inside stands even stay open until 7 p.m. so that shoppers can prepare for weekend dinners with friends. Shopping starts as early as 6 a.m., so technically you could pick up some groceries before going to work.

Marketing can be hard fun. After a morning of poring over produce and poultry, you’ll find me at Le Zinc, a postcard of a bistro that usually has a few tables set up just opposite Les Halles. Watching this picturesque part of France from behind a grand crème offers the perfect reward for loading up on all those vegetables.

Sainte Claire, paradoxically, is unique and much like the outdoor markets all over Grenoble. It reminds us of the France that Julia Child loved, the France that M.F.K. Fisher praised, a France that still exists somewhat, defying the million metre carré Carrefours. A France that wants to enjoy grocery shopping as foreplay to a good meal. Customers come to savor the food, not just consume it. The nuns may be gone, but Sainte Claire still serves up a certain spiritual nourishment for the gourmets of Grenoble.

Upstage 2010

Grenoble Life’s Camille Bromley was in the audience at Ste-Marie-d’en-Bas for this year’s Upstage theatre production: Joe Orton’s Loot and Harold Pinter’s Mountain Language. Here’s what she has to say.  

Grenoble is home to a plethora of theaters running shows every night of the week, but not many of those are performed in English.  Luckily we have Upstage productions to step up to the task; every year Upstage puts on a six-day running of English language theater, performed by high school students at the Cité Internationale.  This year producer and director David Simpson presented a double-bill, Joe Orton’s Loot and Harold Pinter’s Mountain Language.  

Those expecting “High School Musical” should look elsewhere.  Although the team of actors is made up of high school students, the plays chosen confronted difficult and provocative issues. The group emphasizes that its shows are professional productions aimed for all mature audiences, and challenging plays are chosen to reflect this.  

First on the bill was the short but intense Mountain Language, a serious political play about the imprisonment and torture of an ethnic minority group and their loss of culture and identity as a result of the forced suppression of their language.  The play was written after writer Harold Pinter became aware of the treatment of Kurds in Turkey, but the play’s setting is non-specific.  Heavy subject matter and a demanding script, which the actors handled with deliberate subtlety, making the events on stage resonate even more.  

Loot, a subversive black comedy recounting a funeral, a bank robbery on the same day, and the consequent mayhem, is full of lively, sharp characters and witty one-liners.  The actor playing Nurse Fay got the character’s prim voice and maligning saunter down pat, while Inspector Truscot and Hal got through their bits with perfect comic delivery, including a Clouseau-ish French detective impression that won the house over.  

In both plays gender roles were not strictly kept to, with girls playing male roles to balance out the distribution.  To make the small number of roles available to more actors, two actors playing each role alternated nights.   

The play ran from Monday to Saturday the week before last.  Thursday night opened to a full house in the Ste-Marie-d’en-Bas, a small theatre with plenty of ambience just off of the place Notre Dame.  Many Anglophones were audible in the audience, but a good mix of Francophones was present as well.  

An impressive show, by an impressive group of bilingual students.  I look forward to next year’s.  

Upstage 2010 poster

Odyssey Intercultural

Michelle Mielly is MSc Marketing Program Director at Grenoble Graduate School of Business. She talks to Grenoble Life about her background, adapting to life in France and Odyssey Intercultural, the training consultancy she founded.

Grenoble Life: What is Odyssey Intercultural and who is it for?

Michelle Mielly: Odyssey Intercultural is a brand I created four years ago in my work as a consultant with Act’Rmc here in Grenoble. Its name reflects the long and multi-faceted journey that one experiences when working and living interculturally.

The training I have developed targets individuals, teams, and organizations wishing to acquire greater intercultural competency. They may be involved in an acculturation/expatriation process, working in a multicultural team environment, experiencing the ins and outs of a corporate merger or international joint venture, or managing any form of diversity in an organization. Any of these common situations requires intercultural competency.

GL: What are some of the dangers of poor intercultural understanding and management?

Michelle: Stated simply, failure is the biggest danger. Failure in business ventures is often attributed to incompatibilities in strategy, business models, operational technicalities, or management styles. However, when one looks at some of the most spectacular failures in international business, the hidden dimension of culture is often the origin.

The examples are multiple: Disney’s implantation strategy in France and in Hong Kong, the Daimler-Chrysler merger, Lucent-Alcatel’s missed mission, Schneider Electric’s difficulties with a number of its foreign subsidiaries, and many more. Some of these examples illustrate that cultural issues create great obstacles, but the good news is that you can overcome them with hard work and the investment of time.

Another danger is missed opportunities. Creating a bad first impression takes a long time to correct, so it’s better to go into international business with an open mind and conscientious preparation. Many opportunities are lost due to individual cultural differences that inhibited the establishment of a long lasting and productive relationship.

When people don’t feel respected, if they perceive a lack of interest on the part of the other, if they lack the fundamental trust at the foundations of the relationship, or if they think they are being stereotyped negatively, they go into defensive mode. Most of the time they actually start behaving in ways that may confirm the other’s stereotypes!

It must be stressed that in speaking of cultural differences in the corporate context, we are often talking about corporate, and not national or regional cultures. There are dozens of examples of mergers or acquisitions between the same national cultures, but the corporate cultures involved were profoundly imprinted and elusive to change.

GL: Odyssey Intercultural specializes in European-North American relations. Could you elaborate on how these relations can be complicated or sensitive and why Grenoble in particular might require such a service?

Michelle: Cultural differences exist between any two cultures: just looking at Western Europe’s dazzling diversity is overwhelming! Statistically speaking along national cultural dimensions, there are much greater differences between France and Denmark for example than there are between France and the US.

So why train people to work better with North Americans (Canadians and US)? Precisely because there is an incorrect perception, due to excessive and sustained commercial and popular culture exposure, that these cultures are familiar, superficial, and that there is not much more to know about them.

Upon closer examination, however, one finds differences of deep and significant import. It is one thing to watch American sitcoms, eat at McDonald’s, study the English language, visit Toronto or the Grand Canyon for two weeks. It is absolutely another to work, communicate, and negotiate with North Americans on a daily basis.

One example: the perception of time. First, is time a disposable resource? What is an acceptable turnaround time in responding to an email (reactivity levels)? What is the best way to organize time allocation for a project, or just for a meeting? How does one divide one’s personal time from professional time and is this necessary? Should people be available during vacation periods? How much vacation is necessary? What are the expected working hours in companies?

Grenoble’s high tech economy provides a stunning example of how globalization has simultaneously simplified and complicated our work environment. And this environment has an impact on our personal lives as well (increased travel, the need to work odd hours to accommodate conf calls internationally, etc.).

Managers now have teams working 24/7 on their global projects, so deep integration through collaborative technology is a reality today. An industrial project, for example, involves teams in multiple time zones with multiple local environments that contrast sharply from one site to another.

While technically we have the means to run long and short term projects across the globe, on a personal individual level, we often simply do not have the intercultural tools at our disposal to sustainably manage the complexity of the different cultural realities that each site and international counterpart presents throughout the project lifetime.

Partnerships in many forms between Grenoble-based organizations and North American organizations are extremely common and new ones are forming constantly. Due to the perceived similarity of our cultures, most of my clients do not see a need for my services at the start of the project, but usually begin to perceive the need once the challenges have begun to appear.

GL: Why and how did you set it up?

Michelle: I set up this activity to be able to develop trainings that had begun to be requested by local companies to whom I had been referred. As in any activity, a couple of companies ‘took a chance’ with me and offered me a first opportunity to develop a training on French-American intercultural communication.

Thanks to their confidence, I was able to get my grounding in this fascinating field and to develop and test my trainings on people directly working in the corporate environment. My work with people on both the French and American sites of these organizations has helped me see the importance of working with people on both sides of the fence.

GL: Tell us a little about your background

Michelle: Ethnographically speaking I fully identify myself as a southerner: born and raised in Texas to parents from Louisiana and Oklahoma. I grew up in a small town outside of Houston, where I spent a great deal of my time riding my horses and learning the value of simplicity and the happiness of being outdoors.

I started learning French when I was about 15 and then switched from the rodeo circuit to the international summer exchange circuit. I worked my way through undergraduate studies, three graduate programs including Pennsylvania State U and Harvard, and in between got some great experience working in the field.

Trained in linguistics, foreign language pedagogy, intercultural studies and anthropology, I’m politically progressive but culturally conservative. I am proud of my roots and the values I received from them and encourage my students and clients to never lose sight of those values, no matter how much adaptation they must do internationally.

GL: You’ve also worked in Africa and Central America, can you tell us a little about this and how it influenced your thinking.

Michelle: In my 20s I spent a lot of my time backpacking—Europe, Latin America, SE Asia, Africa. Studying comparative literature with a focus on contemporary Central American writers led me to Costa Rica where I had an exceptional experience. I wrote for the local English speaking paper in San José, translated the poetry of Ana Istaru, and had the chance to manage an ecotourism outfitter in the Northwestern pacific region of Guanacaste with 14 employees. This experience made it clear to me that development work was for me.

When I went on to study for the Ph.D. at Harvard, I focused on Francophone African civilizations with a focus on modern day cultural producers and how they contribute to economic and cultural development. I got to live and work with the extraordinary artist Werewere Liking in the Ki Yi Village, Ivory Coast.

These experiences involved huge amounts of negotiation, adaptation, and exhausting reappraisals of my priorities. I initiated as a part of my doctoral thesis for example a US tour of seven African artists in the US in 2004 involving 10 universities across the US, from New York all the way to Ohio.

I began to recognize that I had a certain ease in working with very different cultures and in coordinating among diverse partners in complex situations, constantly negotiating for the best compromise for all. I had in fact through these experiences developed my own working philosophy and own tools, but not until my work in intercultural management had I actually started thinking about them in terms of knowledge transmission.

GL: Concerning European-North American relations – as I’m British, where do I fit in? Do your clients ask for intercultural training on British working and cultural habits? How are we often perceived by others (wrongly or rightly)?

Michelle: Well, you and I have a lot in common in terms of cultural heritage. The US could be considered to simply be the most successful colony of the Commonwealth! And yes, I have actually been asked for help in companies working with the British, but I always involve a British colleague or graduate student in order to legitimize my work on that culture, to provide the most authentic training possible.

In terms of perceptions, the French have the perception that the British are not as trustworthy as the Americans. I think both cultures (French and English) perceive the other as ‘perfidious’, as traditionally both sides of the Channel have portrayed the other as capable of treason. Idiomatic expressions such as filer à l’anglais or ‘to take French leave’ illustrate the mistrust. And who can blame either? There is a lot of water under that bridge of collective memory.

Another perception that the French have is that the British have a more complex communication style with more ‘code’ and irony. And that is one that I fully agree with!

GL: What are some of the difficulties you have faced adapting to life in France and how have you overcome them?

Michelle: In terms of my greatest difficulties to adapting to France in particular, I think most of them were due to differing communication styles and my own unrealistic expectations. These created great obstacles for me here, and it took me some time to have close French friends.

I had learned from my southern American upbringing and values, what we call southern gentility, that there are certain things you just cannot do, for example:

It is impolite to confront or challenge others’ ideas in public, particularly if you do not know the person well. It is impolite to say provocative things about another country or civilization in front of the person representing that country. It is not kind to interrupt someone when they are speaking. It is not good manners to correct another person’s accent or pronunciation if they are learning your language. Finally, outside of communication issues, it is extremely rude to jump in front of someone in a line (or a queue as you say in the UK).

I progressively discovered to my astonishment that all of these behaviors were common in France, part of the way people operate here generally. It is perfectly fine to criticize others in order to spark a debate or discussion, to see whether you are capable of holding your own when it comes to rhetorical skills (of which the French have plenty).

It’s part of their philosophical heritage to critique other civilizations and to look upon the outside world as less attractive than France, but they actually want you to convince them otherwise. That’s why they provoke heated discussions which are in no way unfriendly. A sign of a strong relationship between two people here is to be able to argue heatedly and passionately with each other, often in public.

Frequent interruptions in France are normal and common in discussions, formal and informal. Correcting someone’s French is the only way to help that person avoid sounding ridiculous to others, and having someone else correct them later.

Last but not least, if you do not have a strong territorial strategy for defending your place in a queue, people will simply cut in front of you. It was me who needed to adapt my behaviors and expectations to this new environment, to shift from passive to active mode.

GL: Could you give Grenoble Life readers some tips on adapting to life in France?

Michelle: I think the above description could suffice: it’s all about changing your expectations and recognizing your cultural limitations in order to move on. If French people seem strange, rude, or complicated to you, they may be thinking the exact thing of you! You have to be a lot more flexible in another country than you are at home, you have to tolerate a lot more discomfort and sense of displacement.

It can really be frustrating at times and often discouraging. The movement from one place to another, literally translatio, requires a self-reflexive capacity for adapting to the new environment and to those with whom you are in contact. Yet more important than any of this is having a strong dose of empathy. In other words, forcing oneself into the uneasy position of the other, and trying at all times to imagine things from their perspective.

See www.odysseyintercultural.com for more info.

Just landed in Grenoble? Don't worry, there's a club for you. Photo: Guillaume Brialon

Just landed in Grenoble? Grenoble Life editor James Dalrymple gives his rough guide to Grenoble’s expat clubs and Anglophone businesses and services.

I have been asked by the French Entrée website to write a post with general advice for expats in Grenoble and the surrounding area, including relevant clubs and associations to join. Where to begin? Maybe you have already heard claims that Grenoble has one of the biggest Anglophone communities of any French city. I’m not sure of the real stats, and I will resist the temptation to invent some here, but suffice to say you stand a good chance of meeting other English-speakers whether you wish to or not.

It can be a bone of contention. Some people get defensive about the expat thing, saying something along the lines of, “I didn’t come to France to meet other [insert relevant English-speaking nationality here], I came to meet French people etc.” I don’t really subscribe to this view. When I lived in the UK, I always gravitated towards people who were very international in their outlook, and counted many cultures among those I called my friends. Just because I came to live in France, doesn’t mean that I should only spend time with French people just to feel good about myself. Among the expat groups and associations listed below, one may find many Anglo-French couples, so-called ‘third culture kids’, and all manner of general pan-European activity that belies the widely held view of what expat communities are.

Most new English-speaking Grenoble residents, particularly those with families, are likely to encounter Open House, the city’s long-established and possibly largest expat association. Among the activities Open House organizes are children’s parties, excursions, wine tastings, lunches, outdoor activities, book groups, coffee meetings and French-English language exchange.

The more student-orientated Happy People 38 organizes intercultural social events and language exchanges. Meanwhile, Celtic Connection promotes Irish and Scottish culture and sport in Grenoble and hosts Hallowe’en and St Patrick’s parties, a Burns’ supper, and summer picnics. Scottish expats and a host of other nationals can also be found at a weekly Knitting Bee at Café Leyritz, Place Vaucanson, every Tuesday afternoon at 2pm.

Although not Anglophone I feel duty-bound to make you aware of the lovely people at Le Club Danemark – Rhône Alpes, who are known to organise Glögg parties, Danish lessons and excursions, including cross country skiing. For more info contact: danemark-rhonealpes@live.com

English Talk Radio, presented by Vivian Draper, is a bi-monthly show on 90.8 Radio Campus Grenoble.  The show talks about film, theatre, finance, restaurants and travel, and has a variety of topical local guests; every Sunday at 12.30pm, and every Wednesday at 7pm on 90.8, Radio Campus Grenoble.

For those expats who want their young children to have plenty of contact with the English language, there are some associations which can help with this, including Communication Café and ABC Anglais. Alternatively, French language classes for adults can be obtained from a variety of institutions and associations outlined in depth here.

If you are looking for American or British style cakes there is The Cake Shop and Bookworm Café. The latter also hosts book and poetry groups, language classes, local artists’ exhibitions and occasional musical performances. They also buy and sell second-hand English books, and have English newspapers and magazines to peruse. Furthermore, if you meet French friends yet to be convinced of the potential merits of American cuisine, Pumpkins might be wise place to convert them.

If you can’t find the book you are looking for at Bookworm Café there are two Anglophone libraries, La Bibliotèque Anglophone de Meylan and the English Library at Babel, which also runs book groups for teenagers and adults. Many municipal libraries also have English-language selections, particularly the International Public Library.

Given the dubious French proclivity for dubbing foreign language films into la langue maternelle, you may want to exercise caution when going to the cinema. Le Club (rue du Phalanstère) and La Nef (boulevard Edouard-Rey) are two theatres with dependably interesting programmes, all in version originale. For more info on the city’s movie theatres and film festivals, check out this comprehensive guide.

For church-goers, members from about 10 different denominations and 15 nationalities are welcome to attend The English Speaking Church of Grenoble, which also has a programme of social activities including dances, crafts nights, family evenings, visits to local attractions and walks.

In terms of professional development, the most dynamic and active association is the Working Women’s Network of Grenoble, which organizes networking lunches, workshops and seminars, and is run by a very helpful and efficient body of women. For opportunities to do volunteer work there is VSArt, an association that brings cultural opportunities to disadvantaged and elderly people. The Grenoble chapter was set up and is run by American Meredith Charreyron.

Grenoble also has a number of amateur English-speaking theatre groups. Students of different ages from Cité Internationale Scolaire de Grenoble participate in an annual pantomime and Upstage, respectively. The latter puts on very high quality plays every year at Ste-Marie-d’en-Bas, a 166-seat theatre off Place Notre Dame. Likewise, students of the English department at Stendhal University put on productions on campus every year. English-speakers are also invited to join a new Grenoble English Theatre Group, run by Nathalie Joshua. Novices welcome. For more information contact her at nathaliejoshua@hotmail.com

For health and well-being, Anglo-style therapeutic massage and aromatherapy can be obtained from Amy Cannata (waterfallwellness@me.com) and Shiatsu massage from Rebecca Skillman.

Finally, of course, I mustn’t forget to mention your very own Grenoble Life, which has articles and practical info for English speaking residents past, present and future. It also includes photo sharing, free classified ads and interviews with prominent members of the Anglophone community.

If I have forgotten any essential clubs or organizations, please use the comments box below to add to the list.

Managing Your Professional “Brand” through Social Media

Mickey Farrance, President of the Working Women’s Network of Grenoble, announces a seminar on Saturday, March 20 at the Grenoble École de Management called Face-to-face to FaceBook: Managing Your Professional “Brand” through Social Media. Find out more here.

“‘To google’ is now a verb, and it doesn’t just refer to looking up information about things, it also means looking up information about people.  That means you, me, the next person applying for a job, or somebody I might consider working with.”  — Kelly Rigotti, blog, marketing and web presence consultant.

What do you find when you google yourself?  For professional people—entrepreneurs, business owners, consultants, job seekers, or anyone with a career in progress—this is an important question.

A professional image means conducting business professionally, dressing professionally, networking professionally— today, a professional image also includes what is out there about you on the Web.

What does that set of links returned by Google say about your professional image?   And how do you “manage” that information?  It’s random, isn’t it?

Not quite.  In fact it’s possible to manage your professional image— and not as hard to do as it might sound— through the appropriate use of social media:  LinkedIn, Viadeo, Facebook, Twitter, and more.

Here’s an opportunity to find out what this means and how to do it, at a half-day professional development Seminar, in English:  Personal Branding:  Manage Your Image through New Media, presented by the Working Women’s Network of Grenoble on Saturday, March 20 at the Grenoble École de Management.

It’s open to anyone (men as well as women) in the Grenoble area interested in learning how to develop a “Personal Brand” (a good reputation) and manage that online image using the new social media. 

Grenoble Life readers are a tech-savvy bunch, but it seems there’s always something new to discover.  If you are not sure what this “new media” is all about, or how to manage the increasing flow of incoming and outgoing social media communications, this seminar is for you too.  Bring your expertise along, as it’s also an excellent opportunity to share.

To sign up, download the registration form here.

Classroom. Photo: sfar

Gregg West is an American history and geography teacher at Cité Scolaire Internationale. He also handles the school pantomime, organic gardening club, interpersonal communication classes and music club.  In this explosive article for Grenoble Life, he describes his career-long efforts to change the education system in France.

It would be preposterous to assume that any education system in the world does its job correctly, when one observes the amount of poverty, crime, violence, drug addiction, alienation, loneliness, pollution, general unhappiness, and other symptoms of human foolishness, frailty, or limitations.  But one could just say, “Oh well, people do their best and one can’t ask more of them than that.” Nevertheless, when one is a teacher and has to face an educational system day in and day out with its many constraints, it can be very trying, for even if he or she sees many kids succeed and go on to brilliant careers and happy, if not totally unperturbed, lives, there are a lot of others who will live troubled existences.

Over the last 37 years, I have tried to learn to teach and have perpetrated my teaching upon unsuspecting people, both children and adults, in North America, Scotland and France, but I have also had these teaching systems (pardon my syntax) perpetrated upon me. The following observations about the French system are not at all intended to exonerate other systems from similar criticism.

More is better

Since settling permanently in France in 1983 I have witnessed a system which believes that more is better despite the famous saying of Montaigne (loosely translated) that a “well-made head is better than a full head.” Indeed, in the Connexion of February 2010, the minister of Higher Education, Ms. Valerie Pécresse went so far as to say to a journalist “you seem to be contradicting yourself when you cast doubt on the level of lycée students passing the Bac but then suggest reducing the number of hours.”  Really, Ms. Pécresse, this is a national disease, thinking that more is always better. So why not give children 16-hour school days? Children need time for other things than school work to become thinking, feeling, well-balanced individuals. I thought everyone knew that … hmmm.

A second aspect of the French system that is curious for those of us from English-speaking cultures is the belief held by many that school is only for instruction of specific subject matters, does not require a global education of children in terms of understanding their social and psychological context, learning to motivate them, inciting them to improving their citizenship, social relations, and so forth and that, therefore, teachers do not need to learn anything but their own subject matter at university. No interpersonal communication, no group dynamics, no pedagogical methods, no interdisciplinary knowledge to coordinate interdisciplinary projects … It apparently threatens many whose work status and contract only commits them to knowing their subject … even if inspectors put pressure on them to teach better … and the French government has just decided to shut down IUFM (teacher training institutes), something highly consistent with this view.

In this extremely cerebral environment, a third characteristic of the French system, at least insofar as it concerns university-bound students, is that they needn’t develop artistic, manual or day-to-day skills like typing, driving a car, first aid, or cooking at school. (Well, they DO learn road security, but only the theory … ) In short, learning does NOT involve doing things, except writing essays, carrying out a few carefully limited classroom experiments, doing research and other relatively abstract tasks. So these other skills surprisingly only get developed among a minority of people who have the money to do them outside of school or have families patient and qualified enough to help them learn these things. When I see high school kids pecking away with their fingers on a keyboard, when I have to fork out over 1000€ for driving classes, or when I see the beginnings of obesity among French young people like in my native America, I do wonder about these priorities.

Lip service

Finally, as with many other school systems, the French speak of democracy, but practice dictatorship, pay lip service to cooperation and solidarity but practice competition, praise acceptance of differences, but punish those who do not “fit in” with ridicule, humiliating grades, and other forms of social exclusion, lecture people about human rights while submitting high school students to 50 hour weeks (35 hours of class plus 15 hours of homework a week), claim to be ecological while using throw-away pens, producing millions of tons of new, bleached, non-recycled fibre paper waste that are not even recycled, and brag about their great cuisine while abandoning their children to canteens that serve poor quality, poorly balanced meals that contain pesticides, instead of making quality and organic food priorities.  What is the saying, “Do as I say, not as I do?” Problem is, it doesn’t work that way and, as Leonard Cohen said, “Everybody knows…” Kids’ strongest learning experiences stem from doing and from example.

In such an unnatural neurotic environment, is it any wonder then that many French kids suffer from depression, insomnia, smoke a lot of cigarettes, become fashion victims or anorexics, drop out due to a lack of motivation (around 10%), or decide not to care about politics or association activity, plunging into a life of semi-blind consumption as adults, with no personal artistic side that they can cultivate to express themselves healthily? Is it any wonder that they become recalcitrant at suggestions that they drive less (so little physical exercise during their childhood), watch less TV (when did they learn how to entertain themselves?), vote more (when did anyone ask their opinion anyway?), or think about important issues (weren’t they only supposed to give teachers the answers required?), or question notions the media and political elite expound as evident (nuclear energy and genetically modified organisms aren’t dangerous, are they, or THEY would tell us … like our teachers … wouldn’t they?) Once you’ve got people conditioned, it is very hard to change them. Some would even suggest that this conditioning has been done CONSCIOUSLY to preserve the privileges of elite, but I’m not much of a conspiracy theory advocate, so I’ll leave this idea aside. I think it’s just force of habit and past conditioning … an unwillingness to question what came before.

Unfamiliar future

At any rate, all that I have described is what one would call a SCHEMATIC, OVERDRAWN picture of the French Educational system. Of course, there are positive sides, but you all know those; France is one of the world’s leading countries in social programs, economic productivity, democratic freedoms, and so forth … well, for the moment at least … But is this preparing us for an oil-poor, resource-poor future in a world where company relocation to Newly Industrialized Countries may force us to reorganize a great deal of our economy and learn to share, be happy with less, and use our imagination to find new, workable ways of life?

But of course changing things is never easy. People are afraid of unfamiliar ways, they think that what they know is the only way, there are vested interests, it involves calling habits and training into question, it doesn’t suffice to throw money at problems, and even good ideas, if poorly or insufficiently applied will lead to failure. In short, it isn’t a technical impossibility, but it remains a political improbability.

Political debate

I decided in 1987 to try to do something about all this. I spent five years in a minor political party which seemed highly motivated to lead change in society as the chairman of their education commission, consulting hundreds of students, parents, teachers, and others involved in education, as well as union representatives and school directors. We worked out propositions to change school radically (more on what these were later) … something in line with the party’s desire to “create a cultural majority for change.”

I sent the propositions to the hundred or so representatives of various regions in the party’s governing committee a few months before it was scheduled for debate on the agenda. But the day of the debate, there were “more urgent matters” so debate was pushed back till the very end of a Sunday afternoon when one third had already left to take their trains, leaving only 10 minutes to debate a topic that concerns every single citizen of a democratic country. Of those remaining, fully half were teachers … and a plurality of these opposed all the measures which might require them to retrain to handle new functions. So without any guidelines on HOW to change our propositions, we were sent back to the commission to “work on the propositions some more…” Thoroughly disgusted, I resigned as commission chairman.

An alternative school

In the U.S., as a young teacher, I had already experienced the difficulties of even modifying one local system of education, so I reasoned that if what I considered the most progressive political party in France and its host of teachers were unable to be open towards real change, then there was little hope of changing such a huge system from within. I worked for the next seven years on the idea of creating an alternative school, parallel to the system, in hopes that an example outside the system might show people what is possible. But here too I was to be foiled. Among the enthusiastic parents supporting this idea, most were penniless; among the enthusiastic teachers supporting this idea, most, not surprisingly, wanted to be paid! Real estate was too expensive to rent in large towns, and small towns placed obstacles in our path, fearing we might lower already precarious enrolment figures, provoking the closing of their public schools. There were also dreamers who talked about “borrowing seven million francs” from a bank as if any bank would ever entertain such an idea. A subscription among political activists raised some 135,000 francs, but we were never able to establish a three year budget that promised any hope of surviving, even on minimum incomes, so we were obliged to abandon the plan and send people’s money back.

At this point I decided to give up. I had a good job in a public school and began trying to develop extracurricular activities to compensate for the unidimensional aspects of school. I created a music club and later a theater program where kids could learn self-management, cooperation, create, express themselves, develop their confidence, teamwork and self-esteem, associate with older students and adults as role models instead of submitting to age segregation, and receive recognition without grades from those around them.  I found no need to involve parents for the music club, but broke an additional taboo when I got parents involved heavily in the theater program … something few French school teachers like to see … parents in the school working with kids … perhaps because it threatens their own prerogatives to teach as they see fit … but this was only outside of class …

In my own classes, I developed a method of teaching involving considerable debate and discussion, with occasional projects and games, but the program was often so immense that time was always pressing us to return to a teacher-centered curriculum.

Moving the mammoth

I suppose this is why when I was approached by a sympathetic political activist, I accepted getting involved in an association whose goal, like mine, was to move the mammoth (change the educational system) even though I remained very sceptical about the possible success of such an effort.

Over a period of about three years, we developed a support group of some 300 people, including thirty to forty teachers and three school headmasters, and we elaborated propositions very similar to those the education commission I’d managed had put forth only to be rejected. We outlined a plan for creating special schools, particularly in the junior high years (collège), and hopefully one or two in each department, which would function differently and thus serve as an illustration of alternative approaches to education. The basic ideas behind these schools included:

• Only four hours of academic solids per day, so less Math, less French, less language, less science, less history and geography (oh dear!!!). Interdisciplinary projects as a way of exploring basic subjects.
• Groups for enrichment, remedial work and orientation for one hour a day.
• Workshops to learn practical subjects, develop artistic abilities, and physical education 1 hour a day.
• Collective expression and action a few hours a week to put democracy into practice.
• A severe limit on homework and no grading, but still evaluating and testing.

One can like or dislike these propositions, but the fact remains that they allow schools to handle a number of the objections mentioned above and the existence of a certain number of schools of this type in the Northern part of Europe tends to confirm that they can be a positive experience, developing well-rounded, independent, thinking students … if properly applied.

We sent a 10-page summary and a longer 40-page detailed version of the project to various people in positions to make decisions. We met with those in charge of education at City Hall and the Conseil Général, as well as the man in charge of innovation at the Rectorate and the Academic Inspector of Isère. All reacted favorably, saying the idea looked great. When we said we also had a list of teachers and an administrator to run the school though, the Rectorate and Academic Inspection suddenly began hemming and hawing about the fact that they would need to talk to unions about it, that they couldn’t name people on the basis of aptitude or motivation, but only on the basis of seniority points (meaning the death of the project) and that they would have to check with their hierarchy on whether this was all possible (i.e., if it wasn’t pursued, it wouldn’t be THEIR fault …) Despite attempts to get them to put this on paper, they refused and they began doing what bureaucrats do when they don’t want something to happen. They sat on it, refusing further meetings, correspondence or any other indication of their position, killing the project.

Things I can do

So, at age 57, tired of spending so much energy for nothing, I chose to devote myself instead to things I CAN do without political games and support from people higher up. I continued with my teaching job, interpersonal communication classes, the music club with its concerts and CDs, the theater program with up to five shows and 750 spectators per year (our headmaster even had a stage built for us … and other groups in the school to use.) And I created an organic gardening club in our school.

None of this however will make the changes I believe that France (and other countries) desperately need in their education systems if they want to create a vast majority of real human beings capable of adult behaviour, wisdom, commitment, values, and coherent behaviour emancipated from the manipulative, narrow channels that current systems carve for them.

Villeneuve d’Uriage

Rebecca Skillman talks to residents of the hamlet Villeneuve d’Uriage, near Grenoble. She shares with us her discoveries about issues of sustainability and community in Alpine village life.

Perched above the thermal spa town of Uriage, the idyllically located hamlet of Villeneuve d’Uriage is home to around 150 people. I was curious about what attracts people to live here; how people relate to each other in the village; and whether there is more to the hamlet than simply “Grenoble satellite”? 

I talked to three couples who have made the village their home. The interviews reveal the similarities and differences in how we view “nature”, our overall need to connect with each other and our search for sustainability in the 21^st century. 

Kelli (Project Manager, HP) and Olivier (Sales Manager, HP)  

Kelli: I was born and raised in Boise in the US. The decision to move to France wasn’t difficult – this was the right place to be at this time in our lives. What was hard was leaving family and friends. I told myself: part of my cost of living is getting back to the US as often as possible. That’s how I talked myself into making it work, and it has. 

People here have been very kind. At the same time I miss the feeling of community I had back home. In Boise, when you do something like running errands, you have a list of people you’re gonna do things for. You walk in and out your neighbours’ homes – you don’t knock – and it’s very informal. You garden together and you build your houses together. One time my mother’s basement was flooded and suddenly there’s a whole crowd of people fixing the problem and drinking beer, making a party out of it. If there’s an issue, you sort it but have a good time doing it. But here in the village it’s just the two of us. 

I’m very happy here but if I could change anything it would be the distance between Boise and France!  And, day to day, I wouldn’t choose again to work from home. Much as I love our place it’s one of the things that’s slowed me becoming part of the community. 

Olivier: I was looking for a balance between proximity to Grenoble, for my job, and a village that is really alive – people working here, farmers, tractors passing the house. Other mountain villages may be pretty but at 9am they are empty. When I see a tractor here, I’m happy. And it’s the first time in my life I feel content coming back home after work. 

Living in this area, I’m ideally placed for my outdoor passions. I love wild places and I like to spend my weekends rock climbing and skiing. What drives me is being challenged by nature, having the feeling that it’s stronger than me. The down side is that it means I’m rarely home at weekends, and that doesn’t help for integrating with the community. 

Pierre Yves (Research Scientist, CNRS) and Françoise (Research Engineer, CNRS) 

Françoise: My husband, Pierre Yves, discovered the village 15 years ago – and I wasn’t sure, because the road gets very iced up in winter. But the spirit of the village worked its charm on me – even though I didn’t know the place at that time – and I was captivated. 

What appeals to me is that the people who live here are very close to the natural elements, flora and fauna and this closeness expresses itself in the way they rear their animals, and gives the village a special kind of energy. I love being able to walk in the streets in the evening and having nothing but pleasant surprises, and smiles, in my encounters with the neighbours. 

With regard to village life, when we first lived here I was involved with a village association. We organised several events to help people meet each other. As time went by that stopped because we ran out of energy. But now something similar is happening around Alain and Yvette’s farm. 

The people who work on the farm have an attitude and philosophy that’s a little different from mainstream agriculture. For several years they have produced organic wheat using an ancient stone mill to create flour. From this they make bread, the main source of income. Around the farm, there is a small kernel of people who have created an association, Grains de beauté, whose main aim is to promote contact, and a meeting place in the widest sense of the word. This word “meeting” is a common theme in everything organised. For example, it could be a willow basket or bread-making workshop, or the regular choral events.

Pierre Yves: This hamlet is probably unique in the Grenoble area: it is small, isolated and surrounded by nature. The thing that struck me when I first arrived, well before I knew people here, was the timelessness of the place. When you go to Alain and Yvette’s farm, you enter another age; the place feels unchanged in centuries.

Referring to what Françoise said about how people relate to each other …  she mentioned that everyone is friendly. This didn’t happen as easily as that. What’s interesting to me is that on the one hand – of course – there are different factions. The other side of this coin is that there is no such thing as anonymity in the village. 

In Villeneuve there are three broad groups of people: those who have always been here (mostly former farmers), new arrivals such as us (one is a “new arrival” for a long time!), and farmers actively farming. The fact that most of the farming around the village is organic, and connected with nature, contributes to the atmosphere of the hamlet and the area around it. 

The smallness of the hamlet, surrounded by nature, resonates very strongly with me. We aren’t going to be able to forever extend the metropolitan areas; towns, in general, are located in the middle of the richest agricultural land. So at some point this urban expansion will have to stop. Villeneuve feels like a potential model of how we will need to live our lives in the future. 

The development of non-agricultural activities around the farm is, for me, very much linked with the question of how we make the transition to sustainable development. The farm, and the activities linked with it, represents a local approach that restores a sense of collaboration, whether material or artistic, on a human scale and in sync with the rhythms of nature. What happens around the farm seems to me to answer a need that isn’t met in the way we currently organise society in terms of how we connect with each other. It is one way in which people are trying to satisfy this need. 

Yvette (agricultrice) and Alain (agriculteur)

Yvette: I’ve always worked on the land and my life in Villeneuve began when I found a small farm to rent, way back when was 17. I arrived on my own and, at that time, there weren’t many women farming in that way. Suddenly everyone was giving me a helping hand. 

I started farming with some goats and, at the same time, Alain started the vegetable garden. From that, he developed into market gardening. Little by little, I wound down the goats and both of us worked in market gardening. We began to integrate ideas from bio-dynamic agriculture – an organic approach using an awareness of the energies that govern the land, the animals and nature in general. 

We lived through a period that was challenging, economically. At that time the local farmers were amused by our way of doing things. But, when we bought the house, that changed our relationship. They saw that we were managing to make a go of farming and we became the enemy by virtue of the fact that, as people working in agriculture, we blocked land that they wanted to develop. Overall, we had 10 years of good relations, 10 of bad and now we have had 10 years of neutrality – but at least no tension. Our closest links are with people who have moved here from elsewhere. 

In terms of the farm itself, there’s potentail for our level of activity to develop. My personal project is to develop animal rearing: in addition to the cows that we already have, introduce a few goats again, some hens and turkeys. 

Alain: This work may evolve through the support of the association ; it isn’t necessarily a profit-making activity. But you or I, or any of the people at Villeneuve realise that it’s important to have animals in a village and it’s also important to have people to look after them. That’s where I see the link between the farm association and the people of Villeneuve and around. People need to realise that animals bring a particular type of energy which helps us to live. It’s not just the responsibility of farm workers, it’s for all of us, for the future, to realise that we have a role and that it’s important to maintain farm animals. 

In today’s society 9 out of 10 people are doing a job that has nothing to do with our physical world. They live in a virtual world in terms of computers and IT, producing things that we don’t need. This may create employment but it isn’t real in the sense that if this work were to suddenly stop … where would we be? We’d still need to feed ourselves, somehow. This way of living and working leads us to completely disconnected lifestyles where we travel and lead our lives in a complex way when there is a far simpler way of nourishing ourselves. This “virtual world”, on the other hand, generates ridiculous ideas … like that it’s ok to take a plane to the other end of the world for 20 euros. For me that is completely unreal! People want to live in a “green” way but they think it’s ok to buy a plane ticket at such a low price?! There’s hard thinking is needed there.  

I believe people have a fundamental need to regenerate, to get together and do things with others. I see an alternative way forward that contacts what’s deeply important for all of us. I mean, what’s fundamental in order for society to develop. For this we need to make contact with each other, starting with those of us who are able to meet around a place and try to move towards something better, socially. 

I think that a farm is the ideal place to start rethinking how society can work. There’s already a structure, and a sense of birth and creativity – animals, the food we produce. From here we can begin, gradually, a project to develop our society.

For further information about the farm association, Grains de Beauté, and its activities, contact the association: beaute.des.graines (at) gmail.com

Film Projector Lens. Photo: Daniel Leininger

Are you a film buff? Know your Nouvelle Vague from your Cinéma Vérité? Grenoble has a wealth of cinemas and film festivals to cater for all movie tastes. Grenoble Life’s Camille Bromley investigates. 

During the grey Grenoble winter I frequently find myself ducking out of the rain and snow and into the cozy darkness of the movie theater. Grenoble’s a particularly rich city for movie lovers; lately there’s been one film festival after another, while the numerous movie theaters in town already provide plenty of occasions to see lesser-known or international films.   

Most of the theaters mentioned below show films in their original language with French subtitles—check for VF (version française) or VO (version originale) next to the listing. Ticket prices in the art cinemas range from about three to six euros, and are free in some special cases as part of film festival programs. Be sure to catch some of the extras with film festival screenings, as they often program-in shorts, stage talks before the film or dialogues afterwards, invite the filmmaker to be present, or even plan a goûter. 

The theater of choice for all cinephiles in Grenoble would be La Salle Juliet Berto, home to the Ciné-Club de Grenoble. Juliet Berto is conveniently located on Place Saint André, across from the former Tribunal court. The Ciné-Club projects films each Wednesday at 8:00 pm, and many more films are shown throughout the week at Juliet Berto on behalf of other associations. The Ciné-Club has just finished a cycle of film noir, including The Maltese Falcon; a cycle of B horror movies, including Invasion of the Body Snatchers; and will kick off a cycle around the theme “strange love” with Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude on March 3^rd. 

The biennial film festival Cinéduc concluded their 10-day program last week. This year’s theme was Bonjour le Bonheur!, and included daily films, debates, and conferences exploring how happiness is portrayed in cinema spanning all corners of the world and all decades in film history. If you’ll be in Grenoble in 2012, keep an eye peeled for the next festival. 

La Cinémathèque de Grenoble is another association that projects films regularly (about 120 showings per year) at Juliet Berto. The films are often accompanied by talks, debates, conferences, and meetings with the directors. Last week I saw a free showing of Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent classic Metropolis, along with Arrival of a Train at a Station, one of the Lumière brothers’ first films. Currently they are projecting a cycle of animated films and films for children. To come is a selection of established classics, including The Grapes of Wrath; an evening with Yemenite director Khadija Al-Salami and her films; a conference on cinema and pornography; and a showing of Jacques Tati’s Mon Oncle. From July 6^th to 10^th this year, the Cinémathèque de Grenoble will also hold its annual Festival du Court Métrage en Plein Air. Thirty to forty short films competing for prizes will be shown under the stars in the center of Grenoble. 

Until March 3^rd, the cinéma le Méliès is hosting a series of children’s films and events. Among the 14 films being shown are The Wizard of Oz and Where the Wild Things Are.       

This year’s annual Festival isérois du film sur la Résistance, organized in connection with the Museum of Resistance and Deportation, will take place from March 15^th to 25^th.  Classics of European cinema, documentary films, and conferences will be held in various theaters in Grenoble and the surrounding area. 

From April 20^th to 27^th, the organization Vues d’en face will hold its annual Festival international du film gay et lesbien. The films are not yet selected. 

While it’s not film, there is also a Marionnette Festival happening now, from February 15^th to 28^th, on stages across Isère. 

Listing of independent/art house cinemas: 

La salle Juliet Berto
Passage du palais de justice, 38000 Grenoble
04 76 54 03 08 

Le Méliès
3, rue de Strasbourg, 38000 Grenoble
04 76 47 99 31

Mon ciné
10, avenue Ambroise-Croizat, Saint-Martin-d’Hères
04 76 44 60 11 

Espace Aragon
19 bis boulevard Jules Ferry, 38190 Villard-Bonnot
04 76 71 22 51 

Commercial movie theaters: 

La Nef
18, boulevard Edouard-Rey, 38000 Grenoble
08 92 68 00 31 

Le Club
9 bis, rue du Phalanstère, 38000 Grenoble
04 76 87 46 21 

Multiplex Pathé-Chavant
21, boulevard Maréchal-Lyautey, 38000 Grenoble
08 92 68 00 31 

Les 6 Rex
13, rue St Jacques, 38000 Grenoble
08 92 68 00 31 

*Film showings for the theaters without websites can be seen on www.allocine.fr or in the weekly publications GreNews and Grenoble & Moi.

Pat Brans

Grenoble-based Pat Brans is founder of the Master the Moment time-management method, giving speeches and training sessions at companies and organisations around the region and beyond. He tells Grenoble Life about his work, his background, and how to get a higher return on your efforts.

Grenoble Life: Tell us a little about your background

Pat Brans: I started my career as a software engineer. I also did some management. This was for four different startups in the Washington D.C. area. I then got into business consulting, and was director of a team of business consultants with CSC in Cologne, Germany. After three years there, I moved to Grenoble to work with HP, where I got more involved in business development, and eventually took charge of a set of solutions where we applied mobile technology to optimize workforce effectiveness. I was in charge of these solutions world wide. We called these offerings “mobile field sales and services”, because we mostly applied our solutions to help our customers make their sales and service forces more efficient. During this time, I wrote my first book called Mobilize Your Enterprise: Achieving Competitive Advantage through Wireless Technology.

I got to know a lot of people in the industry, and was offered a job with Sybase to manage strategic alliances across Europe. The software we sold was used for mobile applications, mostly applications geared towards worker productivity. I frequently gave talks on this subject at events from Dubai to Lisbon. And in dealing with the partners I managed, sometimes I had to give them ideas on how technology can make people do their work better and faster.

In summary, starting from my arrival in Grenoble twelve-and-a-half years ago, it gradually became very natural for me to talk about productivity.

GL: In a nutshell – what is the Master the Moment method and how was it developed?

PB: I have always been interested in understanding why some people get so much more done than others, and why those who get more done are actually less tired. Throughout my career, I tried to note who I thought was more personally effective, and I tried to learn from them. I kept mental notes on things like how to best run meetings, how to best participate in meetings, how to delegate, and how to be delegated to.

Coincidentally, my work life over the last twelve years has involved thinking of ways of making people more productive through the use of technology. I say “coincidentally”, because these two sets of ideas run along separate dimensions. Giving people tools to make them more efficient is a good idea, but it won’t make the order-of-magnitude difference you’ll get through rethinking your attitude towards goals, making the right choices about priorities, and overcoming the tendancy to procrastinate.

I read tons of books on time management and I read lots of psychology research papers, but this was all theory. And I never saw any approach to time management that was based on emperical data – in other words, going out and asking high achievers what they think. So I picked the set of people I thought have the most to say about time management. And when I use the “term time management”, I’m refering to anything and everything you can do with your time to make you more effective. What can you do to emulate the people who get a lot done without breaking a sweat?

The category of people I selected were CEOs of large corporations. I talked to fifty different CEOs of organisations with revenue of $2 billion on average. These people are themselves very effective – and equally as important, they are perfectly positioned to observe hundreds of other people and develop a well-founded opinion on why some people achieve more satisfaction than others.

Over the last 18 months I synthesised what I learned from the CEOs, what I got from psychology research, and what I learned from other books on time management. The result is Master The Moment, which is my methodology on time management. One of favorite aspects of MTM is that it aims to help people change habits. All the good ideas I got from my research mean nothing until the readers of my book, and the people who attend my training or seminars, integrate the ideas and make them habit.

In order to integrate an idea, you have to understand it, and you have to take it on freely – it can’t be forced upon you. I checked my work by talking this over with leading psychologists, such as Ed Deci and Roy Baumeister.

To change habits, it helps to have a visual reminder. Also the ability to change habits is something you can develop. My approach to developing good time management habits is taken from Benjamin Franklin and his approach to developing Thirteen Virtues. As a young man, Franklin listed 13 areas in which he would like to develop better habits. Every week he would work on one, finishing the list after 13 weeks, then starting over. He would carry around a notebook in which he would mark everytime he reverted to a bad habit in any of the thirteen areas – not just the area of focus for that week.

I have six steps to better time management. Each step is a category of habits. I have sheets I give students to allow them to track progress in each area. I ask them to focus on one step every week. The sheet serves as a visual reminder, which is very important in habit forming. I follow up with a phone call to each participant around two months after the training.

You’ll never achieve perfection, but if you can change one or two habits, you’ll make a lot of progress.

GL: Why do you think time management is such a big issue in the modern workplace?

PB: I think time management has always been important. Our ancestors were up against a lot of pressure – in most cases, much more pressure than we have to deal with today. Few of us have to deal with war, the death of our children, or hunger. Life is really easy, if you think about it.

I don’t want to minimise the issues people face today. But part of my training is around checking your attitude, and I think a lot of people have the attitude that their situation is really bad and that external forces are making them unhappy. You have to take responsibility for your situation and focus on the things you can change. The fact is, most of us in developed countries are pretty comfortable compared to 95% of the people who have ever walked the earth. I’m not a positive thinker, I’m just being realistic.

In today’s work environment, I see two groups. The first group sees work as a way to make a living – for these people, work is a burden and no fun. The second group is looking for self actualisation. They want to be somebody through their work.

It’s important to feel a sense of choice in what you do. If you feel like you have been coerced into doing something, you aren’t going to do a very good job, and you’ll feel deflated and tired. I don’t deny that we all have obligations, but the more effective people look to understand the reasons behind the obligations and as a result, they are able to integrate the activity. People who don’t understand why they have to do something, only introject the activity – it’s like swallowing something, but not digesting it.

So if you find yourself in the first group, try to find some meaning in what you do. Managing your attitude is probably the most powerful time management tool, and it’s one that people need to employ in today’s work environment.

GL: Do you believe that modern technology really has made us more efficient workers?

PB: Yes, of course. One danger though is that we get distracted. Studies have shown that people who try to do several things at once experience a dip in IQ. One study demonstrated that multitasking accounted for a bigger drop in IQ than smoking marijuana. Another study showed that if you are working on something then get distracted by a text message or a phone call, it takes you 20 minutes to get back into what you were doing 100%.

Just as you with any other tool, you need to look for ways of improving how you use technology tools. There’s always something you can do better.

GL: What are some of the risks associated with poor time management?

PB: Dissatisfaction. If you do a lot, but don’t notice that you’ve accomplished things, you won’t enjoy the satisfaction. Or if you just don’t do much, you’ll also feel frustrated. In either case, good time management techniques can enhance your life.

I don’t think people should aim to always be busy or to always be efficient. I tell people to obey natural laws. The first law is that you are a human being and you need to have fun, you need rest, and you need time off. Trying to get around those things is like trying to get around gravity. You can’t do it. You’ll eventually fall hard.

GL: Who have you spoken for and what feedback have you received?

PB: I’ve given training around Grenoble in both French and English, I’ve spoken at seminars, and I have a website. The feedback I get is that my method is different because it is a nice mix of powerful ideas and practical technique.

GL: As you are based in France, what differences can you observe between French company culture and that of your own or other countries?

PB: I think hierarchy is too important in French organizations. There’s not enough emphasis on creativity. Follow orders or you won’t fit in. This is a broad generalisation of course.

GL: How do you think  France compares to other nations in terms of work-life balance?

PB: I like the work-life balance in France. I think it’s more healthy than in the United States where the balance of power leans heavily towards employers, and employees have very little weight. In the United States we recognize the need for consumer groups to compensate for the power companies have over consumers, but we don’t apply this idea to the employer-employee relationship as I think we should.

People wind up working more hours in the United States, but I don’t think they’re more efficient.

GL: Do you offer events in French and English and is there a difference to how people of different nationalities respond to the method?

PB: I sometimes hear from the French that CEOs don’t know anything about time management, because all they do is delegate. Of course they do, and delegating is an important time management technique. You need to delegate down, sideways, and even up. In all cases, you’re asking somebody else to do something for you. The more the other person trusts you and understands the reasons behind you request, the better he or she will integrate the activity. If the other person feels a sense of choice in doing what you ask, you’ll get a better result.

GL: Asides from your speaking engagements you write for a number of publications: tell us what you write about and for whom.

PB: I also write for technology magazines about how to use mobile technology for workforce productivity. I write for three different publications: Mainframe Executive, British Computer Society and Mobile Enterprise Magazine.

GL: Tell us about some forthcoming events

PB: I will be hitting the American Chambers of Commerce in Lyon, Toulouse, and Strasbourg. Seminar dates and locations will be posted on my website. I will also be doing training in French through the chambers of commerce of different cities around here. I’m developing that now.

Aside from that, I provide training within companies.

SFM Traduction online

Sara Maltaverne, founder of SFM Traduction, a Grenoble-based translations and copywriting company. She shares with Grenoble Life her knowledge and advice about the translation business in the area.

Grenoble, where going international just comes naturally

The greater Grenoble area is home to some 450 foreign-owned businesses and is one of the French economy’s leading exporters. So, for many local businesses, enlisting the services of a translator—a potentially risky undertaking—is simply a fact of doing business across borders. But how do you know if the translations you’ve purchased do your product justice when you don’t understand the language? Worse, can you be sure that the translations won’t cause serious damage to your image or result in the costly duplication of work?

Whether you need the latest foreign market research to launch your product overseas or compelling marketing collateral to grab the attention of potential customers, a professional translator or interpreter is an invaluable ally. Remember: translators work with written documents (brochures, reports, correspondence), while interpreters communicate orally.

Here are a few things you can do to increase your chances of getting a successful translation—and your business’ chances of making it in today’s global marketplace.

Penny wise, pound foolish: bilingual does not equal translator

A Grenoble-based building management services provider needed an English version of its brochure for an upcoming trade fair. To save money, the company decided to assign the translation to its in-house staff. One of the gems produced: as an introduction to an excerpt of the company’s lengthy and prestigious client list (“quelques références” in French) the erstwhile translator—no doubt with the help of a French-English dictionary—came up with the translation “few references,” which is the exact opposite of what the brochure was trying to convey. Thanks to their savvy bilingual secretary, who sensed something just wasn’t right, this and other embarrassing bloopers were avoided when she called in a professional translator to check the brochure before going to print. However, in addition to the lost work time the company’s employees spent slogging through the translation, the firm had to pay a rush fee to have the brochure reviewed by a professional in time to get it to the printer.

How can you avoid falling into the same trap? By calling in a professional translator from the planning stages of your project and drawing up clear specifications.

The following three steps will help you get your translation project off to a good start

   1. Decide what needs to be done, when, and who is responsible for each stage. Everyone involved in the production process (from document authors to DTP) should be aware of the timeline and specifications. Put it all down in writing.

   2. Once you have determined your workflow and deadlines, you will need to choose a service provider. As a general rule, professional translators work into their native language only. Referrals from colleagues in your industry are a good place to begin your search, as are professional translators associations. In France, you can try the Société française des traducteurs online directory at www.sft.fr. The ideal translator has a track record both in your industry and with the type of document you need translated and can prove it by showing you examples of previous work.

   3. Once you have selected a service provider, check again to be sure the purpose of your translation is clear. Are you translating incoming texts that your business needs for information purposes only or outgoing material that will have an impact on how your company is perceived by customers? The quality you need—and the cost—will vary accordingly. Discuss this with your service provider and get all commitments in writing. You and your service provider should know and agree on who is responsible for each step in the translation process.

Still not sure you’re ready to cross the language barrier?

You can better prepare your business to go international by learning as much as you can about working with translators and interpreters before the pressure is on. Start with Translation: Getting it right, and Translation: Buying a non-commodity, free downloadable brochures endorsed by language industry professionals. Professional groups like the American Translators Association are also an invaluable source of information. Once you have the tools you need to take your business overseas, the sky’s the limit.

About SFM Traduction

Grenoble-based SFM Traduction was founded by Sara Maltaverne as a freelance translation business in January 2003. SFM Traduction is today a premium professional translation company specializing in creative, marketing, and financial translations and copywriting for high-profile corporate communications. You can learn more about the company and its services at www.sfmtraduction.com or blog with us at www.sfmtraduction.com/blog

Sara Maltaverne

Les Nouvelles de Grenoble

In the latest post in his blog The Franco-American Daily Deconstructionist; History and Culture in Everyday Life,  John Hess leafs through the City of Grenoble Magazine Les Nouvelles de Grenoble. Here’s what he has to say about it.

Many of you who have the good fortune to live in Grenoble, wait breathlessly for the end of each month, because that means a small portion of your tax payments will be returned to you a hundred-fold, in the form of Les Nouvelles de Grenoble, “the city informational magazine.”

For those of you who do not have this good fortune : the magazine is a glossy, super-sized A4 format affair, arriving free in residents’ mailboxes each month. It is published by the municipal government, at taxpayer expense, and purports to provide helpful information about happenings in Grenoble, especially of a political, social, or cultural nature.

Perhaps you enjoy reading Les Nouvelles: it’s professionally produced, there are lots of color pictures, the articles are short and easy to digest, and it’s all so refreshingly upbeat. When I read Les Nouvelles de Grenoble, I realize that I am living in the world’s most wonderful city. Perhaps I have even died and gone to the urbanists’ paradise. Well, then I go out my door, and harsh reality sets in; but o the illusion, however fleeting, is delightful!

But have you ever wondered about the content of the magazine? For it clearly is not just the neutral statement of city-related current facts and goings-on that you would expect from a publicly-funded publication. There is, of course, the natural phenomenon of editorial selection: the magazine is strangely silent about the crimes, mishaps, and dysfunctionalities that weigh on city life; we hear only about the good stuff. The temptation to intellectual dishonesty seems to be too great, however, for the editors to stop there. What they do report on has to be qualified with glowingly positive adjectives.

So does issue n° 131, October 2009, tell us on the front page that in matters of sustainable development, “Grenoble is keeping its promises”, even though this is a self-evidently worthless statement. If one wants to know if promises are being kept, one generally has the sense not to ask the promise-maker, which is sort of like asking the accused if he’s guilty or not–and basing the verdict on the answer.

On page six of the same issue, we find out that the city-engineered renovation of St Bruno Square has “restored its soul as the lively and convivial heart of the neighborhood.” Well, I hadn’t noticed, but if the city engineers say so, then that’s good enough for me!

On page seven, we find out that there is not just a new crèche in that same neighborhood, but a “spanking brand-new” crèche, which is somehow different from a new crèche, though I suppose appropriate for child-rearing disciplinary purposes.

On page eight, we find out that the Philippeville Square crèche is “new, beautiful and environmentally-friendly”, which will certainly be a relief to parents concerned that their children’s day care was aggravating global climate change, though they may regret that the newness is not spanking in this case; and while some local residents find the crèche “butt-ugly”, they were apparently not interviewed for this article.

On page fourteen, we have another “spanking brand new” building, this time a library in the Teisseire quarter, also qualified as “magnificent.” (If the Teisseire library is already “magnificent”, then what adjective remains to us to describe, say, The New York Public Library, or the Great Library of Alexandria ?) It goes on and on, upbeat snippets about all the wonderful and progressive developments in Grenoble, directly or indirectly thanks to the actions of the city government, culminating in the municipal self-love-fest about sustainable development from page 18 onwards.

How can this sort of thing be possible ? Well, in a country where the press is expected to be partisan and indeed captive of a particular interest group or ideology, and where the state likes to pose as the benefactor to all (and never mind where the money comes from), it is not just possible, but considered quite normal. And this is the problem !

But why do I complain ? You know, in fact, the business model of Les Nouvelles de Grenoble magazine has inspired me. Watch this space, as Grenoble Life becomes John Hess Life, full of interesting articles about how wonderful, nay, ineffably divine, John Hess is, all written in breathless prose by John Hess. You will, of course, pay a monthly subscription fee for the privilege.

Photo: meddygarnet

 Want to improve your French while in Grenoble but don’t know where to go? Grenoble Life’s Camille Bromley has done the research so that you don’t have to.

Need to work on your French? A look at French classes in Grenoble

by Camille Bromley

For those in Grenoble who need a little push – or a big kick – to get their French up to par: let’s get to it! After arriving in France to live last summer, I discovered that my confidence in my US-learned French was largely unfounded. Pressing ahead with self-motivation and grammar books, I found myself in foreign language quicksand – the more French I gained control of, the more I realized how far I had to go. I promptly researched language schools in Grenoble, settling on a CUEF (Centre Universitaire d’Études Françaises) course at the Université Stendhal, and received the kick start that I needed.

Although your French level will undoubtedly progress in the course of daily life, a language class will accelerate the process and draw your attention to vocabulary or grammar you may be still missing. A language class also introduces you to other foreigners in the community, many non-English speaking, many new to the area, with a similar level of communication to yours, a valuable resource to make friends and practice your French outside of class. Class teachers provide insights into French culture and local goings-on, and many courses organize activities outside of class.

Grenoble offers quite a few community French language classes and several official schools.

Language Schools

The language schools are run professionally and so offer a rigorous schedule, a higher quality of instruction, and more sophisticated materials. The downside is that tuition fees swallow a significant chunk of the wallet.

1. Centre Universitaire d’Études Françaises (CUEF)

I took CUEF’s intensive French language course this summer. It was 20 hours per week, duration four weeks. It cost 640 euros, which works out to eight euros per hour. A variety of courses are offered, general French language courses as well as courses targeted towards specific needs. For those of us with a day job, there is an evening course, eight hours per week.

The teaching materials used in my course were excellent. Audio equipment was available for intensive listening comprehension exercises, and visual materials such as video clips were used regularly. CUEF does not follow a textbook; the class curriculum is created according to teacher preference. Because CUEF is affiliated with University Stendhal, students of CUEF are eligible to perks such as free use of the language laboratory equipment and participation in weekend excursions.

I was satisfied with the course and I definitely saw improvement by the end. For more information see the website. 

2. Alliance Française

The Alliance Française, conveniently located in the center of town, offers intensive, semi-intensive, and specific-needs French courses. The fees work out to nine euros per hour. The organization of classes is similar to CUEF, but the facilities lack a language laboratory with audio equipment.

For more information see the website.

3. Association Babel

Babel, a language association and home to an English library, offers courses in several languages. The class size is smaller and the ambiance more intimate.  There is a French language course as well as a French/English conversation exchange group. At the moment, the course is not available but may resume in January 2010, upon request. The fee for the course is 265 euros per year. The fee for the exchange group is 50 euros per year.

2 rue Sainte Ursule, 38000 Grenoble
04 76 42 43 91
association.babel (at) laposte.net

Community Classes

Community classes are taught by French volunteers, at very low cost. They are more flexible and less demanding than the language schools, and may offer more opportunity for conversation practice and personal interaction. However, almost all the community classes are targeted for beginner to lower-intermediate level learners.

1. MJC Abbaye, Ateliers du Français

Held Mon, Tues, Thurs 2:00-4:00, Fri 9:00-11:00, 2:00-4:00
Fee: 25 euros/year
Level: beginner to low intermediate

2. ODTI

Held Mon and Tues 9:00-11:00
Fee: eight euros/year
Level: beginner to intermediate
Focus: vocabulary, cultural knowledge of France and Grenoble, grammar

3. Association AMAL

Held Tues, Fri 2:00-4:00
Fee: 10 euros/year
Level: intermediate
Focus: grammar, reading, listening
57 Avenue du Maréchal Randon, 38000 Grenoble
04 76 44 71 14

4. Association LEFOP

Fee: two euros/year
06 81 38 97 92

5. Association Préludes

Thurs, Fri 9:00-11:00
No fee
04 76 54 33 14
associationpreludes (at) hotmail.fr

6. MJC Villeneuve

Fee: five euros/year
04 76 09 18 29

7. Centre Social Teisseire, Association FACILE

Tues, Fri 9:00-11:00
Fee: three euros/trimester
04 76 25 49 63

8. Centre Social Vieux Temple

Tues, Thurs 8:45-11:45
Fee: three euros/year
04 76 54 67 53

9. Centre Social Vieux Temple, Communic’Action

Fee: three euros/year
04 76 54 67 53

10. Centre Social Prémol, Atelier Communication

Tues 2:00-4:00, 6:00-8:00; Thurs 9:00-11:00, 6:00-8:00
No fee
04 76 09 00 28

11. Centre Social Arlequin, Atelier de français

Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri 9:00-11:00, Tues 2:00-4:00
No fee
04 76 22 42 20

Language Partner (Tandem)

If conversational or oral expression is what you need work on, it may be more useful to find a language partner. The idea is that two people meet regularly to practice each other’s native tongues, dividing time equally between the two languages. No fee is involved. This is a great way to make a new friend and learn about French culture and local events.

You can find demands for a language exchange on announcement boards in buildings at the Université Stendhal campus, especially at CUEF and the Maison de Langues. You can also post an announcement yourself.

Alternately, the student organization Integre Grenoble posts demands for Tandem on its website.

Café linguistique

Café linguistiques are open to foreigners looking to practice French and French people looking to practice a foreign language. They are typically held in the evenings in various pubs around the city. The location and date change each time, so you will have to follow the postings. Check Intregre, an organization for international students in Grenoble, and Happy People, an organization for introducing foreigners to locals and arranging language exchanges. Intregre is almost exclusively a young student crowd, while Happy People includes members of more diverse backgrounds.

Musée de Grenoble

The colors of Gaston Chaissac are brightening up the winter season here in Grenoble with the current exhibition at the Musée de Grenoble, Gaston Chaissac: poète rustique et peintre moderne. Camille Bromley of Grenoble Life explains.

by Camille Bromley

Chaissac was a self-taught French painter from the first half of the 20th century, a working class man who was eventually ‘discovered’ by a couple of established artists and introduced to the society of artists in Paris. Chaissac separated himself and his work from the intellectual elite, however, referring to his style as “modern rustic.” The description seems apt; his work is modern in form, in color, and rustic in its simple, even childlike crudeness. In addition to the drawings, paintings, and collages on display at the Musée de Grenoble are sculptures made out of common objects: a bucket, a basket, stones, a personified broom, endowed with Chaissac’s signature awkward smile.

Sans titre, 1957-59, huile

This is a perfect exhibition for children; certainly much of Chaissac’s work actually resembles children’s drawings, and the bright colors and unsteady shapes are immediately appealing. Chaissac’s world is highly personal and isolated as well; despite the rainbow of colors these figures aren’t openly joyous, their uneven eyes and crooked mouths seem to be hiding an inner something. You can imagine an emotional complexity being expressed with unsteady hands. The museum has set aside a room at the end of the exhibition for the Chaissac-inspired artworks done by local children. It is now quite full with colorful figures and bent smiles. There are collages on the wall, faces made with buckets, flower pots, colanders. One of my elementary school classes painted their own Chaissac portraits — what a wonderful way to introduce children to art!

The exhibition will run until January 31^st, 2010.

There’s much more to see than the Chaissac exhibition, however. The Musée de Grenoble is renowned across Europe for its permanent collection, especially that of the 20th century. The museum is over 200 years old (founded in 1798), making it the oldest museum of modern art in France. It houses Egyptian, Greek, and Etruscan antiquities, and a history of Western painting is organized chronologically from the Middle Ages to current day, including significant works by Matisse and Picasso. One of the most pleasantly surprising rooms features former artists from Grenoble and their breathtaking landscapes of the surrounding mountains.

For a small city of about 150,000 residents, Grenoble is home to a rather impressive art museum, and the entrance fee is next to nothing: 5 euro, or 3 euro reduced rate, and only 2 euro for students. Free for children under 18. In addition, every first Sunday of the month is free entry.  

The museum is open every day except Tuesday between 10.00 am and 6.30 pm. Closed January 1^st, May 1^st, and December 25^th. Audioguides are available in French, English, and Italian for 3 euro. Guided visits are also conducted at 3 PM Saturday and Sunday, 3 euro.

On the premises are a library of art history, coffee bar, bookshop, and Sculptures Park. Concerts are held regularly; consult www.musee-en-musique.com

Musée de Grenoble
5, place de Lavalette
38010 Grenoble
Tél : 04 76 63 44 44

Sanford Kogan and Patricia Andreoli-Jones

Patricia Andreoli-Jones meets light sculptor Sanford Kogan in advance of the opening of his exhibition at MK’ Gallery in Grenoble this week.

When I met Sanford Kogan for the first time yesterday, he was trying to purchase an antique glove-making machine from the oldest glove shop in Grenoble for one of his light sculptures. The shop keeper couldn’t oblige, as this object will soon be found in a glove museum. However, with the introduction of the Musical Transformation Lights artist I was hooked and followed Sandy just around the corner to the MK’ gallery where some of his artwork is exhibited, the grand opening being Friday 11^th December at 6.30 pm.

You can find a traditional blueberry-picking comb, threaded onto a weaving bobbin on a metal pulley pedestal, the light diffused by an 18^th century parchment (dated July 28, 1755) being just right to set a warm atmosphere, see photo 1 below.

photo 1

A trumpet held in mid-air by an art-deco foot and a light glowing through an opaque glass flower could be used as a working light (see photo 2 below).

photo 2

One of the bigger pieces is also on exhibition, when it’s lit you can truly understand the idea of light-play with the shadows it throws on the surrounding walls and ceiling (see photo 3 below).

photo 3

Wanting to know more I suggested a drink at the Bookworm Café, just over the bridge from us (top).

Patricia: Where do you come from, how long have you been in Grenoble, and what brought you here in the first place?

Sanford Kogan: I was born in Richmond, Virginia, where I grew up. I was sent to France by my company as a European Program Manager. In my spare time, I pursued my art, and for two years now I have had more time for my art explorations. As a teenager I was into photography and this sensitised me to light in a great way. I started my light sculptures in 1985 with different musical instruments. Eventually this expanded to include old tools, fireplace pots, heat reflectors, handwritten paper and musical scores, balance scale trays, faucets, spigots, spoons, metal wheels, and binoculars, to name only a few. These objects can be typically found in garage and boot sales, my main aim being then and to this day, to play with light, to transform it through different objects.

Patricia: Has your art evolved since you came to France?

Sanford: There’s an immense richness of material to be found in the local brocantes: art deco lamp shades, brass and copper bits, 18^th and 19^th century hand-written paper, as well as 70 year old pieces of machinery with surprising shapes, old locks that only need to be opened to reveal an intricate world of wheels, all of which inspires me for new sculptures. Oh, and wrenches and faucets of the ’30s, do you know what I mean … ?

I didn’t, so there was a good excuse to visit Sanford’s “workshop”, as he modestly calls it. Overlooking the Place Sainte Claire, a beautiful old apartment, perfectly waxed wooden floors (I was asked to take my shoes off), high ceilings with the most exquisite art-nouveau chandeliers (restored and put together by my host). And standing to attention – more sculptures, bigger, more imposing than the ones in the shop. Almost human by their presence, each individual has a unique way of lighting the room. I’m amongst friends here, I wouldn’t mind spending the evening in their company … Sanford comes in brandishing a wrench:

Sanford: See this, isn’t it just beautiful?

I’m back on earth again and glad he said “it”, my finely sculpted friends wouldn’t understand such enthusiasm for such a crude object. Only a true creator can show a wrench such devotion. I left shortly afterwards, my head full of his mind-boggling creations.

The exhibition will be at the MK’ Gallery*, 4 rue Dominique Villars, until 31^st December, open from Monday to Saturday from 2.30 pm to 6.30 pm

After this date, or for more information, please contact S.D. Kogan:
sdkogan (at) yahoo.com
www.musical-transformations.com

*MK’ Gallery is held by artist Marie Killy. Her pastels, colored inks and oils depicting life in the south of France and North Africa are an enchantment.

Grenoble Life: What is VSArt?

Meredith Charreyron: VSArt is a French association, based in Paris, in existence for 22 years. Its purpose is that of bringing cultural activities to the less fortunate in a manner that promotes personal exchange, in an “interactive” form.

GL: What sorts of activities?

Meredith: VSArt’s Grenoble chapter (now five years old) is divided into three sectors, organizing and promoting cultural activities in each:

• Musical – proposing concerts and workshops, be they classical, jazz, variety
• Artistic/manual: organizing craft and arts workshops (floral composition, jewelry-making, photography, painting and sculpture …)
• Computer training: where we teach those with limited means basic computer skills on a one-to-one basis (every Friday, in La Villeneuve)

GL: How did you get involved?

Meredith: I lived near Paris, performed regularly in small chamber music ensembles and came across VSArt musicians by chance at one of their concerts. I made initial contact with the head of the music sector at VSArt’s headquarters (Paris XVI) and engaged myself, promising a few hours of administrative work with the team each Tuesday.

GL: You opened the Grenoble chapter for VSArt. What did this involve?

Meredith: When I moved to Grenoble six years ago with my family, I knew no one in the area. I was anxious to start making contacts in the music world, and was also anxious to find some friends! The music solution came quickly, once I learned of the existence of Musiques Pour Tous, an association that has existed locally for some 32 years and brings together amateur and semi-professional musicians of all kinds. Once a part of this network, I saw the possibility of starting up a VSArt chapter on a small scale, offering musical animations as our “cultural product”. So I pulled out the yellow pages, contacted several centers for the aged, the handicapped, and took it from there …

GL: Tell us about some of your volunteer members and where they come from.

Meredith: One of the true riches of the Grenoble chapter of VSArt lies in the diversity of its volunteer members. There are about 65 of us: most of the musicians are French but on the artistic side we have a pool of 30 (mostly female) members. They are of all ages, 11 nationalities, varied backgrounds. Meeting each other, working together, sharing our talents – all part of the pleasure enjoyed by these volunteers (of which I am one!).

GL: VSArt collaborates regularly with Café Nicodeme – tell us more about this relationship.

Meredith: Café Nicodeme, in the heart of Grenoble, is just one of the “centers” where VSArt intervenes. For the past two years we have held monthly jewelry-making workshops for Nicodeme members. The rapport between our two associations is a particularly gratifying one. Since you are interested in this collaboration, I suggest that you view this télévideo that shows us working together.

GL: Tell us about some upcoming events organized by VSArt

Meredith: Each year members of VSArt’s music sector organize events in the form of fundraising concerts that are open to the general public. Our annual classical concert will again be held at the Bertet Musique auditorium in Gieres, Sunday March 27, 18:00–19:30. In 2010 we will again hold a series of private concerts (in people’s homes).

GL: Could you tell us a little about your background?

Meredith: In order of importance to me: I am a mother of four (and wife of one Frenchman) who has relocated her family nine times. I’m a former hotel marketing professional, a teacher, a flutist and an avid “sportive”. Why did our family relocate this last time, from Paris to Grenoble in 2003? … My husband’s career brought us here.

GL: How can people participate in VSArt activities?

Meredith: I suggest that any interested parties first consult the VSArt site, and click on “implantation- Grenoble” once you’ve understood what goes on nationally. 

You can read the short text and view the three télévideos I have referred to, in order to have a good idea of what our cultural workshops are all about. You should know that these activities take place almost exclusively on weekday afternoons.

If your interest continues, feel free to email our local team or give a call. Our recruiters would be happy to meet with you after sending you more information on VSArt Grenoble.

Contact:
Meredith.Charreyron (at) gmail.com
06 74 50 67 40

Saint Hugues Church, Chartreuse

 Cynthia Caughey is author of The Video Diary of an American in France – her adventures as an American woman starting life over at 50 in the French Alps … with videos, photos, regional recipes, travel tips, and a few laughs about adjusting to life in France. She has kindly agreed to share this video about a visit to the Chartreuse.

by Cynthia Caughey

“Chartreuse is a small region about 30 minutes outside of Chambéry in Isére. There are several quaint, mountain villages which are worth driving through, but what’s even more beautiful is the scenery of the mountains, hills, forests and pastures. It may be the most gorgeous scenery I’ve seen yet in the region which explains why we frequent it on our motorbike.

The main little town is called St. Pierre du Chartreuse; near the town are the museum and the Abby, which was first settled in the 1100s by a Monk who came to the area for isolation and solitude. The Abby is still occupied by monks who have taken an oath of silence. Visitors are usually not allowed. Their income is made from the liquor they produce which is also called Chartreuse. It’s quite famous in France. It has an herbal taste, and frankly, I don’t care for it, however you can take a tour of where they make it and other liquors in Voiron, which is a 45 minute drive away. The tour includes a tasting of the local liquors – some of the fruit flavored ones are excellent. The monks run almost the entire operation from their computers back at the abby and only two monks know the Chartreuse liquor recipe, which dates back to the 1700s.

For me, however, the best place to stop in St. Pierre du Chartreuse is the Saint Hugues Church. It is filled with contemporary religious art by Arcabas and is glorious to see. Most French people in Chambéry don’t even know about the church so this is truly a wonderful secret to discover.”

'my guitar'. Photo: Chewy Chua

Gregg West is an American history and geography teacher at Cité Scolaire Internationale. He also handles the school pantomime, organic gardening club, interpersonal communication classes, and music club, which he has written about here for Grenoble Life.

by Gregg West

About ten years ago, I had a student in ninth grade (3ème) who had stopped working at school. As I listened to her, I discovered a deeper cause.

“My parents have a wonderful house and a swimming pool, but they work 60 hours a week and I never see them. And school is beginning to resemble that for me. I can’t be bothered. I don’t care about these things.  I don’t want to grow up and be like that!”

“Well you don’t have to if you make different choices. You know, one can live with a lot less.  Happiness isn’t about wealth though many confuse them.  But I can see you feel discouraged.  What really interests you in life?”

“I’d love to learn to play the guitar,” she replied “’cause I love music. But the school day’s so long and I live so far away that there’s no possibility. And anyway, everybody says you can’t make a living at that.”

“Well, life isn’t just about money, is it?  You can do music on the side and still learn a profession.  What if I taught you a bit here at school when you have an hour between classes, would that interest you?”

Her face was transformed, “Oh, Mr. West! I’d love that!” So we organized a little guitar class. And this girl began studying again, her motivation back, started a rock group, and finally got her Bac and went on to university.

Soon, the rumour got around and the demand for guitar lessons became a problem because there was no place in the school where we could do this without bothering classes.

But creative, manual and self-run, co-operative enterprises are a sorely missing aspect of education in France. Children need these to round out their personalities, to develop a sense of self-esteem and responsibility, a sense of meaningful activity that they choose for a change that is not imposed, and, of course, to have fun!

So when the new International High School was created in 2001, I immediately identified a place where we could set up a club. At first I lent my own equipment and we built a drum set out of wood and plastic paint cans until concerts brought in enough money to purchase equipment: guitars, a bass, a synthesizer, amplifiers, drums, microphones, cables, and a digital studio. I encouraged all those who knew how to play to teach others and little by little the club grew. The Foyer Socio-Educatif in the Collège and the Maison des Lycéens in the High School also gave us some help buying equipment.

The club now has about 100 members, and 10 supervisors chosen from among the students involved run the club, keeping a check on how members put things away, notifying me of problems, and organizing three or four concerts a year, including one with pay entry to help finance equipment repair and purchase. There are groups that rehearse there an average of about 12 hours each week, free tutorials by experienced members to teach others to sing or play an instrument, and we have even put out two multilingual albums, one in 2006 about AIDS (Sept langues contre le SIDA) with 17 songs which sold about 160 copies and led to a 1000€ contribution by the club to an anti-AIDS association and a more recent album Etat Planète (Et Ta Planète/Et Tape-là-nette) which has sold about 70 copies so far, allowing us to finance an organic gardening club.

The club is only open to our own students for obvious reasons of security and competition for the time slots, but if others want to know how we did it, they can contact me at: gregg.west (at) ac-grenoble.fr

CSI Panto 2008-2009

Hélène Perrin-Gouron is part of the team that puts on the annual pantomime with students at Cité Scolaire Internationale (CSI). She talked to Grenoble Life about costumes, props, music and risqué double-entendre …

Grenoble Life: What is your role in the production of the pantomime at CSI and how long you have been doing it?

Hélène Perrin-Gouron: It’s my third panto with the CSI. Yet this program has existed for five or six years. I’m currently managing the rehearsals. Mandy Besson, Gregg West and I are co-ordinating the show, each one of us in charge of a specific area. We’re also helped by a crew of about 15 people on a regular basis. Then we get extra help when we get closer to the performances. I’d say that a total of around 40 people (adults and teens, though not including the actors themselves) will have worked on the panto by the time it gets on stage for the shows.

GL: For the benefit of non-British readers, what is a pantomime?

Hélène: Ha! Someone burst out laughing once when I said that I was doing a pantomime in English. Of course, the thought was that a pantomime is a mime, therefore silent. Actually, it used to be; but over the years, it turned into a ‘humorous musical’.

Pantomimes are very much a British theatrical genre, usually performed around Christmas, and almost always based on long-established children’s stories. It also has conventions: the leading female character is usually played by a man, there’s also risqué double-entendre, well-known songs with re-written lyrics, an actor in an animal costume and there are various kinds of interactions with the public. This means that we could be throwing out candies to you … [laughs]

GL: What is this year’s pantomime? When and where does it take place?

Hélène: The students of the Junior High English Section of the Cité Scolaire Internationale of Grenoble will be performing Peter Pan. The first show will be on January 20^th, 2010, in Salle polyvalente at the CSI. We’ll hold five performances there.

GL: How is the script chosen?

Hélène: The previous years, Gregg West and Mandy Besson edited existing scripts so that each individual on stage would have a moment. This year, with the help of two other adults, Mandy wrote a script from scratch! I’m dying to talk to you about my favourite moments but then, I would spoil it for you if I did!!!

GL: How are the actors chosen?

Hélène: Thanks to the quality it’s reached, the CSI panto seems to have turned into a tradition. Its success has brought more and more students to the auditions. They are cast accordingly to their strong points knowing that we need actors, dancers and/or singers. This year, we have a cast of 41 students on stage, aged from 11 to 14.

GL: For how long do rehearsals take place - there must be a lot of preparation?

Hélène: Not at all! [wink] Yes, it’s colossal work. First there is the script to find and either edit, or write, and do the blocking too. Then we have auditions in June, and in September, rehearsals start. Not only do the students have ‘regular’ rehearsals twice a week, but they also have song and dance rehearsals. (Just to give you a hint of what’s hiding behind this little group of words ‘dance rehearsal’: 17 choreographies were created this year by Isabelle Lietar.) We’ve got to get lyrics changed, find the pieces of music we need, record the soundtrack, imagine and make costumes, list and find props, compose and paint the scenery, create an ambience with lights, and finally organize the publicity and ticketing. There’s work during the shows too …

GL: Tell us a little about your background and how you became involved with the international school panto?

Hélène: I did some theater when I was in the US. And then … life! For years, I was busy with my job as a scriptwriter for film and tv. No time for theater, which I was missing. The CSI panto is always looking for passionate committed people so … I guess we were all lucky there!

GL: How do the French, or even non-British audience members, react to the panto – do they not think it’s a little unusual!?

Hélène: Pantos certainly are unusual, which may be why one gets caught up by the ambience though he/she must experience some sort of a culture shock. In fact, last year, when I was watching a Monty Python film, I suddenly realized how incredible it was that these guys were so obviously panto-raised and the world does not know about it!

GL: How can we find out more and get tickets for this year’s panto?

Hélène: Our posters and program will be ready mid-November and the ticketing will start right away. We’ll have a show at 2.30pm on Wednesday, January 20^th. On the 21^st and the 22^nd, shows will be at 7.30pm. And on Saturday, January 23^rd, we’ll have a show at 10am and a show at 7.30pm. Tickets are six euros for adults, from age 4–18 tickets are three euros and children under four come in for free. Most performances sold out last year so we highly recommend that you make reservations at gregg.west (at) ac-grenoble.fr, starting now!

VSArt - working with the elderly. Photo: Borya

American opera singer Amelia Feuer describes how she became involved with VSArt in Grenoble, a large French volunteer association that brings cultural opportunities to disadvantaged and elderly people.

by Amelia Feuer

I was sitting in a café with my computer, searching the web for something, ANYTHING, to do with my free time in Grenoble. Being paid was not even a consideration of mine at this point. I just wanted to finally belong to my new city. This is when I stumbled across a recruiting announcement for VSArt (Volontariat et Soutien par l’Art), a large French volunteer association with a very active chapter here in Grenoble. The objective of VSArt is to bring cultural opportunities to establishments that are not always privileged to include such cultural resources. Since I am a musician, this seemed like a great way to get involved and still practice my craft. But when I called the woman in charge of the VSArt chapter in Grenoble, Meredith Charreyron, I realized that I might be a luckier down-and-out Anglophone than I previously thought.

Meredith Charreyron, I learned, is a fellow American. She works hard to run VSArt, while forever providing inspiration to us English speakers as she switches between English and French effortlessly. Meredith began the Grenoble chapter (antenne) of VSArt in 2003. Since then, she has recruited a wide range of volunteers, totaling over 60 to aid with various VSArt projects. The range of volunteers is multicultural and varies in age.  Included are university exchange students from the United States, as well as Austrians, Japanese, and, believe it or not, real French people too!

VSArt mainly focuses on creative and artistic projects. Over her five years directing the chapter, Meredith has inspired the creation of workshops including jewelry making, floral design, music education, and musical concerts. She and the other volunteers work within local hospitals, nursing homes, social centers, schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and centers for the handicapped and SDFs (sans domicile fixe). The VSArt group collaborates regularly with Café Nicodome, a volunteer-based café in downtown Grenoble.

Amelia Feuer - VSArt volunteer

The atmosphere of VSArt workshops is always upbeat and positive. Essential to VSArt activities is facilitating an artistic exchange, where both the volunteers and participants feel involved and fulfilled in their project. Each volunteer works one-on-one with participants. Musical animations are fortified with short explanations, educating the listeners on the pieces being performed and their composers. In all VSArt activities, the purpose is not just to fill the lives of the participants, but also to enrich them.

My experience since I first called Meredith has been fantastic. Last week I participated in a workshop at a nursing home in Moirans. We brought in freshly cut flowers and pots, and assisted the residents in creating floral arrangements that would decorate their bedrooms. Both the volunteers and the participants had high standards for the task at hand, not finishing until the floral pieces were perfectly arranged. I found myself working with a charming woman, Madame de Bernard, whose caustic wit kept me laughing, perhaps a bit too loudly, for the whole afternoon. Speaking French with Madame was good practice, yet I knew that if I had a major communication problem, Meredith would happily assist.

My newest project with VSArt is that of organizing, rehearsing and performing a concert at the end of the month at l’Hôpital Sud. Meredith, a consummate flutist, will also perform, accompanied by an excellent pianist who also offers her time and talent to VSArt. Being an opera singer by profession, I will have a chance to perform one or two of my favorite arias. Non-musicians in VSArt can help to arrange the recital programs and write up performance notes. Everyone VSArt volunteer is as involved as he or she would like to be, or as his/her free time permits.

I would recommend VSArt to anyone who feels the smallest amount of creative energy burning inside of them and wants to make a difference in the lives of Grenoble’s citizens. The volunteers come from all over the world, and work with people from varying backgrounds and cultures. Despite our differences at VSArt, I never feel alone. I have been introduced to a community of people that have allowed me to call Grenoble my new home.

For more information, call/write
06 74 50 67 40
Meredith.Charreyron (at) gmail (dot) com
Or consult :  www.vsart.org (“implantation Grenoble”)

Sarkozy & Chirac

In the second post in his blog The Franco-American Daily Deconstructionist; History and Culture in Everyday Life, John Hess asks ”Are you all as bored by the Clearstream affair as I am? If so, then excellent, this blog is just for you!”

Clearstream: Clients, Patrons, and French Political Parricide

by John Hess

For those of you who prefer reading Hello! and Closer, here’s a one–sentence summary: in 2004, in the course of an investigation into a kickback scandal involving the sale of French-built warships to Taiwan, a forged document linking Nicolas Sarkozy (among other prominent politicians) to the malversations was leaked to the prosecutor, allegedly at the behest of Dominique de Villepin, then the Interior Minister and a protégé of President Jacques Chirac.

(Whew! I did it!)

The details are all over the more serious sort of newspaper, and as promised, I shall not bore you with them. Buy Le Monde if you’re interested (it’s cheaper than Hello!, and you get to find out what Left Bank intellectuals did during their holidays in the sun).

What’s really great about this whole affair is the element of pure political assassination, which is unusual in the contemporary Western world, and is more reminiscent of the later Roman Republic than of a modern democracy. Sarkozy and de Villepin are, after all, from the same political party.

Clearstream really began in 1995, when Nicolas Sarkozy, originally a protégé of Chirac, betrayed his erstwhile patron by supporting Edouard Balladur’s rival bid for the presidency. Balladur lost, and both Balladur and most of his key supporters were exiled to the political equivalent of Siberia by the victorious Chirac; the satirical TV show Guignols de l’info portrayed him as John Travolta’s hit man from Pulp Fiction, knocking off Balladur’s entourage one by one, including Sarkozy.

Most of the balladuriens never managed to slip out of their concrete boots and stayed put at the bottom of the Seine, but the buoyant Sarkozy, with his ability to handle the media and generate popular support, proved indispensable, and muscled his way back into the heart of right wing French politics, gaining a ministerial post in 2002 at the start of Chirac’s second presidential term. But for the chiraquiens, Sarkozy was only suffered, not forgiven. During the course of 2004, Sarkozy’s relations with Chirac degraded to new lows, as Sarkozy managed to get himself elected as leader of the political party that Chirac had himself created; and Chirac began grooming de Villepin as his successor, naming him to replace Sarkozy as Minister of the Interior. And, coincidentally or not, 2004 was the year that the Clearstream forgeries were produced. Much of the energy of the three year remainder of Chirac’s presidency was wasted on other fruitless efforts to stymie Sarkozy’s inexorable rise, so as to clear the way for the president’s adoptive “political son”, de Villepin, a brilliant but otherwise politically ungifted man.

This storyline would have been quite familiar to the readers of Cularolife.com, had the internet existed in the first century AD, because it’s a Roman, Latin story: the story of patrons and clients, and the personal favors, betrayals, and vengeances that pass between them; of adoptive heirs and lethal political manoeuvrings.

Anglo–Saxons are used to tribal politics: liberals against conservatives, socialists against free-marketers, etc. Personal rivalries exist (e.g., Brown/Blair), but they are subsidiary to the considerations of the interests or ideologies of the political tribe. In France, it is the opposite, for the Roman tradition of patronage politics is still dominant. Political parties are more like “a loose coalition of personalised alliances, in which everyone belongs to someone.” Ideology is much talked-about, but it’s the networks that really count, which determine who gets access to the governmental goodies. Thus the importance of respecting the patronal hierarchies – and the depth of the anger of the patron when betrayed by the client.

When one considers that Chirac catapulted himself to the top of the French political right by betraying and subsequently destroying his political patron, Valéry Giscard-D’Estaing, it seems fair enough that he should be deprived of the right to name his political heir by the betrayal of one of his own clients.

Now, stay tuned for the inevitable coming drama: who will betray Sarkozy in the eternal quest for the fruits of power?

Nero (left) poisoned his way into the cushy job of his adoptive father, Claudius

Michel Has Another Serving of Pasta

In his new blog The Franco-American Daily Deconstructionist; History and Culture in Everyday Life, John Hess’s attention is caught by a recent French road safety  advertisement. 

Michel Has Another Serving of Pasta

 by John Hess

Yes, this is the title of a public interest advertisement. And in most countries, you’d guess that it had something to do with good nutrition, perhaps to counter the carbohydraphobic excesses of the South Beach diet. But no, this is France, and it’s about road safety.

The advertisement appeared on hoardings in the summer of 2009, and may be viewed in full here. The very incongruity of its purpose and content caught my attention as few adverts do, which I suppose is to its credit: an original idea. Sort of like if an advert for Porsche featured a smiling old lady: “since Roger bought his 911T, Dora is finally proud of her son-in-law.”

But I’m afraid it may have given life-saving a bad reputation. In America for example, to be effective the ad would have had to point out the moral significance of Michael’s survival; “Michel Gets to See His Grandchild graduate from College”, or “Michel Calls his Daughter to Say ‘I Love You.’” But here in France, we get the equivalent of “Michel Mechanically Consumes Yet Another Ordinary Meal.” Yes, thanks to better driving habits, Michel is one of the statistics that has been saved, permitting him to mindlessly continue his meaningless, unproductive existence. Almost makes one want to run Michel over, then back up over the corpse just to be sure.

Of course, this is a stereotypically American point of view, and there is something to be said for simply enjoying life as it comes, from day to day, and that this enjoyment should be protected and cherished. But I do think that this is advert is an interesting expression of what I would describe as the dominant French mode of life today: social existentialism – living for the pleasures of everyday life, with as much beach time and tasty food as possible, and as little work, risk, stress, disease, etc. as possible, with a huge assist from socialism. Thanks to the welfare state, Michel has retired relatively young (the advert subtly indicates that he’s a pensioner), and thanks to the nanny state, Michel is alive.

The irony of course is that, in spite of this insistence of the importance of simply enjoying everyday life, the French are not really the most cheerful lot one could meet. While the advert claims that 12,000 lives have been saved over the last six years due to [ahem] our more careful driving, this is the number of depressives who manage to commit suicide every year. Perhaps the advert really should be called “Michel Has Another Serving of Pasta, and He’s Dissatisfied and Grumpy Because it’s not Lobster and Champagne on the Beach – But at Least He’s Alive, For What That’s Worth.”

Not very catchy, I admit. But I do wish that the government would get serious, and sponsor a much needed, and succinct, dual ad campaign: “Stop Driving Like a Bunch of Wackoes”, and “Either Enjoy Your Beautiful Country, or Give it to the English.”

Kelly Rigotti writes Almost Frugal, a blog about being smart with your spending, saving and money goals. As probably the only American living in France writing about frugal living, we invited her to share her personal finance tips for her adopted home town of Grenoble. Part I in the series is about food.

by Kelly Rigotti

Although I’ve been writing about frugality and learning how to be frugal since late 2007, this is the first time I’m writing a post about frugality from a local perspective. My blog is called Almost Frugal and most of my readers live in English-speaking countries, especially the United States. I’m American and I’ve lived in Grenoble since January 2000 and I think it’s safe to say that I’m the only American blogging about personal finance and frugality in Grenoble. I could be wrong, but I bet I have the niche covered!

Although I do talk about living in France and the challenges of trying to handle money as an expat (especially paying back my American student loans, most of the topics I cover on Almost Frugal are general enough that anyone can relate to them, no matter where they live. I’m really excited though, to finally be able to talk about frugality and living frugally in my (adopted) city, Grenoble. Today I’ll be talking about the best places to spend less on groceries.

Groceries can make up a significant part of any household’s budget. Certain French grocery chains, such as Lidl or ED are relatively inexpensive, but they don’t always have the best quality food (although I’ve never gone wrong with their canned goods, juice or wine selections). I prefer to take advantage of fidelity programs from stores like Carrefour, Géant or LeClerc. The fidelity programs from all three of these stores are free to join, and if you don’t mind your personal shopping habits being mined by the stores for information, you can recoup significant discounts on your grocery shopping.

Carrefour’s fidelity program offers discounts of 5% on their store brand products, as well as other discounts on time-limited promotions. Often these promotions don’t give the best, cheapest option, but every once in a while Carrefour will have a doozy of a sale – buy one get two free and so on. Carrefour does not put the store credit on your card, instead it mails you a fidelity check at the end of every month, good for use on your next shopping trip.

Géant is the most expensive of the three stores I’m talking about here, and in my opinion, the one with the worst customer service. But it does have one of the best selections of expat foods (Campell soup, anyone) and so I brave the high prices and rude salespeople every once in a while to stock up. Like most grocery stores, Géant will often have loss leaders: products priced quite low to get you in the store to buy everything else. As a side note, did you know that it is illegal in France for supermarkets to price products below cost? Supermarkets are not allowed to lose money on their stock. This is why you won’t find any true bargains at a French supermarket- it would be illegal.

The best supermarket, in my opinion, for customer discounts, is the LeClerc supermarket in the Espace Comboire shopping center in the town of Echirolles. Unlike Carrefour or Géant, which are both chain stores, LeClerc is a series of licensed franchises. This means that the discounts and promotional offers found at one store might not necessarily be found at another.

The LeClerc in Espace Comboire has a series of great, ongoing promotions, a different one for every day of the week. The best is Thursday’s, when, for every €50 of goods purchased you get €5 in store credit on your fidelity card. Combined with other in-store promotions, I often manage to save €20 or more per shopping trip.

Unlike the United States, France is not big on coupons. You will find them every once in a while, either on your register receipt at the grocery store, or as a manufacturer’s coupon, but there isn’t the overwhelming coupon mentality here as in the United States.

Another excellent way to save money in your grocery bill is by buying online – this way you can keep an eye on your total as you go and save money on gas. Both Carrefour (called Ooshop) and the Intermarché in Seyssins have online delivery services. Depending on where you live the delivery charge can be free to quite expensive.

If you’re looking for bio (organic) or locally sourced food, then there are two good online options, neither of which is very expensive and both of which deliver. The first is called The Label Bio and sells a variety of organic and local food. I like them because they sell preselected baskets (panniers) of a variety of food – whatever is in season for €12 to €55 depending on the size and selection of the contents. The second is called The Pannier de Johanna and although they don’t sell preselected baskets of food, they have a wide variety of products to choose from, from patés to flour, all locally sourced or organic.

Here are some of my favorite posts on Almost Frugal on saving money, food and frugality:

Food Shopping and Menu Planning
Stretch Your Food Budget
Your Favorite Frugal Food

Bio: Kelly Rigotti is American and has lived in France for a lot longer than she thought she would when she first arrived. As well as writing about frugality at Almost Frugal, she has a day job as a marketing and communication consultant. In her spare time, she attempts to ride herd over her three children, four cats and handsome French frog of a husband. You can follow her at Almost Frugal, on Facebook or on Twitter.

Pumpkins

Bob and Sylvie Tharinger own and operate Pumpkins (33 rue d’Alembert), Grenoble’s only authentically American restaurant. Christina Rebuffet-Broadus of Grenoble Life talks with them about showing the French that American cooking is much more than McDo has led them to believe.

Grenoble Life: Could you tell us a little about yourselves? It seems every Franco-Anglo-American couple has a story. What’s yours?

Bob: I had traveled around the world, had already been to Grenoble once, and came back here to work. This is where I met Sylvie, then we lived a while in the United States, where our son was born. But finally, we settled down in Grenoble in 1978. We came back because Sylvie wanted to return to Grenoble.

Sylvie: I’m not originally from here, but have family in Grenoble. For me, it was more that I didn’t want to live in southern France than I wanted to come back to Grenoble. I would have liked to live in one of the Scandinavian countries, with their Nordic landscapes. Grenoble was sort of a compromise for us.

GL: How long has Pumpkins existed?

Bob: We opened in September 2004. We bought the place in June of the same year, but of course had to do some work beforehand. It’s been almost five years, unbelievable!

Bob and Sylvie

GL: We all know the French people’s reticence towards American food. How did you get the idea to open an American restaurant?

Bob: We’ve always done a lot of cooking, often for our friends, often a lot of American dishes. We both like to cook and eat, and realized that people didn’t really know the variety of things you can eat in the United States. Unfortunately, the French tend to have a very fast-food idea of American cuisine. They would never believe the food you can get in the United States.

Where I’m from in Minnesota, we noticed restaurants do a lot of different things, there are all kinds of influences. So we figured we could probably do anything we wanted and call it American cooking, but we didn’t really want to call it “American” for fear that people would run in the other direction. So we just called it Pumpkins.

Sylvie: We got tired of people saying “American cooking … beurk!” We wanted to show people that real American cooking exists. Plus we didn’t want to put “American” in the name because it could sound a bit snobbish or exclusive, like not everyone was welcome. But we also didn’t want to use “American” because of a certain image that the French had of Americans, especially at the time of the opening because of the political situation. We just wanted everyone to feel comfortable, not like Pumpkins was just a place for Anglophones.

Bob behind the bar

GL: How did you come up with the name “Pumpkins”?

Bob: Sylvie just had the idea the one day! And I thought it was great because it’s very visual and something people remember easily.

Sylvie: I thought it sounded convivial. It made me think of the pumpkin patches in the American east coast at the end of summer when we used to visit. Plus Pumpkins sounded good and was easy to pronounce for us French.

GL: Now, for the good stuff. Tell us a little about your menu. What kinds of American food can your guests find at Pumpkins?

Bob: We really try to offer a sampling of the United States’ regional cooking. We have family all over the northern U.S., plus both of us like southern food — barbecue, seafood, and especially African-American cuisine, which in itself is extremely varied. There’s also a Jewish delicatessen influence, something relatively unknown in France. And if you go to the northwest region of the United States, there’s a great mix of Chinese, Japanese, and Native American cuisines based on the abundance of good, local products. More or less, we try to do a little of all this.

One of the hardest things is to do meat like in the United States. Lucky for us, we found a French butcher who lived and worked in San Francisco, but now he’s right on rue Nicolas Chorier. It’s great because he knows American cuts of meat. He knows what an American pork chop is and can cut a sirloin steak if we want. He even helps us to do real corned beef, which is practically impossible to find around here.

Sylvie: Every two weeks, we change one dish on the dinner menu. There are some things that we always have. We’ll always have the burger. At lunch, we always have chili on the menu, but we change the presentation — one week the chili will be in a tortilla, another it’ll be with guacamole. Once we had a couple come in and they both ordered the same dish, so I gave each one different sides. That way they could taste everything!

Downstairs dining room

GL: Pumpkins also does brunches. When are they held and where did that idea come from?

Bob: We’ve been doing the brunches for two or three years now. Our brunches are typically midwest-American. We wanted to host a brunch much like the Sunday brunch that I knew when I was a kid — eggs, bacon, sausage, plus some extras. We would like to do a real family-style brunch, with a self-serve buffet, but here we don’t really have enough room.

With all the families that come in, it would be hard for people to serve themselves with the strollers and the children and I don’t want to lose that family atmosphere by doing a buffet. It’s fantastic to see the people at the brunches — they’re relaxed, happy, even if they have to wait sometimes for their food,  they don’t care. They come in and have a good time.

It’s so successful that we have to turn down almost as many people as we accept for the brunches. We do just one service per brunch, that way the people can come and stay as long as they like. We want them to feel at home.

Sylvie: From a culinary point of view, I think we do the only real brunch in Grenoble. Our brunch is “made in Minnesota” — it’s not French, it’s not Spanish, it’s not Dutch. When we were younger, all the kids in Bob’s extended family knew they could go to his dad’s house on Sunday morning and be greeted with the smell of bacon grilling, eggs scrambling and the whole family got together. That’s the brunch we try to recreate, that family-get-together atmosphere.

Bob: In the 1960s and 1970s, my father would host these fantastic brunches and people would just stop by. Family members, friends passing through the area, and the ambiance was simply extraordinary. That’s part of the reason why we created this restaurant and really wanted to host the brunch.

GL: That’s a heartwarming story, wanting to recreate the family ambiance that you knew growing up at your dad’s. Speaking of family get togethers, does Pumpkins do anything special for American holidays?

Bob: We would like to do something for the 4^th of July, but since we’re in the city, it’s unfortunately impossible to do a backyard barbecue. Thanksgiving, however, is enormous. Last year, we had 60 kilos of turkey and I think in all we served around 150 Thanksgiving dinners, but I’m not sure. It got to the point where we stopped counting.

We also did a Christmas brunch, again with a lot of midwestern, German-American influences. We had German-American style pastries among other things because in the past, many German and Scandinavian immigrants settled in that region.

The idea behind all our dishes is family cooking. For all our meals we create a plate like if you were eating in an American family situation—all the food’s on the table and you help yourself to everything. Except we put the plate together in the kitchen, recreating that American plate, with the meat, sides, sauces and relishes all in the same plate.

GL: To finish, I’m going to ask you the impossible. How would you describe American cooking in a few words?

Bob: (with Sylvie, laughs) I remember our first cook, who was a very competent cook mind you, told us, “OK, I get it: just add sugar and hot sauce and it’s American cooking.”

There’s not just one American cuisine, there are lots of American cuisines, just like in France — the food varies enormously between the regions.  The cuisine of the southwest has touches of Mexican influence and is completely different from the cooking of the northeast where you’ll find chowders and baked beans. That cuisine has nothing to do with the cooking of New Orleans, which also has a totally different taste from the growing Cuban-American cuisine. There are lots, lots of different American cuisines.

But we’ll always have a hamburger on the menu for the French who don’t want to be disappointed and the Americans who want a real home-style burger.

Although the menu changes often, at the time of this interview, Pumpkins was serving Cajun catfish, a blue cheese burger, tortilla wrapped chili, and Los Angeles Fire Department-style chicken wings. Dinner dishes cost around 10-15 euros, desserts such as cheesecake, pecan pie, and sundaes cost 5-6 euros.

Pumpkins (33, Rue D’alembert, 38000 Grenoble) is open for lunch on Thursday and Friday; for dinner Wednesday through Saturday. Brunches are every other Sunday. Call ahead to reserve: 04 76 29 48 21

You can also sign up for the Pumpkins newsletter with the season’s brunch dates emailed in advance. Email pumpkins.restaurant@wanadoo.fr

Chic Throws Collection 2009

Kris Leroy is the American founder of Grenoble-based soft furnishings design company Chic Throws. Grenoble Life wanted to know more about her business, her background and being an Anglophone entrepreneur in France.

Grenoble Life: What sort of products does Chic Throws make?

KL: We generally create and market what the shop name says: ‘chic throws’ – designer soft furnishings like throw blankets and throw pillows for modern interior design. It is quite funny as guys haven’t a clue what a throw is but they often become our best customers! Throws are blankets that you literally throw on the end of a bed or use to dress up a sofa or daybed. They are chic in design but are functional-chic as well so that you grab them in front of the TV to keep warm in winter or by the poolside in the cool summer evenings. Many of our customers use them to dress-up tired old furniture or add the final touch to modern contemporary furniture.

GL: Tell us about some of your different brands

KL: We have an exclusive - unique piece line that we sell directly to the public on our website, bi-annually (Winter & Spring Collections).  We either sell a matching set (throw and pillow) or separately. Each collection has many different patterns, colors and textures to choose from.  We also have limited edition collections for interior decorators and e-tailers on line which we produce in a local atélier in Grenoble. All our products are designed and made in France.

All the throws are terribly chic but are backed in very soft materials to encourage cuddling and use! (Italian soft wool, satin, velvet, faux-fur….)

GL: Is there a Chic Throws ‘look’? And is there an Anglo-Saxon influence and how does this compare to classic/modern French furnishings?

KL: The chic look comes from the fabrics which speak for themselves.  It is funny that you ask this question between French and Anglo-Saxon tastes as we have just figured it all out … The British and Americans love our unique piece collection available in the boutique which highlights the quality of each fabric and the combination with stripes, motifs, and texture. However the French are more design-oriented and are falling for the new Winter 2009 collection with our brilliantly-colored faux-fur collection (see below).

Chic Throws Winter 2009 collection

KL: We use only high-end designer, upholstery fabric from Paris, Lyon, London, Milan, Barcelona and New York. The combination of the textures is orginial as well: silks, taffetas, velvets, faux-fur, brocade, chintz linen, etc. There is no polyester chez nous!

GL: Tell Grenoble Life about the design and production process. Where are Chic Throws manufactured?

KL: We are so excited as we have just confirmed local production in an atélier that makes high-end furniture for a top design company, right here in Grenoble (Le Versoud). They have lag time available for us due to the economy and the fact that they are local helps us control quality and timely deliveries to our e-tailer customers. The unique pieces are all made by local seamstresses that work for us bi-annually. Their normal jobs are spent making custom wedding dresses so you can see where our attention to detail comes from.

We are able to stay small and exclusive by outsourcing all production and logistics. By purchasing small cuts of fabric from top designers we are able to remain cost competitive whilst producing in France. We maintain a low stock for the unique pieces and produce on-demand for e-tailers.

GL: Where do you sell your products?

KL: The unique piece, bi-annual collections are available on Etsy via the Chic Throws website. We share the same hand-made values as Etsy and want to help them grow this market. All other production for interior decorators and e-tailers are created and distributed directly to our partners.

GL: Where do you come from originally and how did you end up in Grenoble?

KL: I am an American love-hostage* in the Trièves area south of Grenoble.

*my husband is French

We had studied together in France and decided to come back after living in San Francisco to continue our careers and start a family.

GL: How did Chic Throws begin?

KL: I was finishing my MBA at the business school in Grenoble and needed a final project. Instead of plunging back into the high-tech world, I wanted to do something more creative. I had taken a few sewing classes for fun and thought of the idea of throws and pillows when I couldn’t find what I wanted to buy in home decor shops.

I started making them for wedding gifts and the orders started coming in so I pursued the project through a formal business plan and we were off!

GL: Do you think Grenoble is good environment for entrepreneurs such as yourself?

KL: Let’s just say we are making it that way! Some people may have given up by now but you really need to push forth, network and don’t listen to negative criticism. The aid to entrepreneurs is such that you really have nothing to lose by trying and many of the procedures are being centralized now and made more user-friendly.

GL: Where should potential entrepreneurs in Grenoble go first?

KL: My business depends on the Chambre des Métiers as we actually produce our products and market them. If you are simply a re-seller, you would need to go to the Chambre de Commerce. The procedures are quite complicated at first but it is best to seek a mentor in your business area and not hesitate to ask for help. My personal network has been fantastic for moral support & customers (Working Womens Network of Grenoble to name one). My mantra is: ‘Patience, Persistence and Low Overhead’ (borrowed from Seth Godin).

GL: You have emphasised in your labelling that Chic Throws are ‘Made in France’ – why is this so important to you?

KL: As we are targeting a high-end customer market (at mid-range prices) the ‘Made in France’ label truly denotes luxury and quality. We imagine our customers curled up under our throws in front of their wide screen TVs while sipping French champagne (even though I don’t have a TV personally … but love to drink champagne with a good book!).

GL: Can we also visit you at your workshop?

KL: Remember what I said about ‘low overhead’ … I do have an atelier / showroom in Grenoble which is very modest compared to our products. We are busy creating on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday from 9am to 4pm. We love to have visitors and suggest you call first to ensure we are there: 39 cours de la libération (1st floor behind the traîteur). Showroom tel: 04 57 39 38 81 or mobile: 06 31 24 17 78

GL: Do you have to travel a lot to meet buyers in France and abroad?

KL: That is the part I love! I go to Paris quite frequently for buying trips and to visit the Maison & Objet fairs bi-annually. I now do a lot of sourcing via the internet from London, Lyon, Brussels, New York and other fashion capitals now that I know my suppliers well.

GL: How important has the internet been in promoting/selling your products?

KL: Very important for my e-tailer customers as they have to sell our products from a thumbnail photo which is the greatest challenge … This B2B market is just beginning for us and now we will test it for the Winter 2009 collection. As for our personal internet sales via Etsy it is slow going as we’ve chosen to not invest highly in the B2C market (i.e. I’m not about to buy an e-commerce platform and be available 24/7). We are also high-end for Etsy which is difficult in a challenging economy.

GL: What’s next for Chic Throws?

KL: We are continuing our relationship building in the B2B market to launch limited edition collections for winter. This will allow us to focus on the fun of creating unique pieces for discerning customers as well as interior decorators. I dream of hiring a colleague to help us grow the business but the next six months will indicate if this dream is achievable!