My Observations About France

8/14/2019 My Observations About France

1/3

My Observations About France or Douce France by Turul Tufan

My Observations about France

or

Douce Franceby Turul Tufan

Before start to write this essay, Ive thought a lot about what Ill write. I had to options;

first was writing an ordinary Erasmus student essay (France is beautiful, wine,

cheese, Paris etc.) or Id choose to write something that nobody done it before: to

say everything in my mind honestly. Considering the fact that the reader (in this

special case, teacher) has read a lot of essay which are written according to first

option, I have decided to be honest despite of the risk to get a bad mark.

Almost every Erasmus student says always something like this: Oh, I hate France,

there is no shop open in Sunday or I hate France, nobody knows how to have fun.

I dont like these things too but this is not something that I can criticize because this

is the French life-style and I have to show respect to it. I shouldnt compare France

with any country, but I can compare France with the country which it used to be. I

think the best way to explain is to start from the beginning

My relations with France started about four years ago, when i started to study at

Galatasaray University which is unique French-speaking university in Turkey.

Actually at the beginning I was not interested in studying in French or in a

Francophone university but because of Turkish educational system and pressure of

my parents, I had to study there.

At first year at my university, in 2005-2006, I started to discover French culture with

the lesson civilisation franaise and of course all the teachers of French classes

were French. I have started to read everything that I can found about French politics,

history, culture and art of course. I have got fascinated from what Ive discovered; a

glory civilization, a special way-of-think, a huge artistic heritage. At the end of the first

-1-


2/3


year i have decided to visit France for whole summer to see my discoveries with my

own eyes.

In fact reality was totally different what we learned at the university; old glorious hadbeen changed so differently: Humanism has switched with xenophobia, language

switched with verlan, literature has changed with worst rap application of the world.

Briefly, my first impression of France was totally a disappointment or me. Ive visited

France after that summer several times but they were short trips to understand a

country. Now, Im in France since September and I thing that I can see everything

more clearly.

Confucius says that if you want to know a civilization you should listen to its music,

music can reveal you everything about a place. In this case, we can easily the

changes in French culture. It is not necessary that look so far away, when my mother

was at young, she was listening French music too: Serge Gainsbourg, Charles

Aznavour, Jacques Brel etc. But now the most famous French musician is

unfortunately- Carla Bruni which is famous just because of she is wife of Monsieur

Sarkozy. A friend of mine told me that she isnt a singer, she is only a whisperer and

when we compare her with the old French singers, she is not a singer at all

According to Mark Hopkins, language is the picture and counterpart of thought. I

have to confess that French language is a great language which I can not understand

why French youth has stop to use. Personally, I have read Discours de la Mthode

of Descartes in French of course with a little bit help of dictionary. But the problem is

that I am not able to understand very well les Parisiennes. I think that it is a huge

problem because if I can not understand them, they are not able to understand

Descartes easily. Im telling this because in Turkey we have the same problem so it

is so hard to understand for me to understand the Turkish writers who lived at the

beginning of 20th century. If France will lost its connection with past it seems like- it

will become an ordinary old orthodox civilization which nobody cares except for the

French people.

According to French constitution, all the French citizens are equal, no matter which

religion, ethnicity and sex. Lets forget about the constitution for a moment, Equality

-2-


3/3


is in the French flag; the White. But in fact, the truth is not the same I will not

speak about the things that everybody knows: its hard to find a job if you are

immigrant etc For me it is hard to walk in the street also, especially in bigger cities

than Dijon. Everytime I saw a Police National while I was walking alone, theyvestopped me and ask my identity card. I have asked a lot of European friends of mine,

its never happened to anybody. My conclusion after three years, its because of the

color of my skin, Im Turkish, and also I look like an Arabian or Magribian I have to

remind, the police never asked my passport, theyve thought that Im a French citizen

and asked my identity card. And now Im asking to you, where is the Egalit?

At the end of the first year at my university, we had to prepare a presentation about

France or French culture. There were six topics, and I have chosen political life of

France and manifestations against the First Employment Contract (CPE). At the end

of the presentation there were a soru-cevap part which I had to be prepared;

therefore I have started to read about manifestations in France. I have discovered

that the same year they were an other important manifestation, Les Banlieux. That

was the first time I heard about Nicolas Sarkozy. He was an internal affaires minister

which humiliates his own citizens. Unfortunately the same politician has become the

President of French Republic. I dont want to speak about him so much, everyday

you can find something bad, weird, disgusting about him. I just want to compare him

with the first president of the fifth republic; Charles de Gaulle. You can like him or not,

I dont want to discuss about here, but everybody have to show respect his Sartre is

France phrase. That is change of France in Politics.

It's time for me to leave. I couldn't understand this country and its culture; maybe I

could only scratch its surface. But one thing is for sure: France is changing and I

dont like the country France is becoming

-3-

My Observations About France

Documents

Transcript of My Observations About France