Paris Pratique I: Getting around and les transports en commun

[updated July 3, 2012]

The Paris public transportation system is efficient and easy to navigate. Tickets and passes are valid for travel on the métro, bus, tram and RER. If you are staying in Paris for a week or longer, the easiest way to get around is to purchase an unlimited pass, called the Passe Navigo Découverte. The weekly passes are valid Monday to Sunday. To avoid lines, you can purchase or recharge your pass the Friday before. Monthly passes are valid for the calendar month and can be purchased beginning the 20^th of the month before.

Paris Visite offers several tourist options which include unlimited travel for 1, 2, 3, or 5 days, within the selected zones as well as line-jumping privileges at many Paris museums and attractions. Unless you are planning on visiting two or more major museums per day, it’s usually not worth the extra expense. The city center is small enough that if you purchase a book of ten tickets, called a carnet, you’ll be fine for very short stays.

 

Acquiring, charging and using your Pass Navigo Découverte

You’ll need a small photo of yourself for the pass. You can take a photo in a photomaton, photo booth, (choose 'miniphoto' if you have a choice, otherwise the 4 photo option) located in some stations. The cost is 5€, payable with a bill or coins. You can also
cut a small headshot of yourself out of a larger photo. The headshot should measure approximately 1½” high and 1” wide (you can trim to fit). In a pinch, a photocopy of your passport photo will do.  

If you have a credit card, you can purchase both the Pass Navigo Découverte for 5€ and charge it for one week or a month at one of the information booths inside major métro stations. 

If you only have cash, you must first purchase your Pass Navigo Découverte at the automated kiosk, pick up a coupon and then retrieve it back at the information booth. After you get the plastic card, then you have to take it back to the machine to charge it.

To begin at a kiosk, touch the screen for English, then select Touch to buy tickets here, followed by Coupon Pass Navigo Découvertea This will give you a coupon which you then take to the Information window. 

At this point you will probably be weary of the entire process, but please remember to greet the agents at the window and ask politely for their help.

Pronunciation note: the soft ‘j’ or ‘g’ in French is pronounced ‘zhe’ like the ‘s’ sound in ‘pleasure’. It is the voiced counterpart to the ‘t’ sound in ‘nation’ or the French word for chair, ‘chaise’.

Bonjour, Madame (Monsieur). Pourriez-vous m’aider à acheter un Pass Navigo Découverte et me montrer comment le recharger ?

[pronounced : Poureeay-voo mehday ah ashtay un Pass Navigo Daycuverte  ay muh   montray komo luh resharzhay?

If the agent realizes you are a tourist, he or she may try to upsell you to a Paris Visite tourist pass and may even tell you that you’re not eligible for one. Just smile and say you’re not a tourist. You live in Paris now.

Je ne suis pas touriste. J’habite Paris maintenant.

            [pronounced: Zhe nuh swi pah touriste. Zhahbeet Pariy mentenan.]

The actual pass includes a smart card to which you affix a small photo of yourself and fill in your NOM (last, or family, name) and your PRENOM (first name). Then you plastifier the card by folding the sticky plastic over your photo and name and slipping the card into the hard plastic case. This is your Pass Navigo Découverte, but it is not valid until you charge it.

If you have just arrived in Paris or are in France for a short stay you probably do not have a smart credit card that can be used in the violet colored kiosks. You’ll want to look for a kiosk with the roll bar or touch screen and the orange band with the pictogram showing bank bills and coins. Apparently the kiosks are now set up to accept foreign credit and debit cards. You’ll choose Rechargement Pass Navigo, Zones 1-2, Hebdomadaire (Weekly) or Mensuel (Monthly). Place your card on the machine when requested and wait for it to be charged. 

Zones and Fares

The center of Paris is considered Zones 1-2. All métro stations and Paris buses are in Zones 1-2 (NB: Buses that go to the suburbs will enter Zone 3 and require additional fare). The RER system (Regional Express trains) serves the Parisian suburbs and crisscrosses Paris. If you take the RER within Paris, your Zones 1-2 ticket or pass is valid. If you leave central Paris, make sure you have the appropriate ticket, or you can be fined on the spot. Popular destinations outside Paris include Orly Airport (Zone 3) Versailles (Zone 4), Eurodisney or Charles-de-Gaulle Airport (both Zone 5).

RER A Paris Stops : Charles-de-Gaulle Etoile (Champs-Elysées) – Auber (Opéra and Grand Magasins) – Châtelet-Les Halles – Gare de Lyon – Nation.

RER B Paris Stops : Gare du Nord - Châtelet-Les Halles – St. Michel Notre Dame – Luxembourg – Port Royal – Denfert-Rochereau – Cité Universitaire.

Fare Information

Paris Passe Navigo     19.15€ (weekly); 62.90€ (monthly) for Zones 1-2.

Tickets                          1.70€ (single); 12.70€ (carnet of 10) for Zones 1-2

Paris Visite                   9.75€ (1 day); 15.85€ (2 days); 21.60€ (3); 31.15€ (5) 

Prices usually change on July 1^st each year. These prices are valid as of May 2012.

Hours of Operation – Heures d’Ouverture

The metro runs from around 5:30am – 1am Sunday through Thursday, and until 2am on Friday and Saturday. You can check online at www.ratp.fr for first and last trains at your station. Buses start about an hour later and finish an hour earlier. The night buses, or Noctiliens, begin around midnight and continue until the metro opens, around 5:30am. The night buses start from the center of Paris and go to the suburbs. Night bus numbers are preceded by “N”. If the driver is signaling that you should not get on the bus, he’s probably telling you that it’s not the right bus for you. To avoid being stranded in a distant suburb, politely tell the driver where you want to go before getting on the bus.  

 Je voudrais aller à ____.

[pronunciation: Zhe voodray allay ah ____. I would like to go to ____.]

Traffic, Routes and Timetables

You can calculate your bus or train itinerary online at www.ratp.fr or with the iPhone/Pad RATP app. On the screen you’ll see something like this:

Rechercher un itinéraire ou un plan de quartier.

Top of Form

Départ / Plan de quartier *    

Arrivée

* Remplir un champ pour un plan de quartier et deux champs pour une recherche d’itinéraire. Fill in one box for a neighborhood map (Plan de quartier) and both boxes, departure and arrival, for an itinerary.

Select the green Rechercher box for search and Recherche avancée for an advanced search.

Advanced search options include Heure, hour of departure or arrival and Date. You can also select for the Mode of transportation – Tous (all), Ferré (Métro, RER, SNCF, Tramway), or Bus, Tramway; and from among several Critères – Le plus rapide (fastest), Le moins de correspondance (the fewest transfers) and Le moins de marche à pied (the least walking). 

You can compare various options and will be given information on traffic delays, if applicable as well as and a map. You can also select to show detailed instructions (Afficher le détail de la feuille de route).

 

Metro and Bus Etiquette

If you’ve read my entry on bus attitude, you’ll know that the first thing you do when you enter the bus is greet the driver with a Bonjour, Madame. Bonjour, Monsieur. Always enter the bus at the front and validate your titre de transport, your ticket or pass. Exit through the rear doors. Route maps are usually posted in the bus and some buses have monitors that announce the next stop. To request a stop, press one of the buttons placed throughout the bus prior to arrival. The sign in the front of the bus will light with Arrêt demandé , stop requested.

The “métro attitude” is more impersonal which can be less intimidating for tourists. Greeting or speaking to fellow passengers on the métro is neither required nor encouraged. Since everyone enters and exits through the same doors, let the passengers exit first and then step into the car. Do not attempt to board once the doors have started to close and never attempt to force the doors open. You only need to see someone caught in the doors once to learn that lesson. Not to mention that you don’t want to be the person who shuts down the entire line and then cannot retreat when irate passengers start yelling. Line 1 is now fully automated and work is being done on other lines as well which is meant to improve traffic flow and to prevent situations like the one above.

If you’re traveling alone at night, avoid entering cars where there is no one or people you’d rather avoid. If the behavior of another passenger makes you uncomfortable, get off at the next stop and enter a car closer to the driver, if there is one. Do not engage in eye contact or discussion with anyone you do not want to talk to. Any engagement will most likely be taken as an invitation. 

 

For an entertaining take on the perils of eye contact, see Steve Buscemi below in the Tuileries segment of the film Paris, Je T’Aime.

Culture Métro

The RATP strives to make your travel as enjoyable as possible, offering reading material, musical interludes and visit suggestions. For the last fifteen years, the RATP has held annual auditions for musicians who are authorized to perform in the hallways and on the trains. Each July, the winning entries from the annual Concours Poésie RATP are posted in métro cars and buses.

 

One of my favorite historical guides to Paris is the illustrated version of Lorànt Deutsch’s book Métronome, which offers up anecdotes of 2000 years of battles, basilicas and interested events associated with today’s métro lines. His videos are on the RATP site here. Click on the X to show the Paris map with a full list of historical sites and explanations here.

French Kids Eat Everything – But not just anything and not just anytime or anywhere

After a decade of French and France bashing, the pendulum seems to be swinging in the other direction with a range of new books extolling the magic of the French art de vivre. After Pamela Druckerman’s coquettish “I’m not even sure I like it here” but nonetheless rose-tinted view of life in France (read, Paris), it’s refreshing to read Karen Bakker Le Billon’s earnest attempt to understand the French way of educating bébé at the table. While Druckerman bears and rears her children in Paris and in a French cultural context from conception, Le Billon moves with her French husband and two small children, ages two and six at the time, from the ultra-permissive, child-centered food culture of North America (Vancouver, to be exact) to the authoritarian and comparatively rigid environment of Brittany.

Relaxed Table with Cheese

© 2011 Isabelle Vianu

The Le Billon grandparents are horrified by the manners and eating habits of their Franco-Canadian grandchildren. From their French family’s perspective the children eat constantly, at inappropriate times and places, and with so sense of etiquette - n'importe quoi, n'importe quand et n'importe comment. Le Billon is not happy with her daughters’ poor eating habits and limited culinary range, but feels powerless to change them until she realizes that behavior tolerated at home is unacceptable in France and could pose a significant impediment to her children’s social acceptance.

With the rational mind and experimental rigor of her academic background, she sets out to identify aspects of French food culture that will help her educate her own children on healthy eating and good manners. What makes the book interesting is that Le Billon is not herself in love with the French way of life and she is not a foodie by a long shot. She is no instant convert to eating a wide variety of foods and spending hours languishing at the table either. Le Billon is not afraid to voice her discomfort with the rigidity of French culture with regards to expectations of child behavior. She often finds French attitudes towards children and food downright mean.

In the beginning Le Billon views children making their own food choices as empowering and the rigid rules around eating times unnecessarily strict. In American culture, choosing your own food is indicative of the overarching importance placed on individual liberty. In fact, much is made in North American culture of catering to children’s specific food tastes. This month’s Food & Wine issue (May 2012) has an article on Katie Workman, the “Family-Food Whisperer” who creates meals that appeal to adults and children alike, as long as you’re willing to make both the ‘adult’ and ‘child’ versions of meatballs and green beans (and here I thought meatballs and green beans were already child friendly!).

French culture, in contrast, values communal sharing of food as a means of strengthening bonds and increasing cohesiveness. The cultural significance of common cuisine made headlines last summer in France when extreme right political groups organized a series of apéritifs saucisson-vin rouge, wine and pork sausage events designed to enflame anti-immigrant, and specifically anti-Muslim, sentiment. Their message was clearly ‘to be French is to eat French’. 

While Le Billon wishes that her daughters could adopt the manners and varied palates of their French peers she herself is a reluctant cook with a somewhat fearful and anxious attitude towards food. She sees mealtime as a chore and a time drain. However, over the course of the year she comes to appreciate not only the health benefits of specific mealtimes, a varied diet and no snacking, but also the interpersonal benefits of relaxed time together as a family. Meal times transition from battleground to an opportunity to spend time together, to connect, to be joyful and to relax. The book is overly long in my opinion, but the reader does identify with the slowness of her process in coming to terms - and eventual acceptance – of a way of eating that runs through French culture. Restraint, connection and pleasure are all to be found around the table.

Where this book distinguishes itself from others in the genre is that it does not conclude in France with a rosy cinematic fade out of the annual family day-long garden feast and a ‘happy end’ to the food wars. After their year in Brittany, the Le Billon family returns to Vancouver, intent on maintaining the French culinary art de vivre, or lifestyle. The return, as my family knows all too well, was rocky. They had spent a year consciously exploring another view entirely of food and its place in their lives culminating, literally, with the 10 commandments of eating well, only to find that it is very difficult and a whole lot less pleasurable to walk the walk in the land of ten minute school lunches.

Le Billon is now back in Vancouver where she is trying to change the school lunch culture and introduce more healthful eating. She’s in good company. There are several excellent TED talks on the topic. For ‘Lunch Lady’ Ann Cooper, school lunch is a social justice issue. Chef Jamie Oliver is also deeply involved in improving school lunches. Meanwhile, back in France all is not rosy either. According to an article in the inaugural issue of the food review Alimentation Générale, cost-cutting measures have led to the closure of school cafeterias that once cooked meals on site to out-sourcing of school lunches to industrial food giants such as Sodexo in up to 50% of French schools. This is horrifying to many French parents not only because of the reduction in freshness and taste, but also because of the ties that children have to the tatas de cantine, the school cooks, or ‘lunch ladies’. The food preparation may be off-site, but in general French pupils still sit down together to a full meal of entrée, plat, fromage and dessert (although some renegades are pushing for a ‘cheese or dessert’ course), and the lunch break, including playtime, is two hours. Below is an example of an “industrial, processed” lunch menu offered by the food company Avenance for schools in the town of Breuillet in the Greater Paris Region. In deference to the Catholic tradition, fish is often served on Friday.

Vendredi/Friday

Tarte au Fromage/Cheese Quiche

Lieu/ Pollack (fish, a member of the cod family)

Sauce Normande/Normandy Sauce (a white sauce made of fish stock, flavored with wine, and enriched with cream and egg yolks. Dishes called ‘Normande’ usually include butter, cream and/or apples.)

Epinards à la crème/Spinach in cream sauce

Fondu président/Soft white cheese

Fruit de saison/Seasonal fruit

Goûter/Snack

Pain et chocolat/Bread and chocolate (as mentioned in Le Billon’s book, baguette with squares of chocolate)

Jus d'orange/Orange juice

Compare this to the lunch menu for a local San Diego elementary school. In addition to having the option to bring your own lunch, the American elementary school lunch also offers a choice every day, except for the weekly Round Table Pizza lunch. Note that yogurt and graham crackers are offered daily as an additional main course option, and that nachos with cheese sauce and taco meat is a meal. Depending on the day the time allotted to lunch and recess ranges from 20 minutes to a ‘generous’ 45 minutes. The high school lunch break is 22 minutes. 

Le Billon, Karen (2012) French Kids eat Everything: How our family moved to France, cured picky eating, banned snacking, and discovered 10 simple rules for raising happy, healthy eaters. William Morrow, Harper Collins Publishers: New York.

Bringing Up Bébé: A meal runs through it . . .

. . . and a language and a culture. Pamela Druckerman’s Bringing Up Bébé begins with the assumption that French parents manage to lead lives that are relatively free of stress while raising well-behaved children and not losing sight of themselves as individuals. She sets out to identify the ‘secrets’ of French parenting. What she finds is that unlike American parents, who valiantly try to find or create a parenting style that ‘fits’ them, French children are raised in an amazingly homogenous framework, or cadre freeing their parents to devote time and energy to their careers and outside interests. Druckerman provides a detailed overview of the benefits available to French parents. Is the explanation to be found in the affordable day care, free public school from the age of three, universal healthcare, long vacations, numerous tax breaks and incentives or is there some other more mysterious key to French parenting?

Druckerman states in the beginning of the book, “As an American, I need things to be spelled out.” (p. 14) American, and particularly Northern American, culture is what Edward T. Hall described as ‘low-context’, whereas French culture is comparatively ‘high-context’. High-context cultures tend to be collectivist rather than individualistic and highly relational with strong personal bonds, closely knit family groups and high levels of commitment. With a high degree of shared experiences and expectations, there is less need for things to be made explicit. In low-context cultures codes are more visible and more easily articulated.

As a high-context culture, the French generally don’t feel the need to do their homework with respect to child-rearing as there is broad agreement on the general practices. By the same token, the French don’t like to admit to resorting to cookbooks. Americans, perhaps the greatest individualists on earth, feel the need to customize their environments in order to feel comfortable and in control, which is often the same thing. This overarching need for an individualized experience, from restaurant substitutions and sauce on the side, to individual birth plans leaves the French shaking their heads in bemusement and muttering, ‘n’importe quoi,’ which Druckerman translates literally as ‘whatever’, but a translation that captures its usage is ‘what the hell’, or ‘that’s bullshit’, or ‘that’s just ridiculous.’ The reaction to that which elicits the n’importe quoi is always negative.

While Druckerman is looking to unlock the secrets of French parenting, she inadvertently identifies codes that can be applied to French society as a whole. French parenting style is not child-centered, it’s French-centered. Children are educated from the very beginning to assume a role in the greater ‘adult’ world. The rules are not just for children to behave, but rules that reinforce the codes that allow entry to French society. The social pressure to respect authority in broad strokes is so deeply rooted, that when questioned about certain aspects of French life, the response is often a shrug and a ‘c’est comme ça.’, that’s just the way it is.  

L’art de discuter begins early

© 1995 Victor Vianu

The French government-subsidized daycare system and free public school that begins as early as age 2 ½ with an 8-hour school day and affordable after school programs, not only allow parents to work, but they also function as citizen-building greenhouses. The family and school are a child’s main cultural references. The child has a place within the family and the school, and thus in the wider world. Through adherence to the structure and the rules of this social framework, the child learns patience and self-control. Young girls learn that they can pursue higher education and training, seeing in their environment that they will not have to choose between children and a career when they grow up. Young boys see that educated, independent women are the norm.

In the ideal pedagogical situation, learning is reinforced on multiple levels, across different disciplines and through a variety of mediums. The French school consciously transmits the ideals of the République which are reinforced in the family by adults who as children assimilated the same values themselves. Druckerman emphasizes that while there is wide agreement in society about the value of this cadre, there is also acceptance of greater liberty within it. Strong adherence to basic rules and codes allows for greater freedom within the framework.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has spent time in France that this framework is created and structured through language and food traditions. Druckerman mentions the lengths to which American parents go to create a stimulating environment for their children. French parents don’t feel this need because they believe that their environment is stimulating enough. The French value ‘culture générale’, a well-rounded education and the ability to converse about and engage in a wide range of subjects. They have opinions and can defend them. They expect others to do so as well. The French have a shared corpus of cultural and historical knowledge that they began to acquire at a very early age in the French school system.

When adults meet children in social settings, they’ll ask, ‘T’es dans quelle classe cette année ?’ “What grade are you in this year? But when they ask, they also know what the child is studying and enjoy discussing it with him or her. Troisième ? (9^thgrade in the U.S.). The Enlightenment? Have you read Montaigne’s On Cannibalism yet? It’s also not unusual for adults to reminisce about classic texts memorized in elementary school and for all present to try to remember the words to Jacques Prevert’s long poem En Sortant de l’Ecole, ‘Leaving School’, or to refer to La Fontaine’s Le Corbeau et le Renard, The Crow and the Fox, with its famous line, “Mon bon Monsieur, Apprenez que tout flatteur vit aux dépens de celui qui l'écoute. Cette leçon vaut bien un fromage, sans doute.” “My dear sir, learn that every flatterer lives at the expense of those who listen to him. This lesson is worth a piece of cheese, no doubt.” In 'Leaving School', a poem about a crazy afternoon train ride around the world, delicacies such as saumon fumé, smoked salmon, and oursins, sea urchins, are mentioned. Both poems are examples of cultural norms transmitted through language and food.

Food comes up repeatedly in Druckerman’s book because it hits all of the cultural memes and chief among them is ‘Lack of structure leads to lack of self-restraint.’ Druckerman notes that in comparison to French children, American toddlers are constantly snacking. An English professor I know who taught American students in a study abroad program complained about student behavior in class, “They’re always eating! Don’t they ever stop?” This is where a French person would interject, “N’importe quoi.”

Tradition or the cadre structures the day and mealtimes. The fact that the society as a whole eats lunch at noon or 1pm, with a coffee or snack break at 4, and then dinner at 8 makes it easier to regulate eating and also provides a framework for social interaction. Structured eating times provide an opportunity for those convivial moments and the discussions that define the framework of French culture. This is why cultural trainers always say if colleagues ask you to lunch join them no matter how much work you have because this is the time that connections are formed, an essential component of successful integration.

Druckerman interviews not only other mothers, both French and American, but she also takes her investigation to the institutional level. She may be the only American journalist to have sat in on meetings with school nutritionists, for example. Surprisingly, the issue of religious dietary restrictions does not come up since school nutritionists do make an effort to offer non-pork items for Jewish and Muslim children. Indeed, the ‘wisdom of French parenting’ that Druckerman espouses is dependent on wide societal acceptance of French values. Her book does not discuss the evolving heterogeneous nature of French culture today with the influx of immigrants from Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa and their accompanying cultural differences. The French government does see the need to promote the values that define the French societal framework and since 2008, is directly addressing acculturation and assimilation with required ‘Welcome and Integration’ seminars for all new immigrants. 

With her ‘I’m just another neurotic New Yorker trying to get through the day’ style, Druckerman entertains and informs based on her experiences and well-documented research. I look forward to her next book from France, and hope it will be on the French school system.

Sources:

- Druckerman, Pamela (2012) Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the

Wisdom of French Parenting, The Penguin Press: New York.

- Hall, Edward T. (1976) Beyond Culture, Anchor Books, New York.

- Characteristics of Hall’s High-and Low-Context Cultures,

http://staff.washington.edu/saki/strategies/101/hallcul.htm

Thanks to:

Ann M. Johns (Professor Emerita, San Diego State University), who first introduced me to the importance of considering high and low-context cultures in the development of English for Specific materials.

Gayle Zachmann (Associate Professor of French, University of Florida; former Director, UF Paris Research Center;), for her stupendous lectures and insight on the development and transmission of cultural values from the Third Republic to today.  

Vocabulaire/Vocabulary

Le cadre/Framework

Culture générale/To say one has a good ‘general culture’ means that one is cultured.

N’importe quoi/What the hell?

C’est comme ça/That’s [just] the way it is.

Le saumon fumé/Smoked salmon

L’oursin/sea urchin

T’es dans quelle classe, cette annee ?/What grade are you in this year ?

            L’ecole maternelle/Pre-school

Petite section/Pre-school (3 years old)

Moyenne section/Pre-K

Grande section/Kindergarden

            L’école primaire/Primary School      

CP - Cours Préparatoire/1st grade U.S.

CE1 - Cours Elémentaire 1/2^nd grade U.S.

CE 2 - Cours Elémentaire 2/3rd grade U.S.

CM1 - Cours Moyen 1/4th grade U.S.

CM2 - Cours Moyen 2/5^th grade U.S.

            Le college/Middle School

                        6ème - Sixième/6th grade U.S.

                        5ème - Cinquième/7^th grade U.S.

                        4ème - Quatrième/8^th grade U.S.

                        3ème - Troisième/9^th grade U.S.

            Le lycée/High School

                        Seconde/10^th grade U.S.

                        Première/11^th grade U.S.

                        Terminale/12^th grade U.S.