Day 1,087 (Sunday) 31^st May 2020

We both sunbathed for a few hours on the balcony but we lose the sun at around 2.30pm so next week we’ll be able to go to the beach for some more – yay! We walked down to the car park to do our recycling and Villefranche was busy! All the shops are open now

Seb has pulled the shutters up on Le Phare (that’s Marie Claire, Seb’s mother)

All the bars and restaurants are getting ready for Tuesday

The café called Coffee Ship is doing takeaways and they’ve got their tables and chairs ready for Tuesday – I think these tables and chairs are far too close. This café is really going to struggle as their main customers are people off the cruise ships and I can’t see them coming back any time soon.

This is Mere Germaine, the most expensive restaurant in town who asked for donations last week – bloody cheek but at least the spaces between the table are better.

We were horrified to see so many people on the beach and in the sea – the beach is closed – why do they think they are above the law?

 

We walked down to the beach bars and saw a police car coming towards us so we turned back to see what he was going to do about the sunbathers and swimmers.

We were very pleased when he got out of the car and told everybody to get off the beach

but we were very disappointed he didn’t fine them – they should all have been fined 135€

Kiss off: Why the coronavirus could spell the end of 'la bise' in France

As France begins to reopen after lockdown there are fears that one long-standing French tradition could fall victim to coronavirus - kissing.

Kissing cheeks to say ‘hello’ can seem slightly strange a habit for those not used to it, but la bise - ‘the kiss’ - is a long-standing French tradition and a firmly embedded social custom.

Whether it is President Emmanuel Macron welcoming German Chancellor Angela Merkel to a high-profile state meeting or a regular Frenchwoman greeting her friend at a bar, their gesture is fundamentally the same.

They pout their mouths, lean in, smacking their lips in a kissing sound as their cheeks touch gently together.

La bise is packed with regional specificities - how many kisses depends on where in France you are - and has been a basic social code for ages, but not all French people are a fan of the tradition.

“One of the upsides to this epidemic is the end of la bise,” Cécile wrote on Twitter.

“I hate this “custom” and (that) as soon as I step back to avoid drooling, unasked for mouths on my cheek, people got upset.”

Cécile commented on a post by Society, one of the top cultural magazines in France, which in its latest issue featured a six-page long feature titled “When la bise disappeared.”

"Do you remember before," Society asked, "when we said hi, bye and thanks by kissing each other? Have you asked yourself why?"

Other than pointing to how the coronavirus could mean quitting la bise for good, Society asked a poignant question: do the French know why they kiss? 

Turns out, many don't.

"I have always asked myself why, but I have no idea," said Elisa, 20.

"I think people just do it because everyone else does it."

 Elisa, like Cécile, told The Local that she avoids la bise if she can.

 "I find it quite bizarre," she said. "It's a direct physical contact with people you don't know, which you force yourself to do just because it's a social code."

In the Middle Ages, kissing someone was the "ultimate symbol of a social contract between a lord and his vassal," according to a long-read on the French news website France Info titled "after the crisis, the end of la bise?"

Tracing the roots of the cheek-kiss, the article suggests that la bise has come and gone throughout history - notably taking long breaks after pandemics like the Black Plague. 

Kissing as a greeting only made a real comeback after World War II, "a kiss on the hand in upper societies, peck on the cheek among the lower echalons," according to l'Express.

More recently, kissing the cheek has become the norm for everyone - not just when women are involved. A couple of decades back, young French men would opt for a handshake instead of a kiss on the cheek. Today, a young man kissing another young man on the cheek is perfectly normal.

'It's extremely codified'

But there are a long string rules regulating la bise, which can be a source of distress for many French people, never mind foreigners attempting to learn local customs.

"When you see a girl from the family at your house and you don't know whether to give her la bise or to shake her hand," states the tweet below. 

"It's always accompanied by a myriad of gestures, you can keep a slight distance or bend forward, keep your hands in your pockets or lock them around the other's shoulders," he said.

And then there are all the cultural codes of when to bise and when it's best to leave it at a handshake. 

"Do I embrace my colleague whom I appreciate?" Le Breton asked.

"If it's a woman, she might think I'm being intrusive, and if I don't, she might think I don't like her."

Several French women have in fact spoken publicly about their disdain for la bise, calling it sexist and pushy.

A bise-ban?

For young women like Elisa and Cécile who grew up in a world full of mandatory cheek-kissing they never signed up for, the coronavirus' new policy of social distancing come with some sort of relief.

Same, same... And I finally will not have to kiss people I don’t like much to tell them hello and goodbye just because “we have to do it” (you know, “la bise”)

Good riddance! RIP la bise.

Covid-19, an extremely contagious virus, has had many shun la bise as an unhygienic habit that best be shelved for a while, maybe even for good.

In early March, Health Minister Olivier Véran told the French to try and find new, less contagious means of saying hello. 

This was back when bars and restaurants were still open across France, before mounting critical cases in hospitals forced the government to install a strict, nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the epidemic.

Back then, banning la bise became somewhat of a national joke. Pundits poked fun at politicians who claimed they would miss giving out kisses to people in their communities. French media flourished with articles asking “what now?" "Do we fist-bump instead?"

Eight weeks of lockdown and a record-deep economic downturn later, the joke isn’t that funny anymore. But the question of whether France will have to kiss la bise goodbye is more pressing than ever.

To Célestin-Alexis Agbessi, a doctor at the emergency unit of the Parisian hospital Pitié-Salpêtrière, there is no question about it - the French will have to stop kissing.

"Absolutely," he told The Local.

"We will need to innovate, change, create. There will be new ways to socialise," he said.

"The world has shifted, radically shifted. I'm not sure we've realised it yet."

What then?

Social media has flourished with comments on what to do now, if the French will manage to live in a post-bise world.

“When kids in 2040 will ask me what is faire la bise,” wrote woman as a caption to a video of a girl mouthing the lyrics to the part of La Boheme where famous French singer Charles Aznavour sings “I am talking to you about a time that those of you under 20 years old you cannot know.”

'You get used to it'

Many French are nostalgic about the thought of letting la bise go.

“La bise is a cultural question here in France. It shows our affection to one another,” said Paul, 20.

Paul said he did not foresee a future without la bise.

“Once we have a vaccine, why shouldn't we? We have had the flu here since forever and that didn’t stop us from doing la bise.”

Eva, a Polish woman who has lived in France for 17 years, said she would miss doing la bise, but only with certain people.

"It's a good tradition," she said.

"In the beginning I found it odd, but then you get used to it."

As for Lisa, she was certain. She had never wanted to do la bise in the first place, now she definitely never had to.

"I think a sincere smile is much better than a forced bise," she said.

I will be very disappointed if the bise disappears; it’s true, it takes some getting used to at first but now I love it!

No video today but the joke of the day…