Re-entering Daily Life

It's 6:30 PM. I'm straddling one corner of a stroller in the middle of the tram. I can feel six or seven people touching various parts of my body. My legs are spared this invasion of my personal space. And then, suddenly, a 4-year old decides it will be a good idea to turn my legs into the first stage of an obstacle course. Uhp--now all four of my limbs are being touched by other people.

All summer I have taken Tram B across the south of Paris at this hour, and it's never been like this. I wonder, "What is going on?"

And then it dawns on me: it's la rentrée.


For the uninitiated, la rentrée (the re-entry) is when France returns home from vacation, throws its dirty laundry in the washing machine, applies aloe vera to its sunburn, and goes back to whatever it was doing before.

Many, many years ago, little French children had to help their elders in the fields. And so considerate French teachers allowed the children to leave school for a few months, after which they picked their books back up again. This is how les grandes vacances, or summer vacation, got rolling.

Things change, though. France, like the rest of the developed world, now requires only a fraction of the farmers it used to. But once you get something started, it's always hard to close it down. That's why the atheistic French are the most fervent observers of Catholic holidays.

It was discovered that children need someone to supervise them if they aren't going to be working farmland. And so the French decided to give parents a few weeks of vacation as well. (Only the first step in the long fight to attain true parent-child equality.) Such family vacation time allowed relaxing, family bonding time, and economic stimulation in French beach towns.

So every year in July, Paris slows down a little and then in August it more or less dies. That's why I had a comfortable tram commute previously--all the Parisians had left for someone else.

At the end of August, however, people begin filtering back into town. Parents start working again. University students move back in and begin choosing classes. And the young'uns start school, scheduled this year for next Monday, September 5.

This mass resumption of the boring parts of life requires a corresponding resumption of normal every-day consumerism (as opposed to vacation consumerism). Thus, stores put out all sorts of books, movies, school supplies, clothing that you require to resume your regular life. In particular, most books in France are published in the months between August and November, a period which has come to be called la rentrée littéraire.

If you're American, you may say, "Jeez. That sounds a lot like back-to-school in the US."

It is, but here it's bigger. (Sorry Texas.)