Oh la la. He’s out to lunch!

Remember that old school bell? One brinnngg and apart from the most insufferable creep the greater part of the class was likely to be involved in a spontaneous and thus unstoppable stampede out towards the playground. Well, its the same story when it comes to lunch time in France. For as soon as the holy hour of 12 noon arrives, well, you can put to one side all notions of work for the following two hours. Of course good grub is one of the delights of France and the French are not shy to remind you that you are privileged indeed to be in the centre gastronomique of the whole world. That’s all fine and good should you happen to be sunning yourself down on the golden beaches of the Cote d’Azur – but its not terribly convenient, to say the least, should you happen to be a business man visiting Paris for the day and anxious to close a deal. Phones go unanswered. People are seen scuttling off into restaurants and bistros. Everything is uncannily quiet. Its all terribly serious stuff. Ssshhh! The entire nation is a table.

Thank goodness for the English, that’s what I say. And so are a growing number of French people too. For that delicious last outpost of the British Empire, Marks and Spencer, has been doing wonders to change what goes into French tum-tums and how long it takes to get there too. For through its outlet in the Boulevard Haussmann, in the chic 8^th arrondissement, M & S has been doing more to change French eating habits since le crumble began to take France by storm back in the early eighties. Because through the sheer excellence of its sandwiches, crisps and the occasional offering of chicken tikka, growing numbers of proud Frenchmen and women have been abandoning a long and leisurely lunch in order to enjoy a twenty minute snack a la Marks and Spencer. It might not be doing wonders for the digestive system of the nation, but its certainly good for business as – perish the thought – phones are answered faxes flow thick and fast during those hitherto sacrosant hours.

So its all systems go then? Hardly. The structure of the working day might well be changing but France also happens to be the mother of all bureaucracies where the official stamping of forms, applications in quadruplicate and eternal delays on the part of officials working for l’administration has been raised to the level of a highly (un)respected form of art. Sandwiches are one thing – but think of tinkering with the pension rights of France’s over-sized army of civil servants and the chances are that the entire country will come to a standstill as these previously docile and anonymous paper-pushers undergo a rather worrying metamorphosis into violent strikers with cars overturned and set alight, motorways and fuel depots blocked – all before you have had the time to say Jacques Robinson. The same is true when it comes to the country’s extremely cumbersome and expensive social security system – no politician would ever dare calling for a radical rethink in either of these domains because bitter experience has shown that not only are there unlikely to be any votes in it, but that a previously promising political career could well be brought to a premature close by even admitting to having thought about the subject. Best then to say nothing, even though the national debt continues to pile up. Not the most conduicive atmosphere for smooth business transactions – and it was only through some extremely creative accounting that France miraculously managed to meet with the tough Maastricht criteria and thus be on course for European monetary union. It took no less than than 8 months for the paperwork for my carte de sejour to come through. Of course by the time it did so it was immediately out of date and the entire fruitless exercise had to be embarked upon again.

Fortunately there is a new brand of boss in France out to change the rules of the game. For whereas in the past the greater part of France’s leaders emerged from either the Polytechnique or the ENA (the Ecole Nationale d’Adminstration) – immediately networking itself into part of a clubby elite – a number of its more recent graduates are turning upon the hand that apparently fed them so well. Maybe they didn’t like the long lunches either. For whilst President Chirac and Prime Minister Jospin (ENA graduates themselves, in common with countless past leaders) continue to battle in the mainstream, bright new lights such as Jean-Marie Messier and Gerard Mestrallet – the heads of France’s vast water conglomerates the Compagnie Generale des Eaux and the Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux respctively – have abandoned a potentially glittering career in politics for the world of business – and with startlingly successful results. And both have embraced the two previously dirty words of French commerce – profit and privatization – advocating a brand of free market economics of which Mrs. Thatcher, the legendary dame de fer herself would no doubt be proud.

There is one aspect of business in France, however, which seems to be set in stone. The French are quite open and up-front about it and refer to as la flirte. And behaviour which would be deemed politically incorrect in England or America seems to cause no one any offence at all – and a recent survey has revealed that France is the European country with the lowest level of law suits for sexual harrassment at work. On the contary, over here it all seems to be accepted as part and parcel of the game – where la seduction is an integral part of the working day – lunch times, both long and short, included. I used to be rather offended by this when I first arrived in France 6 years ago – and I would repeat my well-rehearsed if somewhat tedious arguments about the exploitation of women. That was until I realized that the real issue over here, at least when it comes to la flirte, is the exploitation of men.

Of course despite all of these grumbles and gripes France remains a most magnificent country in which to live and work. It has to have something going for it, after all, for no less than 70 million people visit the country each and every year, making it the world’s leading tourist destination, receiving more visitors each year than the United States. Hardly surprising, then, that I seem to make few friends when I ring London from my cosy base in Montpellier, in the sunny Languedoc region of the south of France.

"Hello", I used to announce. "My name is Jeremy Josephs. I am an English journalist living in Montpellier."

"Oh, very nice", a deflated voice would reply at the other end.

I have since abandoned that opening gambit when seeking freelance commissions and I will not hesitate to tell the Brits about what a rotten lot the French are.

"Bloody French" I will announce. "Can’t get anything done over here. What with their long lunches. And goodness me – talk about bureaucracy? "Do you know how long it took me to get my carte de sejour….?"

"I know" the editor will reply. "What a lot".

Its working, I think. Might I have found a friend?

"Yes", the commissioning editor will invariably continue. "Awful aren’t they?

I’m coming over with my family in a couple of weeks, mind you. You wouldn’t happen to be around then would you. Because I’ve always wanted to visit Montpellier."

"Unfortunately not", I now reply.

Only you and I need know the truth. That I shall be out for lunch. And a bloody long lunch at that.