On Saturday Brushes with our own breed of ‘Parigot’

ANYONE who has spent time in the French countryside during August will have witnessed an edginess manifesting itself between locals in rural communities and a certain breed of sleek, beautifully apparelled personage known as a “Parigot”.

It is the countryside name for Parisians and the term is not often used in a friendly or affectionate way. To put it bluntly, the provinciaux – the word Parisians use for countryfolk in the same way some rude people here would say “yokel” – are not overly fond of their compatriots from the capital city.

This mild(ish) mutual loathing is quite a “thing” in France, especially in August when the whole of Paris decamps to the countryside. You’ll see a lot of eye-rolling as local waiters, bar-staff, butchers and bakers serve rather demanding customers who could afford to purchase the entire menu if the mood overtook them.

French friends have asked if the same thing happens here, and until now I have explained that the London version of those Parigot who get up the noses of rural folk in the likes of Brittany, Provence or the Dordogne, tend to decamp to… Well to Brittany, Provence or the Dordogne. Or to Tuscany.

Not this year, they haven’t. We’ve got ‘em down here en-masse – and a rather amusing thing it is for the amateur anthropologist to observe.

I am talking about the same type of sleek, well-dressed, well-heeled visitor from the city who arrives in a £70,000 four-wheel-drive – the kind of person who doesn’t mind the size of the bill, but who knows exactly the value of everything and therefore is fully cognisant of the way things should be.

If, say, a purchase does not come up to expectations, they won’t hold back in pointing out faults or failures. And because they are people used to being a hurry, they will do so without employing that time-hungry British habit of being overly polite.

Someone I know, who does a few unpaid hours as a volunteer waitress in a village community cafe, encountered one of these folk this week – a man she recognised as a famous TV and radio presenter.

I won’t share his name because I happen to admire the chap and think he’s one of the more polite and intelligent interlocutors on Radio Four. And, who knows, maybe my acquaintance misunderstood his abrupt manner.

The cafe has one of those posh coffee making machines which can also make hot-chocolate – and this guy’s family ordered four mugs of the latter. My friend, knowing that the machine blasts the stuff out at a temperature so scalding it could come from the core of Hinkley Point’s nuclear reactors, had slightly cooled the contents of two mugs destined for the famous presenter’s little children.

Sensible, you’d have thought. But this guy sampled the two mugs in question and barked, “Not hot enough!” – shoving the offending vessels forwards to be replaced. My friend felt embarrassed, especially because the famous presenter’s wife scowled and watched her like a hawk until the now scalding replacements were duly taken back to the table.

“You should have explained you’re only a volunteer in a little villageowned cafe that is meant for the community,” I shrugged. “On the other hand, you can see it from his point of view – he was no doubt paying good money for all that hot chocolate.”

“We only charge £1.50 a mug,” she replied. “I bet the London cafes where he normally buys hot-chocolate charge the best part of a fiver!”

Later, this story was discussed by some locals in the pub and it turned out the hot-chocolate incident was one of many mini-social-sins committed by “rude rich Londoners” in general.

“Oh, they can be nice when you point out they’re being a tad rude,” said a friend who works at another local hostelry. “One woman I served seemed grief stricken to think she’d caused offence. My theory is that we countryfolk don’t get to see so many people day-in day-out – so, when we do meet someone we take extra care to be polite. I suppose when you see ten thousand people a day, every day, it’s difficult to remember that a person serving a cup of coffee is actually a human being.”

Another local harrumphed: “Rude beggars! I can’t wait ’til next year when they’ll all disappear off to their villas abroad and leave us in peace.”

Another grumbled: “Don’t talk to me about Londoners! Over paid, over-spoilt, overly-politically-correct, and over here! If you earn sixfigure sums, like a lot of them do, you forget your roots and start acting like you’re the modern gentry!”

As I say, amusing for the amateur anthropologist, but there’s a serious side to this story. To take our village as an example, it is one of the last communities inside Exmoor National Park to be populated mainly by working families, but I’m told five of the six houses sold here recently were bought as holiday homes or AirBnBs.

If that trend continues across our lovely peninsula, we will see a widening divide cleaving its way between those who use this region for occasional periods of recreation and us yokels. And big divides in society are no good to anyone.

Another grumbled: ‘Don’t talk to me about Londoners! Over paid, over-spoilt and over here!’