Why french women don't get fat

[Heswall]

Please somebody tell me the leek soup thing works, I may throw up soon and am starving.
TIA

sounds like a happy couple

Hmmm, possibly. I grew up around intellectuels (bobos - lots of professors, CNRS researchers...) rather than bourges, but the values are not strictly identical (although I guess in terms of diet, restraint etc, similar, but not for the same reasons).

The impoverished bourgeois are definitely who I consider UMC - unless you follow the American system of associating class with money! They are exactly who I was referring to in my earlier post about no longer having the old money, but keeping their traditional values. I think England is similar - there are lots of upper class people who live in draughty old farms and drive beaten-up old bangers, but remain upper class nevertheless :)

There is a family like the one you describe close to us - they live in a wealthy suburb, in what pretty much amounts to a shack! Their kids go to Scouts d'Europe and Catholic schools and they all wear "the uniform" (navy and white, velvet aliceband, boys in long grey shorts...). They are very generous and welcoming, though - our DDs are friends and they've invited us round for meals a few times. They all have hyphenated first names :)

I've also spent quite a few summers in Paray-le-Monial, which is a regular meet-up for lots of religious families (and have stayed in touch with several) and all are lovely, kind people :)

Ugh! Smiley abuse. Sorry.

They aren't UMC (even if their grandparents were) and their children will be middle-middle at the very best, because the super-Cathos hyper-breeding segment is getting so impoverished that their children are becoming increasingly ill-educated. Think no passport, never go abroad, and yes, all that scoutisme is great because it (like Church activities) gets children out of the house for free. They cannot afford to go to prépa and grandes écoles anymore...

The names are the marque de fabrique, a code of belonging. The less sure the family is of still actually holding on to its social credentials, to longer and more extraordinary the prénom composé. Alix-Hortense? Marie-Bérengère? Jean-Eudes? etc etc

I don't think all are impoverished - I know quite a few who are in senior management positions, having gone through Sciences Po, X...

In fact, it boggles my mind how some of them manage to be very scientific whilst adhering to fundamentalist Catholic values and practices, such as creationism!
Seriously, in my last job, one of the R&D directors ran a charismatic prayer group 2 mornings a week before coming in to the office (and tried to convince me to join!) and sent his kids to a hors-contrat Catholic school, yet had a top engineering diploma and designed revolutionary new manufacturing processes involving nuclear technology!

I think the huge families are dying out a bit these days - round here the average Catholic family seems to have 5 kids.

I think you have hit the conformity of which I was speaking pretty much on the head.Although the famile I spent time.with lived in Caen not Paris when I stayed there they did have 8 children.I think one of the son's made aless than great match and his wife was frowned upon for being less restrained

BTW I love my french famile. These are just my observations they were wonderful to me

What happened to the leek soup ????

English people (men) get v excited when my dh says he's married to a half French woman.bless. Think they expect me to be sexy smoking skinny stockinged siren....disappointing!

Once I did make up a story to some twit Eng man at a dinner party (also went to convent school to make matters worse/ better) about my French heritage, waffled (slurred, must have been English drinking genes) on about Hugenots fleeing persecution under Louis 14th, being v old French posh, thought it was good had him and myself quite convinced, his (sober,sensible) wife was not fooled and politely informed me that it wasn't louis 14th who persecuted the Hugenots "It was Louis the bla bla" .........bloody history expert !my answer was "oh Louis this,Louis that there were so many I just get them all mixed up"

Sorry to lower the tone.

Not all impoverished, no, but you can get some quite surprising situations where husband of the family has a senior job, but the family doesn't have enough income to live well because of the vast family, and obviously inheritances are tiny when there are huge families through the generations. The (budgetary) choices French Catholic families make can be quite surprising, especially for the English where the educated classes are so intent on ensuring they can afford an expensive education for their children.

Five is still a lot of children - more than many families could dream of putting through prépa and grandes écoles.

Re VitC's "French upper classes are Catholic and they drink wine as a treat, maybe once a week": (1) The people she is talking about are clearly not what anyone else (including most French people) would call "upper class" (although perhaps you would like to think so, if they are people you grew up with, most of your friends, family, etc) (2) And even if they were, very little drinking & dressing up in somber tones of color etc is probably because they are devout Catholic, rather than any lingering socio-economic status.

By the way, I just realized that I wasn't very clear when I said French people I know have a bit of wine with every meal. I was trying to refer to the meals they eat at restaurants. Obviously, I don't observe their meals at home.

Still, meals outside are quite often down here, for the simple reason that the weather is almost permanently beautiful.

Bonsoir - the engineering grandes ecoles are free and most of the prepa's - my nephew's at one at the moment. Although I know private ones exist. Also I think Science Po is free as well.

Vit C - I agree pretty much with Bonsoir's analysis and can add that round here the french do refer to the catholic bourgeois. Reckon they're quite posh - although there are of course other posh french who aren't catholic. Anyway I thought there weren't any true upper classes in france as the were all had their head chopped off during the revolution!!