Side Trips: the Boonies, Apparently

Chevreuse, à province

My latest favorite French expression is à province, which generally denotes everywhere in France that is not Paris. Example:

"Habite-il à province?" (Does he live outside of the capital?)

"Oui, à Marseille." (Yes, in Marseille)

To say "à province" is like referring to rural areas in the US as the boonies or the sticks. Except that in France, it basically applies to the entire country, with the exception of 0.019% of France's European territory (105 km2 out of 543,940) where about 3% of its population lives. 

For a factual statement (a person or thing is or is not in the capital), it therefore packs an impressive and revealing degree of snobbery. No place else is in the world can capture the imagination or simultaneously embody so many different things--fashion, culture, gastronomie, industrial innovation, royal excess, revolutionary zeal, intellectual courage, imperial overreach, faded grandeur--as Paris. But why rub it in?

35 km from Paris to Chevreuse, à province.

Marsh irises 700km further down the road, La Camargue, à province

Maybe this is normal for big cities. New York City famously thinks of the rest of the world as a diminished elsewhere. When I lived there I was once told that "everything above 14th Street is Bridgeport." This certainly informed my later opinion that from San Francisco, everything east of the Caldecott Tunnel is Oklahoma, both climatically and culturally.

 

Strange idols à province, Château de Fontainebleu

I can't imagine that à province is used commonly outside of the capital, especially not in other large French cities like Marseille (241 km2, 800,000 people) or Lyon (48 km2, nearly 500,000 people). Except maybe derisively, in the same petulant way that American midwesterners often resent how people in coastal cities think of them as living in "flyover states" (when the truth is, we don't really think of them at all except in presidential election years).

Parisian people come from all over the country, as well as the world, and express their regional pride most strongly in gastronomie. Just yesterday, when we ordered a cidre at the local café, the server informed us, unprompted, that it came from "my région, Normandie." Bistros will commonly tout their regional style of cooking, such as Breizh (Brittany), or advertise the regional origins of their ingredients. My favorite place in our old neighborhood is a restaurant that notes their location as "536 km de Salers", a town in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region known for its meats and cheeses. Their wine shop and épicerie next door encourages passersby to "fais ton marché Auvergnat," or roughly "shop at your Auvergne market."

 
Lions abound à province, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Chantilly.

A friendly nuclear power plant, à province, Port-lès-Valence.

Orléans, à province.

Apparitions à province, Arles.

Perhaps the phrase dates back to when the royal court was à province in Versailles, and all of the dull, nasty business of actually governing took place in the capital. In which case, the snobbish connotations have since reversed. Or not. Perhaps the French people à province still look upon benighted Parisiens, and pity them their traffic, smog, and constant noise. If the number of people who flee the capital each August is any indication, Parisens themselves may dream of living à province someday, after they retire (at age 64 now).

One thing I'm sure of, though: if would be terribly un-French for the people of any région to proclaim themselves "the Heartland" of the entire country and expect to be taken seriously. That's taking delusional self-importance to an entirely different level.