Love thy neighbour

FRANCIS, MY closest friend and neighbour in Normandy, seems to holiday somewhere new every year. Last summer it was the lakes and forested hills of the Jura region, while the summer before that he hit the mountains of the Haute Savoie. I have also known him to sojourn in Corsica and Brittany, and to weekend at his son's flat in the well-heeled seaside resort of Le Touquet. In fact, in the 12 years I have known him, Francis has never stepped outside of France - unless you count lightning forays across the border into Belgium to stock up on cheap heating paraffin.

Periodically I try to lure Francis and his wife to Britain - after all he lives only 20 minutes from the Channel port of Dieppe. There were plans for a weekend in London, and talk of a day-trip to Brighton, but somehow these came to nothing. I have come to suspect that Francis, like so many of his compatriots, has no real need of abroad. His homeland caters for their every holiday need - from the traditional lure of sun, sea and sand - to pursuits gastronomic, cultural, sporting and pastoral.

In today's travel supplement about France, Independent writers celebrate the country's amazing diversity, whether travelling through the Pyrenees by train, weekending in the foodie capital of Lyon or enjoying the Alpine ski resorts out of season. But in truth this is necessarily only a small sample of what France can offer the traveller. Surely no other land mass the size of Colorado offers so much within its half a million square miles.

But France is far more than just a geographical reality - for millions of Britons it is also a state of mind. Until the advent of cheap holidays in Spain, France was our first taste of abroad. "Foreigners" may begin in Calais, as Little Englanders like to think, but Calais was also our gateway to a different way of being. We could kick off our Anglo-Saxon attitudes and dip our toes into a mindset less guilty and more sensuous about the joys of life - good sex, good food and good wine. In a tentatively Catholic way, we could embrace our sinfulness.

Perhaps this is part of the problem with those who claim that they love France, but hate the French. Real people leading real lives gets in the way of the dream. It's a dream that takes its simplest form in the idea of drinking a glass of red wine while looking out over a stretch of countryside kept unspoilt by a combination of small farmers and giant EC subsidies. The only French people in this dream are in the backdrop, wearing berets and playing petanque in the village square.

Of course, you don't get a different culture without having different people, but it is the priorities of the French (with family and food very near the top) that produces the country we love - and reminds us of what we may have lost. Whether the British would truly like to live like the French is unlikely - after all it calls for a degree of social cohesion that some may yearn for, but would in fact be uncomfortable with. The fact remains that for two weeks every year, 18 per cent of Britons holidaying abroad say "vive la difference" and choose France, making it second most favoured foreign destination after Spain. Given the boom in more exotic holidays, the numbers are holding up well. Our nearest neighbour continues to fascinate us, even as we squabble.

Copyright 2004 Independent Newspapers UK Limited
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