re: French Baguettes From a Vending Machine? ‘What a Tragedy.’

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French Baguettes From a Vending Machine? ‘What a Tragedy.’ I feel like your missing the point about what it’s ultimately doing to such a unique and bucolic part of the world. The French countryside is one of the last bastions of places that are authentic to their core.

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You have over-romanticized the French countryside to the point of error. What on earth does “authentic to the core” even mean? Authentic to what time period? Authentic to whom? I went to a thriving town market in Bayeux, right in the public square—a weekly market has been held there for, oh, 900 or so years. Among the most popular vendors were a food truck selling samosas (all french speaking proprietors, born in France, of Indian descent), another selling Vietnamese food, and a vendor with giant vats of tagine & couscous. Are Vietnamese food and tagine less authentic to the French countryside than a baguette? Both Algeria and Vietnam are former French colonies—lots of immigrants from either country can be found scattered throughout La France Profonde.

Rural France, just like rural Italy and much of the rural US, faces challenges from large-scale discount food selling and production, undermining the “pastoral” ways that city people find charming.....yet those same country folk don’t want to work 18 hrs a day for a pittance, or be yoked to a job undervalued in today’s society. Some might argue that the problem is far worse in rural Italy, where immigration to the US was so common for 140 years or so. Entire Italian villages are peopled with nothing more than a few elderly folks, sustained by visits from family who live, permanently, elsewhere.

All places change, all the time. You’re just a visitor—to hope that a place is fixed in amber means you want a theme park, not a visit to a living, breathing society undergoing constant change. Oyster producers near Calcanques have a refrigerated oyster vending machine—the oysters stay fresh, and no one has to sit at a kiosk to sell them. Is it more “charming” for someone in fishermen’s overalls to sit there and hope someone wanders by? Perhaps, but I’m sure that guy would rather be doing something else while the machine efficiently sells his oysters in peak condition.

Maybe the French will see a resurgence of small, artisan baking—-or maybe they’ll realize that absolutely crazy labor regulations make it ridiculously difficult for a small business to grow, and work against micro-entrepreneurship.