Gabrielle Deydier

Apologies for the lack of postings as of late: - I gave birth to our fourth son a couple of months ago.  Bilal is obviously delighted and wanting more.  I have no reason to say no: - I always eat sensibly and therefore have no worries about what effect this will have on my impossibly dainty figure.

I have been asked a few times what I think about Gabrielle Deydier, the supposed Frenchwoman denouncing "grossophobie", so I thought I would write a blog post on this subject.  For English-speaking readers of this post, an article summarising the situation can be found at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/10/gabrielle-deydier-fat-in-france-abuse-grossophobia-book-women .  Note that The Guardian is the British publication that Zoë Williams tends to write for: - she is the journalist who whinges about how perfect we Frenchwomen are.

Gabrielle Deydier claimed she was pushed out of her job as a special education classroom assistant because of her weight.  Me personally, I think it is useless speculating about whether this is true or not.  Maybe she was difficult to deal with in other ways?  We will probably never know.  In my experience as an employer, people often make silly claims like this to divert attention away from poor performance, bad behaviour and other things that make them undesirable employees.

I also note the part about how she spent a year in Spain where her weight wasn't an issue.  Let's be honest here: - France and Spain are not only part of the Single Market (people can live and work in each other's nations under the Maastricht Treaty), but also the Schengen Zone (no hard borders).  You can get on the TGV at various French stations and there is nothing (except perhaps ticket checks) stopping people getting to Spain.  If I were that unhappy with life in France (I am not by any stretch of the imagination), I would ask myself if emigration would improve my life.

Let me be candid here: - I think she looks disgusting and a disgrace to the effortlessly perfect French women you see all around the country.  When I showed Bilal a photo of her and asked his opinion, he didn't hesitate to describe her as "cheum" (verlan for "moche", French for ugly).  I understand the school's difficulty in allowing someone so fat to be around children and set a bad example, but if you are running a fashion magazine (like I am) and someone turns up at an interview looking like that, it makes it clear that they don't have any interest in what we cover as a magazine (looking good, which fashion contributes to).  It reminds me of the interview scene from "The Devil Wears Prada" where Anne Hathaway's character turned up for the interview with Meryl Streep's character unrepentant about her lack of interest in fashion.

That said, I do feel sorry for her, as The Guardian's article makes it clear that the doctor prescribed some remedies that are just not French!  He prescribed medication and a diet of meat and boiled vegetables.  Did the doctor just not know what he was doing?  We Frenchwomen eat all sorts of things that the outside world considers "naughty", such as cheese (I love local cheeses like Banon, Saint-Marcellin, Picodon de la Drôme and Picodon de l'Ardéche), tartiflette, foie gras, Nutella crêpe, steak frites, baguettes, Quiche Lorraine, Croque Monsieur, Raclette/fondue, confit de canard and many other lovely dishes.  As Mireille Guiliano rightly points out, we eat for pleasure (not punishment), but there are some things we do to maintain our wonderful beanpole thin figures: -

• Not eating between meals: - we have proper meals three times a day to eliminate the temptation to snack
• Concentrating on meals properly, so as to avoid mindless eating
• Passive exercise: - walking and taking the stairs as far as reasonably practicable
• Choosing foods that taste delicious, so we get our jollies from the taste, rather than our stomachs being stretched
• Make food look visually appealing for the same reason
• Avoiding uselessly sweet foods, say having desserts slightly sour and only as sweet as they need to be to cleanse the palate of the previous course (e.g. tarte au citron) or perhaps a cheese course before the dessert
• Eating real foods: - breaking the link between sweetness/fat (say with artificial sweeteners and low-fat foods) and calories confuses the body, causing people to eat more
• Never dieting: - we change our habits permanently if something goes wrong
• Drinking bottled water, rather than unhealthy fizzy drinks: - I don't care if Greta Thunberg, the high priestess of the green religion, disapproves of me for this
• Sip champagne and fine wines regularly, but not hard liquor: - hard liquor comes with many additional calories and blunts the taste buds, making it harder to get our jollies from the taste

And, drum roll............................................................

• Saying "la moitié, s'il vous plaît" ("just half of that, please") when offered some food, not forgetting what Mireille Guiliano said about how there are three ways French women stay thin: - portion control, portion control and portion control

In summary, I think Gabrielle Deydier could turn her situation around if she tried (along with some sound advice from an average French woman that she seems to lack).  She has passed her prime career years, but she may be able to recover some semblance of a career if she gets herself back on track.  Rather than whingeing about "grossophobie", she should take responsibility and lose the weight.

I'm engaged

Today, Bilal made a proposal of marriage!  This is something I have been eagerly awaiting for several months and I can now announce that it has finally happened!  I accepted without hesitation.  Bilal and I are very different people, but I appreciate his exotic nature, with him being a mix of Touareg and hip-hop influences.  This is evident in his language usage and clothing.  He is definitely my tall, dark (and heavily-built) stranger.

Bilal has moved into my parents' home (readers will note that I live in my own flat a short distance from the Vieux Port).  The reason for this is to adapt him to French culture a little bit more, as I have no willingness to live in La Savine, even if a top-floor flat would offer fantastic views of Marseille and the Mediterranean Sea.  Such a rough gangsta area is not appealing to a sophisticated haute couture Frenchwoman such as myself.  I would get tired of people greeting me by saying "Wesh-wesh toubab?" ("Wagwan honky?")  For some reason, Bilal never looks entirely at ease when in some more typically French areas in a way that he did in Mali (I cannot vouch for what he is like in La Savine, having never been there) and often appears homesick.

In the longer term, we are wondering about what sort of arrangements will be most agreeable to us.  One option we are considering is purchasing a livestock farm that would enable Bilal to feel at home.  Although the Common Agricultural Policy allows French farmers to get away with many backward and inefficient agricultural practices (hey, I suppose some compromises are necessary to produce the pure and natural products that a Frenchwoman desires), they are still a world apart from Touareg practices.  Another possibility is for us to construct a mountain home in the mountains to the north and east of Marseille to allow him to life a hill farmer lifestyle when he is not at work.  If anyone has any suggestions, please e-mail me at mariannegaboriault@gmail.com : - we are looking for countryside that is as rugged as Bilal is, MDR!

Even if we struggle to find somewhere that causes Bilal to feel completely at home, Bilal has told me he is willing to endure feelings of homesickness for the rest of his life in order to be with me, adding that I am "une femeu bien faite" (French for "a well fit bird") even by French standards: - obviously, when he is living with my parents, they will attempt to smooth some of his rough edges.  Bilal was never a macho man, but he has spent so much time around people who speak in this manner that he uses such words as if they were normal words.  He managed to restrain himself for job and university interviews, but found it too tiring to keep up a pretence beyond that.  This is partly why he tends to gravitate towards tasks that involve doing things in the background at work: - he can prove himself by the quality of his outputs and is unlikely to be obstructed by his hip-hop use of language.  At university, he would just turn up for lectures, practical assessments etc and just go home again afterwards to do his study: - he did very well academically and he was very diligent with his studies, but he never had any interest in being involved in the extracurricular life of his university, as he never really felt at home with the white middle-class liberal atheistic students the way he does in da 'hood or at church.  He feels at home at church because he knows that in this world, we are to regard ourselves as merely sojourners and if a church is a sound church, it is the closest experience a believer will have to the world to come.  Obviously, the wedding will take place in our own church (not the one shown below).

Obviously, given my obsession with food and Bilal's coeliac disease, we will need to expend a lot of thought about what food will be served at the wedding.  It will not be nice for me to have to share a marital bed with Bilal if the food served at the wedding has caused him bowel problems, MDR.  Unless a gluten-free croquembouche is available, we may unfortunately have to have an Anglo-Saxon style wedding cake.  Maybe we could have something along the lines of Mireille Guiliano's flourless chocolate cake?  Bilal is awfully fond of this recipe, but given that it is a recipe Mireille Guiliano approves of, presumably I shouldn't worry, MDR.

I think Bilal will look absolutely gorgeous in a morning suit, but he doesn't like suits and as far as I'm aware, the only time he has ever worn one in his life was for his job interview with the "Trom de Marseille" (as he and his homies call it in Verlan, MDR).  He is very fond of his Touareg attire and some of this looks gorgeous upon him though, especially the bright indigo garments.  Because he is such a handsome man, being around him requires a greater amount of self-restraint and I am pleased that with our engagement, the amount of time I will have tocontinue to exercise this self-restraint is getting shorter.

I will be looking for the most beautiful bridal dress I can find.  Apart from the fact that I am the bee's knees and worthy of the best, it would not do for a fashion magazine editor to turn up for her own wedding in an unfashionable bridal gown.  This will be my biggest worry when it comes to wedding preparations (apart from possible legal hiccups obstructing the legal validity, e.g. the registrar being sick on the day of the wedding).  However, as I have always been dainty in my eating, I will certainly not have to worry about how my figure will look in the dress as lesser women do!  All I can say is roll on the wedding day!

London-Marseille trains confirmed!

Recently, I learned that direct London-Marseille trains have finally been confirmed.  Yay!  I am pleased with this, given my unfortunate regular need to visit London on business.  As far as I am concerned, after having spent a few days in London and coming close to death on account of the lack of sophistication, the sooner the train can get me back to Marseille, the better, MDR.  Maybe in the future, Marseille will be the city where everything is happening (or at the least, maybe Paris will regain that title), but until that happens, I will need to keep going to London to ply my trade.

Bilal is also happy on account of the fact that he can visit his "homies" who he met during visits to the Elephant & Castle and Stratford areas of London much more easily.  Both of these areas have direct connections to St. Pancras International via the Thameslink and Southeastern High-Speed services respectively.  He e-mailed his homies in London as soon as he found out the news (his English isn't yet up to phone calls, though he is a regular visitor to http://www.urbandictionary.com for practice) and they were similarly delighted, as they have heard all about La Savine with its rappers from Bilal and can't wait to visit.  He has kept in regular touch with them, sending them occasional gifts, which resulted in them sending him gluten-free products from a local store, plus a cap with "Sorry I'm hip-hop and you're not" written on it, both of which he was delighted to receive.  I wasn't so pleased that they had sent him cake mixes for sickly sweet-looking cakes, but hey, he does not have any flab on account of the enormous amount of exercise he does, so I suppose I shouldn't worry too much about this.

I don't know if they will use the older or the newer rolling stock, but we shall see: - given that the whole route from London to the outskirts of Marseille (bypasses where applicable) uses the TVM (Transmission Voie-Machine) in-cab signalling system, there is no need to use the new rolling stock from a signalling point of view (from what I heard, the lack of space for ERTMS equipment was the main reason they were procured).  There is also no speed advantage, given that the existing rolling stock allows for 300km/h, the maximum speed already allowable on that route (the new rolling stock can do 320km/h).

I am hopeful that the new services will cause ignorant Britons to be cognizant of Marseille's value as a tourist destination.  Obviously, too many tourists is not a good situation: - we certainly don't want drunken British tourists who will just gulp down large quantities of pastis without appreciating the craftsmanship that has gone into the drink and barf up all over the streets.  However, there is a perception that Marseille is a run-down and dangerous city, i.e. that La Savine is a microcosm thereof.  I would welcome the idea of more adventurous and discerning tourists visiting the city to see how wonderfully sophisticated it is and how much it has been regenerated over the years.

Some of the less sophisticated tourists who like hip-hop culture could obviously head for the quarter (or "tchéquar", as Bilal would say, given his tendency to use verlan) of La Savine, where Bilal lives: - though he loves hip-hop fashion, being a sophisticated haute couture person is not one of his strengths.  He and other people in the area would be able to give such people tours to show them the other side of the city, perhaps introducing them to the aspiring rappers, as well as show them where the members of Psy 4 De La Rime and Puissance Nord and Soosol grew up.  Some people have contacted me to ask me why Bilal is my boyfriend, given these things I say about him.  I respond by saying that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses and Bilal's strengths more than make up for his weaknesses, e.g  what I said in the last post about how he is so attractive that I will give him my full cooperation in whatever attempts he makes to create a large family.  That is before I go into his credentials as a believer.  But that is beside the point.  Even though I don't have any taste for hip-hop culture, I have no doubt that Bilal will be delighted by the influx of tourists who he will be able to introduce to the Marseille hip-hop scene.

The tourists who love great scenery will love Marseille as well.  I have never been to La Savine, though Bilal tells me there are great views of the area from there.  The city is surrounded by mountains and though the Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde has no spiritual beauty to speak of (it is part of the Church of Rome), there are great views from the hill it sits upon, both of the city and the Mediterranean Sea.  It doesn't take too long to walk from the Gare de Marseille-St. Charles (or "réga", as Bilal calls it) to the top of the hill: - naturally, a dainty Frenchwoman such as myself would not consider taking the metro (or the "trom", as Bilal calls it).

All in all, Marseille has something for everyone.  It has a huge hip-hop scene for the less discerning tourists and immense sophistication in things such as Pastis de Marseille, Bouillabaise and Frenchwomen saying "la moitié, s'il vous plaît" for the more discerning tourists.  If anyone reading this wants to know more details, or even if they want me to give them a tour of Marseille (I am very happy to do this), they should contact me at mariannegaboriault@gmail.com .

Meet France's toughest rappers: - a programme I watched with Bilal

I don't know if any of my readers have heard of a French celebrity named Cléo Le Tan.  I use the term "celebrity" in the loosest sense of the word, as it would be legitimate to describe her as being famous for being famous.  As someone in the fashion industry, I am very aware of her antics as a party girl and her failed attempts to replicate the fame of her forefathers.  As a believing woman, I don't care much for many of the silly celebrities out there, but if one is a fashion magazine editor and owner, one has to know the industry very well in order to stay on top of the game.

Her father is the French painter Pierre Le-Tan.  Her father's father is the Vietnamese painter Le Pho (famous for exaggerating women's skinny figures, though mine needs no exaggeration, MDR), who came to France for his studies in fine arts and married a Frenchwoman: - no surprises there, though Vietnam is one of the few nations with thinner women than France!  Tee hee!  Her father's father's father was the last Viceroy of Tonkin (Northern Vietnam).  Her sister is Olympia Le Tan, who has had arguably more success, in her case as a fashion designer.  Cléo Le Tan is descended from royalty, yet she is suffering the ignominy of having to make herself famous by being a party girl.  As of late, she has tried to make a name for herself as an author, though not with any noteworthy success.Pierre Le Tan commented not all that long ago that his daughters were raised amongst antique dealers, designers, writers, decorators, architects, landscapers ... same-sex couples who lived together and dressed up to attend masked balls.  Being a believing woman, I am very glad I did not grow up around same-sex couples.  However, she has therefore had privileges I can only dream of, yet all she has managed to make of herself is a name for being a party girl.  Apart from anything else, I would never allow her to appear in my fashion magazine, as she isn't even thin by French standards!

Anyway, enough details about why Cléo Le Tan is a non-celebrity clinging to the coat tails of her forefathers, I recently watched a programme with Bilal presented by her called "Meet France's toughest rappers", in which she exposed the dark underside of the suburbs of France's large cities (though the programme only covered Paris) and the hip-hop culture that exists there.  I was curious to know what Bilal thought of the programme, as Bilal is by far the most hip-hop person I have any regular contact with.  He and I are very different in this respect, though I don't love him any less and I wouldn't want anyone else for a boyfriend.  Given that he spent much of his life in La Savine, I consider him an authority in hip-hop matters, MDR.

 The first thing Bilal noted is that the rappers in the video were not tough by the standards of La Savine.  As I have mentioned, Bilal works as a rolling stock engineer for the Métro de Marseille and for his training, he often travelled to Paris (one of very view exceptions in terms of his travelling habits).  When he was there, he got to know the local 'hoods and he says that although they are more numerous than in Marseille, La Savine is far tougher and he therefore viewed the people in the video as being merely wannabe tough rappers.

Another thing Bilal and I noticed during the course of the programme was when Cléo Le Tan started talking like a wigger.  She is an obviously upper-middle-class woman from the way she talks, both in English and in French (this is probably the only positive thing one can say about her), yet during the course of the programme, she is shown referring to women as "meufs" (verlan for "femmes"), translated in the subtitles as "chicks", though "birds" is another way of translating this.  I don't view it as being in the least bit unusual any more when I hear Bilal talking in verlan, given that he tends to use such words as if they were normal words.  However, an upper-middle-class woman like Cléo Le Tan (don't forget she is descended from Vietnamese royalty) sounds very silly when she uses verlan words.  As Bilal would say, "tu voit ce que je veux dire?", which is French street for "ya see what ah'm sayin'?"

  

Generally speaking, Bilal thought Cléo Le Tan stuck out like a sore thumb, no matter how hard she tried to ingratiate herself with the locals during the video, e.g. by helping them out with facilities to make a rap video of their own when their budgets would not stretch to this.  As British street people would say, it was a blatant case of somebody not "keepin' it real".  Maybe she was trying to portray herself as some sort of explorer, trying to get to know new things that she was not previously familiar with?  She still looked silly.

 

All in all, Cléo Le Tan is someone who doesn't appear to fit into either world.  She has not had much success of her own in the French celebrity circuit and she will soon be tomorrow's has-been and she certainly doesn't fit into the hip-hop world either.  Given that she is not pencil-thin like me, she certainly would look out-of-place in my magazine and there is no way I would feature her unless she lost a lot of weight!