OPINION

IN THE wake of the atrocity that killed more than 80 people in Nice on Bastille Day, a map appeared highlighting the areas in France where Australians needed to exercise a high degree of caution when travelling. Every single part of the map was highlighted. Foreigners once thought the only danger of travelling to France was facing the judgement of the supposedly snobby countrymen and women who lived there. The prospect of being snubbed by locals who heard your shambolic attempts to ask for directions, or having a waiter roll their eyes because the only phrases you bothered to learn were “pain au chocolat” and “chocolat chaud”, and you couldn’t even pronounce them right. Complete bollocks, of course. I lived in France for a year — yes, I know, only one year, which is nothing in the grand scheme of things — in Rennes, the capital of the western province of Brittany. When I returned, the question everyone wanted answered was: Are the French as up themselves as everyone thinks they are? As anyone who’s lived there will tell you, the simple answer is no, they’re not. Not even close. Never in my life have I met people more welcoming, more accommodating or more fun to be around than the French people I mixed with. They were more keen to completely disavow themselves of the notion French people were stand-offish and aloof. I could speak for days about the experiences and encounters that led me to believe such a thing, but I don’t have time here. I know I’m biased, but you’ll just have to believe me. I know that’s a sentiment echoed by every single person who’s ever lived overseas looking through their stay with rose-tinted glasses, but I don’t care, it’s true. An hour or two after coming into work the day of the Paris attacks, without warning, I went to the bathroom, locked the cubicle, and cried. I felt guilty for doing it. I wasn’t French, I didn’t have a right to cry. They did. This time, after Nice, there were no tears. Just sadness. A sadness that stemmed from the knowledge less people from now on would be inclined to chase the same experiences I did. To see for themselves how truly good French people are. That wouldn’t be fair. I hope that’s not the case. I hope that — just as the French people have rallied after each horrific attack — others will too. Because while I — and many others — are not French and never will be, we’ll all be poorer for living in a world that finds it more difficult to acknowledge just how special the country really is. I’m not for one minute trying to suggest that after a brief stint I am somehow French. Or that I see myself as French citizen. I’m not a pompous ex-uni student who feels their exchange program gives them the right to stand up hand-on-heart whenever the Marseillaise is played. Who feels their pain as they do. I can’t claim that. While I’ve been left in shock and spoken to my French friends after each recent horror — the Charlie Hebdo attack, the Paris attacks and now this in Nice — there’s still no way I can truly comprehend how those with French blood must be affected. I am not French, but a little part of me wishes I was. I’m a pretty relaxed person by nature, and it takes a lot to get me riled up. But now I get incredibly defensive whenever someone tries to tell me the French people are what’s wrong with France. It might be less of a prominent stereotype these days, but it’s still a simple-minded view that completely misses the mark. The terrorist attacks that have struck the land of liberté, egalité and fraternité have been catastrophic in the human toll of loss of life. Then there are the injuries they’ve caused and the families they’ve torn apart. But just as that yellow map shows, there’s another incredibly sad danger that France faces. The fact is the spate of callous attacks has more than likely warned people from overseas off planning their next holiday there, applying to study there or deciding to live there. At a guess, I’d say people will still book their romantic luxury hotel-filled stays in Paris, but it’s the rest of the country that will suffer. Who’s going to risk Rennes over Reykjavik? Montpellier over Madrid? Toulouse over Turin? While the sad truth is it appears nowhere is completely safe these days, with the monstrosities France has witnessed in the past 18 months, you couldn’t blame people for looking at that yellow map and thinking: “Why risk it?” If travellers heed these recent warnings, then both parties suffer. They’ll miss out on seeing the real France. The people who make the country so inviting and, most importantly as it was for me, so fun to be in. The people I rave about to anyone who’ll listen. The people so intent on distancing themselves from that stereotypical French idea they have a derogatory word for the aristocratic Parisians that stereotype was founded on — “les Parigos” — the mere mention of which by an Anglophone results first in laughter then fierce denial. The people who were responsible for — despite it being the cliche of all cliches — the best year of my life. France deserves the opportunity to showcase this part of itself to the rest of the world. People know it for its food and wine but I couldn’t care less about those things. Going to a pub and becoming best friends with people I’d just met — who were open and willing to let a complete stranger into their lives — was far more eye-opening for me than any restaurant or vineyard was. France deserves to have other people realise this too. Losing that chance would be the biggest crime of all.