Being a French Anglophile is not an oxymoron. I'm living proof of it.
I'm not alone. My three best friends from school and I independently ended up living in the English-speaking world (US, Canada, Britain). Statistically speaking, four people may not be a significant sample. Personally speaking, 100% is a hugely significant proportion.
I began my lifelong love affair with the Anglo-Saxons as an exchange student in upstate New York in 1974-75. In the 1980s I studied at Cornell and Columbia universities, with a two-year stint in New Zealand in between. Each return to my native land was a preparation for the next move.
Somehow, though, the nearest English-speaking country to my own was not on my radar. I had no principled objection to Thatcher's Britain. But to me England was synonymous with garbage strikes, grimy terraced houses and bad teeth. No amount of watching Monty Python, listening to Roxy Music or reading William Boyd could dispel those uninviting visions.
By 1991, however, I was desperate. My English was very good but my prospects were not. On my latest return to France I had landed a teaching job and wanted to be a journalist. The CVs I sent to Parisian newspaper went straight into the bin. I had not done the French thing of following a straight career path.
Returning to the US was out of the question. To know why, just watch the Depardieu film Green Card, which came out around that time. New Zealand, although the second-most beautiful country in the world (just because I don't want to live in France doesn't mean I'm immune to its charm) was too far away from anywhere.
So I gave Britain a try. I was impressed. Every editor I wrote to replied and agreed to talk to a random non-native speaker who wanted to join their newsroom. The BBC World Service gave me an interview straight away. Within months I started my new job at Bush House.
I worked for the BBC for the next 31 years, writing for publications on both sides of the Channel at the same time (including The Economist, The Times Literary Supplement, Literary Review, The Observer, and Commentaire.) I'm now a full-time freelancer.
My aim has always been to explain France to the Anglo-Saxons and vice versa. Out of France is a continuation of that effort. The first post explains my perspective in more detail.
