Shopping in France Part Two: Les Soldes

In French, des bonnes affaires means "some good deals". For example, you might say: j'ai trouvé beaucoup de bonnes affaires pendant les soldes d'hiver, (I found a lot of good deals during the winter sales).

I was at la Part-Dieu yesterday and noticed that it was eerily empty. If I have noticed anything about "the mall" it is the one place that has made me feel the most "at home", meaning that it is usually crowded with pushy people carrying three or four shopping bags and annoying in-the-way clusters of teenagers occasionally dekeing people out. However, after looking in the stores where numbers of employees were cordoning off racks of clothes sometimes covered in sheets of plastic, each piece of clothing tagged with a huge coloured rectangle or circle printed with -50%, I soon realised: LES SOLDES!!! were coming...

Today is the first day of les soldes (the sales), when retail merchandise is marked down even 70%. In France, the government regulates sales and forbids stores to have periodic major markdowns after each season, like we are used to in Canada throughout the year. Thus, every year, the mairies of each department get together to determine the nation-wide dates of the sales and how long each will allow the stores to hold their sales (the maximum being six weeks). And so, twice a year (in January and again in June), stores are given the chance to get rid of all of last season's stock, and shoppers go nuts.

If shopping is your thing, this is the time to do it. I've been told that it's worth the wait because something that might have been 80€ can be bought for fifteen or twenty during les soldes.

In your face 2€ coffees, I'm mindlessly blowing my money elsewhere these next few weeks! Read more...

Exams

The exam period at Lyon 3 occurs between the end of classes until the beginning of the new semester. The summer exams occur from the end of classes until the end of June.

Sweaty palms, rapid drop in body temperature, dry mouth, fluttering stomach, nervous coughs in poorly-ventilated rooms, intellectual black-outs... The previous are commonly my experience during exam time and this does not bode well for my success in the French system.

Taking Your Exam as an Exchange Student
The time and place of your exam is usually posted up the day before or the morning of your exam on the corresponding boards of your faculty. Be sure to consult these lists because there is assigned seating. The exam period at Lyon 3 occurs between the end of classes until the beginning of the new semester. The summer exams occur from the end of classes until the end of June.

As an exchange student in the law faculty, if it is not already written on your exam, you will be given stickers by Annie Simon - the secretary of the law faculty - that you can stick on the front of your exam (I'm assuming that outside of law, you go see the secretariat of whichever faculty is responsible for the majority of your courses).
Even though it's readily apparent that you are an exchange student, sometimes, there are foreign students who are studying in France, not on exchange, who also have bad grammar but are marked at the same level as French students. You, however, are a foreign student on exchange and thus not marked as harshly for your grammar and spelling mistakes. It's better to get the stickers.

Equal = Anonymous
In France, there is an equality rule in place that is particularly strict when it comes to exams. You are not to write your name on any other part of the exam except in the designated space at your top right hand corner, after which you fold and glue shut. Your name is revealed only after the grades are finalised.

I'm not sure how this affects exchange students but in France, since the education system is an organ of the Republic (like the health system, like the army, like the police....), if a student is caught cheating or plagiarising, s/he is automatically barred from taking any sort of exam (this includes driving exams, entrance exams for other schools) for five years.

Le carnet de notes
You are asked to bring with you to each exam a booklet (carnet de note) for your professor or the invigilator to fill out, which you then hand in to your faculty before leaving. This is where all of your grades will be recorded and then mailed to you or your school.

On a final note, I've been told that while exams are a supremely stressful time for French students (I've been told that France has one the highest failure rates in the Union), as an exchange student, you need not be as worried because they understand that things are more difficult for you. As long as beneath the bad grammar and spelling mistakes you reveal a fundamental understanding of the course material, you should be fine.
And when that doesn't happen... It was nice living in France for a while, wasn't it? Read more...

Really Caveat, Emptor: Shopping in France

I recently watched the movie A Good Year (or Une grande année) with Russell Crowe and Marion Cotillard (she will also be seen very soon, February 14 to be exact, in La môme a biopic on the life of Edith Piaf) in which Cotillard's character - the owner of a café in Provence - offered this bit of advice to Crowe: "in France, the client is always wrong". And you really can't imagine how true, and not funny, that is.

A good rule to have when shopping in France is not to buy anything you aren't 100 percent sure about (really, a good rule anywhere), because the chances are that you will have a hard time returning it if you discover that you aren't entirely satisfied. Don't pay any attention to what it says on the back of receipts because it doesn't mean anything.

I bought a cell phone a few weeks ago and upon discovering that it was entirely the opposite of what the salesperson assured, naturally, I wanted a return. Since the back of the receipt stated clearly and separately that in the case of returns for pre-paid cell phone packages, the product is accepted minus the cost of the SIM card. I was looking at receiving a fraction of what I paid but I still returned the next day intent on a refund or exchange. Unfortunately, all I got was condescension and rejection.

Apparently, contrary to what it states on the receipt, it is "impossible" for them to accept returns for pre-paid cell phone packages because the SIM card is attached to the phone. Totally bogus answer because everyone knows that the SIM card can be removed and put into any phone. However, the girl behind the counter sensed that I was not satisfied, but seemed to have felt that her answer was enough, and left me to attend to another customer.

On a homesick note, my French roommate told me about how surprised she was by the ease of returns of purchases in Canada. She had bought a tent at Canadian Tire and upon discovering that it was of terrible quality and not warm at all, she returned to the store completely prepared to be forced to justify her case. Needless to say she was more than pleasantly surprised (and totally shocked) by the fact that the cashier took the tent upon presentation of the receipt and asked no questions This does not happen in France was her conclusion on this cross-cultural consumer difference. Read more...