You must be blind or deaf not to have read or heard Shakespeare’s language throughout the streets of old Nice. Tourists or residents, the English are an integral part of the city and they claim it so. Why shouldn’t they? Sitting at the terrace of a bistro, it is indeed pleasant to be lulled by the varied idioms of our neighbors from across the Channel. However, it may pinch when the waiter corrects your “language” missteps.
Therefore, be aware that you no longer say “une pinte s’il vous plait” but rather “one pint please”. With an obvious air and a dismayed look, an employee at Ma Nolan’s, located near Cours Saleya, will teach you this. A quick glance at the menu will confirm your mistake: everything is written in English and it apparently surprises no one. What should we think of this phenomenon? Free language courses or sectarian communitarianism? “We gather in these pubs and harm no one,” explains Jonathan, a young Londoner on vacation. “To speak French, there are all the other bars in Nice, which we actually visit very rarely,” he adds. This is indeed the case; the proportion of English people frequenting the multilingual establishments in the city is extremely low.
For Audrey, a student in Nice, the problem is not there. “One would have to be ultra-regionalist and indeed very sectarian to worry about the increasing number of English people visiting the city or living on the coast. The Earth belongs to everyone, and we just want to share it, but around one and the same table. Wanting to bring a culture without making some concessions shows a lack of curiosity and quite an offensive disdain toward us.” For some locals, therefore, this voluntary separation is a sign of a deep lack of savoir-vivre, but sometimes it is necessary to look at the other side of the border to understand this attitude.
Indeed, if “integration à la française” means assimilating cultures for a complete overhaul of them in society, the English system is very different in this regard. The mode of integration adopted by the Anglo-Saxons during the early waves of immigration was communitarianism; everyone could thus maintain their own cultural identity without having to blend it with that of the host country. The whole problem can be summed up in a few words: where do we draw the line? Will Nice maintain these invisible borders which are yet felt very real when one enters a pub?
Be careful, however, not to tar everyone with the same brush; there exist those English who eat socca, drink figun, and wander curiously in the narrow alleys of the old city. It’s up to us to show them that the neighbor’s Azurian grass, while not greener, is worth taking an interest in.
For more information:
– [Ma Nolan’s](https://www.ma-nolans.com/)
– [Wayne’s](https://www.waynes.fr/)
– [A bit of history on the Côte d’Azur](https://www.routard.com/guide/cote_d_azur/385/un_peu_d_histoire.htm)
– [Identity Communitarianism](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communautarisme_identitaire)
– [Cultural Assimilation](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assimilation_cuturelle)
