433 - Join Us in France Travel Podcast

Table of Contents for this Episode

[00:00:00] Annie Sargent:

[00:00:16] Intro

[00:00:16] Annie Sargent: This is Join Us in France, episode 433 – quatre cent trente-trois.

[00:00:24] Annie Sargent: Bonjour. I’m Annie Sargent and Join Us in France is the podcast where we talk about France. Everyday life in France, great places to visit in France, French culture, history, gastronomy and news related to travel to France.

[00:00:37] Today on the podcast

[00:00:37] Annie Sargent: Today, I bring you a conversation with Elyse Rivin of Toulouse Guided Walks about the Rugby World Cup coming up in France, starting on September 8th, 2023 and ending on Saturday, October 28th.

[00:00:53] Annie Sargent: This event goes on for 50 days and I bet a lot of you listeners are going to be in France between those dates and since it’ll bring a lot of extra visitors, you need to know about this even if you don’t plan to attend. But I hope you plan to attend. I hope to attend myself.

[00:01:09] About the Rugby tournament

[00:01:09] Annie Sargent: The Rugby World Cup is an International Rugby Union Tournament contested every four years by the men’s national teams of the member nations of World Rugby. That’s the sport’s international governing body. The tournament was first held in 1987 when I was a young pup and since then it has been held nine times.

[00:01:36] Annie Sargent: The most recent Rugby World Cup was held in 2019 in Japan. The tournament consists of 20 teams who are divided into four pools of five teams each. The top two teams from each pool advance to the knockout stage of the tournament which includes quarterfinals, semifinals and a final, of course.

[00:02:00] Annie Sargent: The Rugby World Cup is one of the highest sporting events in the world with millions of fans tuning in to watch the matches. The tournament has produced some of the most iconic moments in rugby history and has helped spread the popularity of the sport around the world.

[00:02:19] Annie Sargent: There’s been nine Rugby World Cups so far. New Zealand won it three times, Australia twice, South Africa twice, and England once. France has never won this cup but hope springs eternal and we have a great team this year, so why not?

[00:02:39] Podcast supporters

[00:02:39] Annie Sargent: This podcast is supported by donors and listeners who buy my tours and services including my Itinerary Consult Service and my GPS Self-guided Tours of Paris on the VoiceMap app. And you can browse all of that at my boutique JoinUsinFrance.com/boutique.

[00:02:58] Newsletter

[00:02:58] Annie Sargent: There is a newsletter to go along with this podcast, this week I sent out a newsletter about biking in France and give you tips about how to organize your own biking trip in France.

[00:03:10] Annie Sargent: You can sign up for the newsletter at JoinUsinFrance.com/newsletter.

[00:03:16] After the interview

[00:03:16] Annie Sargent: For the magazine part of the podcast, after the interview, I’ll review what happened with strikes in France this week, and especially the lack of garbage collection in Paris, which has been a huge problem. I’ll also touch on the Paris Olympics that will take place 494 days from today.

[00:03:37]

[00:03:46] Annie and Elyse about Rugby World Cup

[00:03:46] Annie Sargent: Bonjour Elyse.

[00:03:47] Elyse Rivin: Bonjour Annie.

[00:03:48] Annie Sargent: Oh, we have a very fun, fun sporty episode today.

[00:03:53] Elyse Rivin: Yes.

[00:03:54] Annie Sargent: We’re going to talk about rugby and the World Cup coming up in France. Unfortunately, it appears that all the tickets are sold for the time being, but we still want to bring it up because it is such a… c’est la fête! How do you say that in English?

[00:04:08] Annie Sargent: It’s just a, it’s a big party.

[00:04:10] Annie Sargent: Yes, it’s a big party.

[00:04:11] Annie Sargent: It’s a big party.

[00:04:11] Annie Sargent: And even if you don’t get tickets, it’s going to be a big party. And so we want to talk about it.

[00:04:16] Elyse Rivin: Yeah.

[00:04:16] Elyse Rivin: Especially here in the South and the Southwest of France, rugby is the sport. It really is. It’s much, much more important here than football, soccer.

[00:04:27] Annie Sargent: Yes.

[00:04:28] Elyse Rivin: And in Toulouse especially, oh boy.

[00:04:31] Annie’s rugby fan neighbour

[00:04:31] Annie Sargent: Yes. So I want to start this with an anecdote. Growing up in Toulouse, we had a lovely old neighbour who had no children. And she enjoyed the company of the neighborhood kids. And she was wealthier than my parents by quite a bit. She owned a couple of hotels downtown and so forth. And she enjoyed having me or my siblings or whoever come over and watch TV with her.

[00:04:59] Annie Sargent: That was the thing we did, and she was like in her 70s, 80s, and not creepy in any way. Okay. This is not a creepy person. This was just normal person, nice person who opened her doors to the kids and their parents and whoever. And my father was very handy, and so he often helped her with stuff, whatever.

[00:05:17] Annie Sargent: Okay. So she loved rugby. And it was always a big treat to go watch rugby with her. She, so you have this little old French lady who is just getting so excited, screaming at the top of her lungs, and if we won, she would open the window and scream, you know, she was just insane. And I don’t think she ever went to the games, but all the Toulouse games, she would just be completely like with it.

[00:05:48] Annie Sargent: Now, she didn’t dress up, she didn’t paint her face, you know, she didn’t do any other things that we do today. Well I don’t, but that people do today. But she was so into it and she knew all the players. And she would have commentary about the referees and all of that stuff. So growing up, I often went to watch rugby with her because she was a lot more fun than watching it with my dad who sat there and went, Hmm, Okay. Mm-hmm.

[00:06:17] Elyse Rivin: Did she teach you the rules?

[00:06:19] Annie Sargent: Yes, yes, yes. I understand the rules of rugby. I mean the basic rules, but these are the rules that were prevailing 40 years ago or more. So a lot of rules of rugby have changed over time, obviously, like the rules for the touche. So that’s a lineout in English, I think. I looked it up online because I don’t know how to say these words in English. The touche now they lift somebody up.

[00:06:42] Annie Sargent: Right.

[00:06:43] Annie Sargent: They never used to do that when I was watching rugby you know, long ago.

[00:06:47] Annie Sargent: The rules of the scrum have changed a lot. I mean, all sorts of things have changed but I understand the basic rules of rugby, you know, how the game evolves and when they stop, I usually know, I understand why, usually. Sometimes I’m like, what was that?

[00:07:03] Elyse Rivin: Well, rugby, okay. I have to make a confession. Okay. Everybody out there. I’m doing a podcast where I’ve studied the history of rugby and I do understand that it’s very much a popular sport, but I don’t really watch rugby games. I don’t, I prefer soccer.

[00:07:21] Annie Sargent: Oh, no, no, no, no.

[00:07:23] Elyse Rivin: I’m so sorry, I do.

[00:07:25] Elyse Rivin: Well, I have a thing, I should say this, but I just, you know, the mélée, the ones you call those, the scrums, it just looks like a massive, enormous thighs to me.

[00:07:34] Elyse Rivin: It’s really, it looks like some kind of giant insect pushing, you know, when they’re trying to push, they advance just a few, I don’t even know if they managed to do a half a meter or if it just, you know, a few centimeters by using all their force, you know? But the fact is that rugby is really a very popular sport.

[00:07:52] Rugby, the gentleman’s game?

[00:07:52] Elyse Rivin: And what’s really interesting is that I have heard my husband who loves rugby by the way, and who can’t understand why I don’t like it. And a lot of people I’ve heard say that in France the difference between rugby fans and soccer fans is that rugby is considered to be the gentleman’s game and soccer is considered to be the kind of like proletariat game.

[00:08:15] Elyse Rivin: And so there’s a lot of problems sometimes in various stadiums and things like that. Well, guess what? I’m going to tell a little bit about the history of rugby, how it came to be in France to begin with, and it was not always so.

[00:08:29] Annie Sargent:

[00:08:29] Rugby is peaceful, in the stands at least!

[00:08:29] Annie Sargent: It’s interesting that distinction that you make. I have not much experience going to either soccer or rugby games. I have gone to a few in person, but mostly I’ve watched them on TV. I go to a lot more basketball than I do the other sports. But it is true that I have never heard of rugby fans getting into a deadly fight, or perhaps it happens so occasionally that we don’t associate rugby with violence, at least from the fans. I’m not talking about violence on the field.

[00:09:03] Elyse Rivin: Right. That’s very different. Well, you know, I agree with you. I have gone at first, the first couple of years, a long time ago, I did go to see a few rugby games with my husband and then basically decided it wasn’t worth the ticket price because I was really bored most of the time.

[00:09:17] Elyse Rivin: But..

[00:09:18] Annie Sargent: That is pathetic. How can you be boredat rugby? Are you blind woman?

[00:09:23] Annie Sargent: No, no, no, no. But I’ve been to some soccer games, I even had the privilegein 1998, which is already going back 25 years of going to a couple of the World Cup games of soccer that were here in Toulouse, which is really, I can boast about that.

[00:09:38] Annie Sargent: But I didn’t have the impression that there were problems at the stadium but that’s because it was here in Toulouse. We do know that there are certain cities where, and certain countries, unfortunately, where a lot of the soccer fans are very, very, they’re rowdy and often violent.

[00:09:54] Racial comments during rugby games

[00:09:54] Annie Sargent: However, sadly enough, in the last year or so, there have been a couple of incidents of racial comments being made even during rugby games because before the last few years, most of the rugby players were white.

[00:10:11] Annie Sargent: Really. They were, you know, I mean, it’s not a multicolored sport in the sense of who plays and now it’s not the case. And unfortunately, I think that that’s a terrible indication of what human nature is like, is that some of the same things that are happening in some of the soccer games, because it is a problem in certain places with soccer games, it’s starting in a much lower level, let’s put it that way, to happen also in rugby.

[00:10:37] Annie Sargent: Hmm. Interesting. Yeah, I knew about this problem with soccer, but not necessarily with rugby. But it’s true that the Toulouse team growing up was all white people. Yeah.

[00:10:46] Annie Sargent: Yeah.

[00:10:46] Short history of Rugby

[00:10:46] Elyse Rivin: I don’t know, I mean, that just seems to be connected to the history of it, but also I think that maybe you know the answer to that, Annie, I don’t know. I mean in France, sports teams are associated with what they call clubs.

[00:10:58] Elyse Rivin: And clubs you have to they’re not attached to schools like in the States where you can start playing basketball, football…

[00:11:04] Annie Sargent: They’re associations.

[00:11:06] Elyse Rivin: Maybe, I don’t know if that’s the case, maybe at first the rugby clubs were just a little bit more expensive than the football clubs, because, I mean, soccer or football, I should say soccer, but it makes it easier to understand what I’m talking about, it’s really, everyone knows that it’s, you can see kids playing outside in an open area not even necessarily on a soccer field or anything. That’s how a lot of them get started. And it just seems that maybe there are more clubs. I don’t know. I mean, it’s really interesting to see the different reputations that the two games have.

[00:11:38] Elyse Rivin: I don’t know why.

[00:11:39] Annie Sargent: I don’t know either, okay, so here I’m kind of jumping the gun a little bit because this has to do with the history of rugby in Toulouse, but in Toulouse anyway, in the whole Southwest, it was the strongest guys from the mines, from the fields who would typically start playing rugby.

[00:12:01] Annie Sargent: Right. And so these were professionals in their respective professions. They had a job. These were not men who were professional athletes. And they just happened to be stronger, faster, more dedicated to the club and perhaps that was a selection, natural selection to of, I don’t know. I really don’t know.

[00:12:24] Annie Sargent: But it’s just how, who ended up playing rugby was a lot of men who had a career on the side. They were not professional rugby players, whereas soccer didn’t have this thing. There were, I think there were professional soccer clubs earlier than rugby clubs. I don’t know.

[00:12:43] Elyse Rivin: That I really don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know when soccer began actually as a game. But that’s sort of a perfect lead in to talking a little bit about the origins of rugby. Because you’re absolutely right. Rugby was invented as a game in England and everything that I have read indicates that the first games were played more or less 200 years ago in the 1820s.

[00:13:07] Elyse Rivin: And it was in the working class industrial cities of England that the game was basically invented as a combination of what we now call soccer and something else, of course, with the biggest difference. And for those who, I don’t know if there are people out there who have no idea about what rugby is, but of course, rugby is played with an oval ball like American football.

[00:13:29] Elyse Rivin: It’s much more associated in fact, in a lot of ways with American football because it has a lot of the same movements, a lot of the ways of passing the ball or the same I think, my guess is American football really came out of that. It seems to be, if you see what they do in American football, it certainly looks like the origins of that are rugby.

[00:13:49] English workers in France, First rugby team in Le Havre

[00:13:49] Elyse Rivin: And what happened was, I did not know this, it’s very interesting, is that at first it was this mix and then the rules changed and it became more or less, by the middle of the 19th century, more or less, the game that we know now as rugby. And it was English workers working in France, in Le Havre of all places in the city, in the port of Havre.

[00:14:12] Elyse Rivin: So it was actually workers, dock workers and workers that were in some of the industrialization that was going on in the port of Havre that were English. Because at that time, which actually surprised me to find out, there were a lot of English people, a lot of English men who were being brought over or who came over to work. To work in France. And so the very, very first team that was a rugby team was in Le Havre, and it was in the 1870s.

[00:14:41] Annie Sargent: Oh, that was a long time ago, because it didn’t starting Toulouse until much later.

[00:14:44] Elyse Rivin: Much later. In fact, what is really interesting to find out is that in spite of what exists now, the majority of the teams that are in France are indeed in the South.

[00:14:54] First rugby teams in Paris

[00:14:54] Elyse Rivin: But after Le Havre, the second and third teams were in Paris. And for a long time, that is until the turn of the century, all of the games were basically in the North. They were not teams that were in the South.

[00:15:08] Annie Sargent: Right. So Paris, it was Stade Français, I think it’s the name of the club. Right?

[00:15:12] Elyse Rivin: It’s the name of the club, it’s Stade Français and then there’s also I think it’s called Running 92, which is another, there are two teams, two rugby teams that are associated with the Paris region.

[00:15:22] Elyse Rivin: The first games that actually had any kind of competition and championship were in Paris and in spite of the fact that the teams were in Paris, the name of the second team was The English Tailors, The English Tailors Rugby Club.

[00:15:40] Annie Sargent: Right, so clearly it’s English origin, despite what your husband says.

[00:15:44] Rugby 13 and Rugby 15

[00:15:44] Elyse Rivin: Despite what my husband would like to believe, right. And there were other clubs that were created in 1892 there was the very first French Championship of Rugby, Rugby 15. Because there were two Rugby’s. And I went online to see if I can understand what the difference is. It says that the differences are very slight but interestingly enough, now, at least now, Rugby 15 is the one we’re talking about because it is the one that’s professional. Whereas Rugby 13, which simply means that they have 13 players instead of 15 players on the field, is considered to be an amateur sport, whereas the Rugby 15 is the professional sport.

[00:16:20] Rugby team in Bordeaux, boo 🙂

[00:16:20] Elyse Rivin: So after Paris and after the Havre, okay Annie, guess which city is the next city that had a team, and it’s a city that is always a rival of Toulouse.

[00:16:32] Elyse Rivin: Bordeaux.

[00:16:33] Annie Sargent: Oh, Bordeaux, oh.

[00:16:36] Elyse Rivin: Yeah. Right. Boo Boo. And the reason why is because there were lots of English in Bordeaux as well, and not only were there a lot of English in Bordeaux but there were certainly a lot of English in the region around Bordeaux as well.

[00:16:51] Elyse Rivin: And this is of course, all at the basically at the turn of the century between the 19th century and the 20th century. So the next city that had a club was Bordeaux, and little by little, various cities in the South. Pau which is ofcourse in the Pyrenees, Toulouse and I don’t have a chronology of which cities then developed teams, but by 1900 there was a French League of rugby. And for the very first time in the Olympics in the year of 1900, it was the French rugby team that won the gold medal.

[00:17:26] Annie Sargent: What year?

[00:17:27] Elyse Rivin: 1900.

[00:17:28] Annie Sargent: Very nice. Well done boys. Yes. Yes.

[00:17:31] Annie Sargent: So they clearly learned very quickly, and were clearly very adept at this. And in the next few years they developed a very, very strong reputation for being good rugby players.

[00:17:42] Annie Sargent: In 1910, the French decided that they wanted to be included because

[00:17:46] Annie Sargent: up until that time, the countries that had the most rugby teams were Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England. The Frenchproposed the idea of a tournament of the Five Nations, which to this day, exists and which is very, very, very important. So the five Nations are Scotland, Wales, Ireland, England and France.

[00:18:07] Annie Sargent: Right. Which is funny because all the other ones are just UK, like…

[00:18:12] Elyse Rivin: They’re all UK. They’re all UK. So the tournament of the Five Nations is one of the major tournaments. You have the French Championship, you have the Tournament of the Five Nations, and then of course you have the World Cup. And the French Federation of Rugby was created actually after World War I in 1919.

[00:18:28] Elyse Rivin: However, in spite of the fact that the French rugby teams were really good, this is another surprise. Actually I really sat there with my mouth open, I should have taken a selfie just because I, when I read this, I didn’t even, I was so surprised. In the Olympics of 1920 and in 1924, the final of rugby, for the rugby game was played between the French team and the American team, and it was the Americans who won.

[00:18:56] Annie Sargent: Well, well done boys.

[00:18:58] Elyse Rivin: And now, I mean hardly, well now it’s starting to come back in the United States, but it’s not a major sport in the United States.

[00:19:07] Annie Sargent: No, I’ve talked to a few people, a few Americans really like rugby and when they like rugby, they really like it, but it’s not, yeah, it’s just not as big as football, you know? Which is huge in America, obviously.

[00:19:21] Elyse Rivin: Right. I mean, I was really surprised. I didn’t realize that at that time they had such good teams, but maybe they were importing English people, I don’t know.

[00:19:29] Elyse Rivin: I mean, maybe.

[00:19:30] Elyse Rivin: Maybe.

[00:19:31] 1930 French rugby teams excluded for being too violent

[00:19:31] Elyse Rivin: So talking about the gentleman’s sport. In the 1930s, the French clubs were excluded for being too violent both on the field and in the stands.

[00:19:44] Annie Sargent: Please.

[00:19:46] Elyse Rivin: There you go.

[00:19:47] Annie Sargent: Excluded.

[00:19:48] Elyse Rivin: They were excluded. They were excluded for several years because they were creating havoc on the field. They would get into such bad fights that were actually injuring the players of the other teams. But also, I shouldn’t laugh about this, but also apparently there were violent fights in the stands.

[00:20:04] Annie Sargent: But this is 1930s.

[00:20:06] Annie Sargent: Okay. This is way before I watched any rugby.

[00:20:08] Elyse Rivin: Right, exactly. No, no. You weren’t born. I wasn’t born either. No. The 1930s. No, no, no, no, no. But it is actually interesting to know that the reputation that we now give to rugby was absolutely the opposite in the 1930s. It was considered to be a very violent sport and the French team had to make amends.

[00:20:26] Elyse Rivin: I don’t know what they did. But what happened was because of that, the number of rugby clubs starting with young kids, you know, where you develop the players, it was reduced between 1930 and 1939. They lost about 35% of the clubs.

[00:20:40] Annie Sargent: Well, yeah, because if a sport has a reputation of being terrible and violent, and you don’t want to put your kid in that.

[00:20:47] Annie Sargent: No. You don’t want to get them to have their brains knocked out or anything. You know that’s what happens in American football a lot.

[00:20:53] Annie Sargent: I think it happens more in football than it does in rugby, as a matter of fact, unfortunately.

[00:20:58] Elyse Rivin: Yeah. Another little just black spot on the French rugby, which luckily is also before our time, is that during World War II, during the time of the Vichy government, the French rugby teams, that were the first league teams associated themselves directly with the Vichy government and its politics, which is very sad to find out.

[00:21:21] Elyse Rivin: And for some reason, I don’t understand exactly why I was trying to understand a little bit more, but the rugby of 13, which was the more amateur one, but was much, much more the workers and people of the kind of working class, was forbidden by the Vichy government. I don’t really know why.

[00:21:37] Annie Sargent: Yeah, I don’t either. That is not something I’ve ever heard about.

[00:21:41] Elyse Rivin: Really. Yeah.

[00:21:42] Elyse Rivin: I mean, it’s kind of sad. So anyway, so let’s say that from the 1930s until the end of World War II was not a great period in the history of French rugby.

[00:21:51] Annie Sargent: Or anything else.

[00:21:52] Elyse Rivin: Or anything else, absolutely.

[00:21:53] 1950 Professional Rugby Teams start again

[00:21:53] Elyse Rivin: So we pick up again basically in 1950s. And in the 1950s the professional rugby team started again and then in 1952 there was a scandal about corruption.

[00:22:05] Elyse Rivin: And for up until a much more recent time, most of the players were still considered to be amateurs. That is, they all had full-time jobs. I don’t know how you managed to play in a league and have games all season long, but it was considered to be..

[00:22:21] Annie Sargent: I can tell you.

[00:22:22] Elyse Rivin: I mean it was considered to be an amateur sport.

[00:22:24] Elyse Rivin: Tell me, how?

[00:22:25] Annie Sargent: A lot of these rugby players had official jobs, like with the city. So they would be an employee of the city, but it was clear that they mostly played, they mostly trained and played, but they had a salary as a city employee or they were a teacher and they would not be in class all that much. So they were given jobs where they could be away doing their sport, but they still had a set salary from their employer.

[00:22:53] Annie Sargent: But very often it was city or teacher or something like that, that the préfet or the mayor could arrange.

[00:23:00] 1995 Rugby becomes officially a professional sport

[00:23:00] Elyse Rivin: That’s really interesting to know because to my great surprise, which you might know already, rugby did not become officially a professional sport with the players having a full salary until 1995.

[00:23:13] Annie Sargent: Right, right. This is an interesting change and it was really necessary because up until then, like I said, they had an official job from which they drew a salary and usually it was, perhaps it was the club that was hiring them to do something or whatever, you know?

[00:23:30] Annie Sargent: But very often, they were like what shenanigans, I guess.

[00:23:34] Elyse Rivin: Yeah. Well, yeah, they had ways of kind of like sneaking around the rules.

[00:23:38] Annie Sargent: So like if you wanted to attract a player to your team, say you want you’re Albi and you wanted a player from Toulouse, you would just say to the guy, Hey, look, I know your mom needs a new washing machine, and we’ll just get it, you know, we’ll fix that, but come play with us. You know, it was that sort of arrangement and it was seen as, I mean, everybody knew that was happening. And it was not, I don’t know, I think it’s better if it’s in the open, you just get paid for the work that you do, that’s it, you know?

[00:24:11] Elyse Rivin: In any event, starting in the 1950s, the French team became a very, very, very good team. And in the 50s and then eventually again, right through the 70s and the 80s and 90s, won a lot of the championships. They beat New Zealand All Blacks for the first time in 1954 and the New Zealand All Blacks are famous for being one of the best teams in the world. In 1958, 4 years later, they beat the South African Spring Box.

[00:24:40] Annie Sargent: Also another great team.

[00:24:41] Grand Chelem

[00:24:41] Elyse Rivin: Another great team. And they won the Five Nations Championship and they started winning the Grand Chelem, which means, I had to actually look it up because I don’t, it’s interesting, I’m not even sure what the origin of the word is, but it means that they didn’t lose one game. Right?

[00:24:56] Annie Sargent: Right.

[00:24:57] Elyse Rivin: And consistently, over the years, every few years, they won the Grand Chelem. And so they have become known as a very, very, very good league for playing rugby. And in the World Cup in ’87 it was France who won. And again, in 2007, in the final, they beat South Africa to win the World Cup.

[00:25:17] Get ready for the World Cup 2023 in France

[00:25:17] Elyse Rivin: So it’s a very exciting thing to see that this year we’re going to have the World Cup back here.

[00:25:23] Elyse Rivin: Right. So let’s talk a little bit about what you’d need to know about this to prepare for your visit, if you’re going to be visiting at that time.

[00:25:31] Elyse Rivin: Right. So if you are coming to France in September and October, this is what you need to know.

[00:25:37] Annie Sargent: 2023.

[00:25:38] Elyse Rivin: 2023 this year, exactly, this year. There are a bunch of cities that are hosting games and the games are sporadic. We’ll be putting on the show notes a link to the official schedule. But, yes, it’s true that the games are spread out over several cities.

[00:25:55] Elyse Rivin: So the cities are Paris, of course, which is, that’s where it’s going to begin and that’s where it’s going to end. You have Bordeaux, Montpellier, Brive, Toulon, Perpignan, La Rochelle, Lyon, Clairemont, Castre, Toulouse, Bayonne and Racing 92, which is the other Parisian region team. And all of these cities will be hosting games. And the competition begins with pool games for elimination purposes at the beginning of September the 8th or 9th of September and goes through to the final, which is on Saturday the 28th of October.

[00:26:35] Elyse Rivin: So it covers a lot of time. It covers these two months.

[00:26:39] Planning and booking tickets

[00:26:39] Elyse Rivin: And, just know when you, if you were planning to come to France and if you were planning to visit any of those or several of those cities because some of them are obviously much more well known and much more touristy than others, you should really be booking now because if you take a look at the dates that the games are being played, those dates you can be sure will fill up every single possible hotel room, Airbnb and everything else that goes with it.

[00:27:07] Annie Sargent: Right. So yes, September and October are going to be busy. And if you happen to, even if you’re completely not aware of the World Cup, if you happen to want to spend, I don’t know, you’re going to Bordeaux and you want to be there the night of SaturdaySeptember 16th and Sunday, September 17th. Well, that’s game days and everything is going to be booked up. This is one of the problems with booking travel is that there are, and especially in France, and this is something that’s general, has nothing to do specifically with the World Cup, but when you travel like this, you have to book your airplane first because those sell out.

[00:27:46] Annie Sargent: Then you have to book your hotels next, but a lot of the time you can’t even buy the tickets for like other things you want to do.

[00:27:56] Annie Sargent: So, you know, this is, you have to time the buying of tickets correctly.

[00:28:02] Annie Sargent: And for the rugby they’re already sold out, which is crazy because normally in France, they don’t put out tickets for sale that soon. And so it’s a, you know, it just depends on the sport. And so, yeah, September and October 2023, watch out, there’s going to be a lot of places where it’s going to be very busy and you might think, why?

[00:28:26] Annie Sargent: And that’s why.

[00:28:27] Elyse Rivin: And that is indeed why. So, you know, several of these cities: Marseille, Bordeaux, Toulouse, not to mention of course, Paris, are places that are probably more touristy than some of the others I mentioned. Really pay attention to the dates that you might be going if you’ve already decided when you’re going to be where.

[00:28:45] Elyse Rivin: And unfortunately, I would say really go online and book your lodging now because even if it’s sporadic, it will bring a lot of people. The World Rugby Cup will bring in lots of people from all these countries. The countries that are participating in the World Rugby Cup are pretty much everywhere, all over the world.

[00:29:05] Elyse Rivin: I mean, they’re a Japan, South America.

[00:29:07] Elyse Rivin: It’s a real world Cup, which means that it’s not just The British Isles and France and New Zealand. And my experience of having worked as a guide, the first year I was a guide, which was actually in 1998. And the World Soccer Cup was in France and there were, Toulouse hosted several games, beginning games, unfortunately, not final games.

[00:29:28] Elyse Rivin: You do what you can.

[00:29:29] Elyse Rivin: You know, you do what you can, right. But it was packed. The city was packed. It was fun. It was really fun. It was a big celebration. It was, nothing bad happened, but it was packed, packed, packed.

[00:29:40] Annie Sargent: Yes, all the bars, all the restaurants, all the venues, everything is packed those weekends. And then people move on the next day, poof! Empty. It’s really weird, you know.

[00:29:50] Elyse Rivin: So, so pay attention. I mean, I know some of you have already decided when you’re coming in the fall, and so now’s the time to sort of get it all together. And if by chance you are in one of these cities at the time of a game, you will really have fun. Really.

[00:30:06] Annie Sargent: Oh, definitely, definitely.

[00:30:07] Elyse Rivin: One of the things about rugby is that I remember in the other times when there had been championships, especiallyeven in the French championships, but there’s a sense offair play and of having fun and there’s a whole aura around this. You know, here in Toulouse there’s a huge screen outdoors put up on the city hall and people come out, you know, when they have their beer and their little plastic cups and basically everything’s cool and nothing happens. But it’s certainly a fun atmosphere.

[00:30:38] Annie Sargent: Right. So this year was a little different with the World Cup, the Soccer World Cup now, because a lot of French cities decided not to have fan zones. And I think it had a lot to do with the fact that there were objections to how this World Cup had been organized, okay, for political reasons.

[00:30:57] Annie Sargent: French people, some French people, some French mayors were all up in arms and well, we’re not going to broadcast this, whatever. I think with the rugby, a lot of French cities are going to have fan zones, well in the towns where the games are happening, right? So they’re going to have places outside of the stadium where you can watch the game and enjoy the ambiance.

[00:31:18] Annie Sargent: And it’s really fun to see all these people all dressed up with their, you know, country colors and it’s usually just a happy moment. It’s busy, it’s very crowded. So after a few hours, I get out of there because I can only take crowds for so long. But it’s very fun.

[00:31:37] Elyse Rivin: It’s very fun. And of course there’s a difference between being in a city like Paris where if you’re not near where the games are being played, it won’t make much of a difference because it’s a very big touristy city anyway. It might make it harder to get bookings of a place that you know you want to stay, but you won’t feel it as much as in places like Toulouse, where you really will feel that this is the World Rugby Cup.

[00:32:00] Elyse Rivin: Right. Yeah. Paris has lots of people almost all of the time, whereas Toulouse does not. If we get an extra 10,000 people in the city, we feel it. It’s a big difference. And of course, because it is a city that has a major rugby team and is very often one of the championship teams, it’s a very important sport here, like it is in Bordeaux. These are two cities that are where rugby, boo. Right. If you come here, you don’t go to Bordeaux, ah, not during this rugby games thing.

[00:32:31] Elyse Rivin: But some of the other cities that are host cities they’re not really associated with rugby. Like Lille in the north and stuff like that. They may have a team, but here it’s a big, big, big deal. All the cities in the South, it’s really the sport of the south of France.

[00:32:45] Toulouse Rugby Team

[00:32:45] Annie Sargent: Yeah, so I want to talk briefly about the Toulouse team, specifically. Okay? Because it’s really interesting what happened there. Like I mentioned earlier, rugby, they always recruited the strong guys. Okay? Now, if you have a person in a village or in a town that is taller, stronger, faster than everybody else, that person might put that strength to bad use, right?

[00:33:12] Annie Sargent: So it’s better to kind of encourage them to use their strengths for good use. That’s exactly what they did. Like, they would just notice that this guy is super strong. Have you ever noticed rugby players, if they’re taking a jog or something, have you ever, well, you’re not walking your dog out a lot.

[00:33:33] Elyse Rivin: No, I don’t walk my dog, because I don’t have a dog.

[00:33:36] Annie Sargent: That’s right. That’s right. So, but when I walk the dog, occasionally, I see somebody running towards me who is clearly taller, buffer, stronger than everybody else.

[00:33:48] Elyse Rivin: And you assume it’s a rugby player?

[00:33:49] Annie Sargent: Oh, I know it’s a rugby player. You can tell. You can tell. Because most of the joggers are lean and you know, lean and fast.

[00:33:58] Annie Sargent: The rugby players, and these are not necessarily professionals, these are often people who play in the club, they’re usually under 30 anyway, and they can be just beefy, you know, like the clydesdales of the sport, of the human race. But they can move. They can move. There’s no question about that.

[00:34:17] Annie Sargent: And so you take all that testosterone and all thatstrength and you want to canalize it into something. You want to channel it, I guess is the “canaliser” is the French word, channel is the English word. And it’s really interesting because in rugby there normally isn’t animosity between the players.

[00:34:38] Annie Sargent: They usually have a great deal of respect for their teammates and even for their opponents. And I think in a lot of professional sports, that’s how it is. I mean, we’re kidding around with the boo to Bordeaux, but they have a great deal of respect for the other players and when they play, they want to win.

[00:34:57] Annie Sargent: That’s obvious. But really they like each other, you know, it’s like a brotherhood, right? It’s a very strong brotherhood. And it was a way of civilizing guys who otherwise might have, you know, turned sideways.

[00:35:12] Elyse Rivin: I like that expression, turn sideways.

[00:35:13] Annie Sargent: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The job of a rugby player, and this is why I love rugby, is to make a clean pass to the next guy so that they can move the ball forward. So your goal is not to sprint to score. Occasionally, that happens, but it’s very rare. It’s a team sport. You make this beautiful pass right in the hand of the next guy. And it’s really hard to time it, like it’s a, you know, if you look at it from the air, it looks like a flock of birds. You imagine a V flock of birds. Well, in rugby it’s not a V, it’s just a one line, right? But this line progresses forward like birds and they are, they’re just very graceful. I think it’s very graceful because they practicethis passing behind them with so much precision and it’s their job to make a clean, wonderful pass.

[00:36:22] Annie Sargent: And I love it because making a clean, wonderful pass with a ball that shape is not so easy. It’s really hard. So I just love to see it. And most of them are just really pleasant to look at, you know?

[00:36:35] Elyse Rivin: Well, I guess we have different taste.

[00:36:37] Annie Sargent: So I think it’s the best team sport because the team really has to play together. Now, I also love basketball. I mostly watch women’s basketball, but I agree that, you know, men’s basketball is like, it’s me, me, me, me, me. I have to be the tallest, the strongest, the fastest. Make a pass across the court and I will dunk.

[00:37:01] Annie Sargent: That’s what it’s about, really, professional basketball. And rugby’s not like that. It’s an ensemble. These are dancers. These are just …yes, yes, they are just so graceful. Like you have to twist just right. And then you have the scrums where they have to be strong as well.

[00:37:22] Annie Sargent: And then you have “la touche”. Oh, I forgot. I lost my paper. I had to write the lineout. The lineouts are so graceful.

[00:37:30] Elyse Rivin: What’s a lineout?

[00:37:31] Annie Sargent: So they all line on the side parallel and one of them is going to be hoisted up to catch the, to catch the…, it’s so gracious, I think it’s beautiful.

[00:37:40] Elyse Rivin: I think soccer is graceful, so there you are.

[00:37:43] Annie Sargent: No, soccer is just a bunch of people running around know where to go next. In rugby, you know where it’s going to go next.

[00:37:50] Annie Sargent: It’s moving forward. Anyway, I just really love that.

[00:37:53] Rugby players’ salary

[00:37:53] Annie Sargent: Now let’s talk money because, for the longest time, like we mentioned, it wasn’t professional. So can you take a guess how much the average pay is for a professional rugby player per month?

[00:38:04] Elyse Rivin:

[00:38:04] Elyse Rivin: I know it’s much less than in soccer, obviously, because soccer is big, big, big money, especially in the First League. I have no idea. 5,000 a month?

[00:38:13] Elyse Rivin: No, it’s almost half of that. It’s 2,899 Euros a month for average. So each professional team might have 20, 30 players. Okay. So you have the team A, team B kind of thing situation. And of course the stars get paid more than that, but this is the average and we have a lot of professional rugby, 15 clubs in France, and you know, most of them are not millionaires.

[00:38:43] Toulouse gossip corner 🙂

[00:38:43] Elyse Rivin: Now, I live in a village next to Toulouse, where the Ntamack family was located for the longest time.

[00:38:50] Elyse Rivin: Romain Ntamack, who’s a absolutely fabulous player. He went to the same elementary school as my daughter. He’s two years younger, I think. And the hairdresser is friends with an Ntamack’s mom. And so she told me recently that he had just bought a beautiful home. He’s 23 years old. He’s already bought himself, paid in full, a beautiful home, not very far from here.

[00:39:16] Elyse Rivin: So, you know, I don’t think he’s a millionaire, but he does well for himself.

[00:39:20] Elyse Rivin: I’m sure that the first league they do well.

[00:39:22] Annie Sargent: They do fine for themselves. And the family moved away from our village because as he was growing up, the local club wasn’t, you know, he was obviously so much better than any of them that he moved on to a different club and that would’ve meant driving across the city for practice.

[00:39:41] Annie Sargent: And it just wasn’t easy for the family. So they moved closer and whatever. And his father is also a professional rugby player and he’s a commentator on TV .

[00:39:50] Elyse Rivin: What’s interesting talking about that is that a lot of the rugby players, either while they’re still playing or right after they have opened businesses like restaurants and stores. Yes.

[00:40:01] Elyse Rivin: And especially in the Toulouse area you have a lot of them. And people know that and they actually wind up becoming fairly successful that way, you know?

[00:40:09] Annie Sargent: My daughter played basketball with the daughter of a former professional rugby player, and he was just wonderful to chat with, you know, and just hang out. You wouldn’t come to all the games, but it came to a lot of the games and it was just a pleasant local celebrity to get to know. So it’s a really happy go-lucky kind of sport around Toulouse.

[00:40:32] History lesson – Toulouse Rugby Club

[00:40:32] Annie Sargent: And the way it started in Toulouse is that in 1890 Lycée Pierre de Fermat, so that’s downtown, the right downtown, they organized games and so they could play between Pierre de Fermat, and la Prairie des Filtres. So that’s a big area, right? So they, whatever patch of grass they had, they could just play there. And then the students, as they got older, that group, they organizedsomething called Sport Olympien des Etudiants de Toulouse, so the Olympic sports of Toulouse students and that was presided by Ernest Wallon.

[00:41:14] Elyse Rivin: Ah, because the stadium is named after him.

[00:41:16] Annie Sargent: Exactly, he was a professor and the Doyen of the Faculté de Droit, so he was a law professor and a Doyen of the faculty de droit, so that means he was the oldest, the most esteemed professor. And in 1907the official Stade Toulousain, S. T. of course…

[00:41:39] Elyse Rivin: Red and black, everybody.

[00:41:41] Annie Sargent: Do you know why?

[00:41:42] Annie Sargent: Because the capitouls were red and black.So the capitouls were the kind ofCity Council of Toulouse and they were red and black. And so the Stade Toulousain became red and black. And Ernest Wallon who was a very smart man, he organized a group called Les Amis de Stade Toulousain and they bought a big piece of land by the Ponts Jumeaux to build a stadium.

[00:42:08] Elyse Rivin: It’s the rugby stadium.

[00:42:09] Annie Sargent: Yes. And he became the very first president of the Toulouse Club, and then they named the stadium after him in 1921. The Toulouse team has become very famous becausethey’ve won 20, I think, well, perhaps my list is old. But as far as the history of the club on their own website, it’s a 21 titles of French champion, five titles of European champions, seven finals of the European championships, and they participated in 26 European cups, 25 over 26 European seasons.

[00:42:50] Elyse Rivin: Are the European cups by country?

[00:42:52] Annie Sargent: I guess, but that’s how they put it in the, on their website.

[00:42:55] Elyse Rivin: Well, what I do know, because my husband really does follow rugby and you know, knows the names of all the players, is that even now, this year, more than half the players on the official French team are from Toulouse.

[00:43:07] Annie Sargent: Yeah, yes, yes, yes. We are the best. Yeah, we have a lot of wonderful players. They have really good training for the kids and the women’s rugby in Toulouse is also starting to be very good. The men’s rugby team, Stade Toulousain pays for a lot of other clubs because it’s a rich club obviously. They fill the stadium all the time, all the time.

[00:43:32] Annie Sargent: And so they give money to other sports like the softball and baseball. There’s an American football club in Toulouse as well that’s paid for by the rugby club. So they give grants to a lot of these minor sports, which is a wonderful thing to do. Honestly, we’re very lucky to have such a great team in Toulouse because kids growing, and of course by now students, I mean, it’s not just students attending Pierre de Fermat who play on the team. It’s gone much bigger, and by now they attract international players from all over, you know, on the team. It’s become a big deal. But it’s such a beautiful sport to watch. I mean, honestly, of all the sports besides the women’s basketball that I could go to, rugby would be it.

[00:44:26] Annie Sargent: I would just love the stuff.

[00:44:27] Elyse Rivin: Just a final anecdote. I once was on a flight from Toulouse to Paris, and by sheer chance, the team from Stade Français the rugby team was on the same flight. I think I’ve told you this story already. I really wondered after seeing them how the plane actually got off the ground.

[00:44:45] Annie Sargent: They are not that huge.

[00:44:46] Elyse Rivin: They were big.

[00:44:47] Elyse Rivin: I mean, I know I’m not that big, but they were big.

[00:44:50] Annie Sargent: You’re particulary small.

[00:44:51] Annie Sargent: I’m not particularly small. I’m not smaller than you. They were really big. I mean, when talking about masses of muscle, I mean, it was really impressive to see. It was just one of those things. I was sitting there and I saw all these guys going down the aisle, and all of a sudden I heard somebody whisper, it’s the French parisian rugby team.

[00:45:11] Annie Sargent: And I went, whoa.

[00:45:13] Annie Sargent: Ooh. They are pleasant to look at, I think. Anyway.

[00:45:19] Annie Sargent: Thank you so much, Elyse.

[00:45:21] Elyse Rivin: Welcome, Annie.

[00:45:22] Elyse Rivin:

[00:45:29] Outro

[00:45:29] Annie Sargent: Again, I want to thank my patrons for supporting the show and giving back. Patrons get several exclusive rewards for doing so. You can see them at Patreon.com/joinus. Thank you all for supporting the show, some of you have been doing it for a long time, you are wonderful.

[00:45:46] Annie Sargent: And a shout out this week to new patrons: Nancy Ladd, Melanie Anderson, John Soehnlein and Julie C Rabe. Thank you so much for becoming patrons and making this podcast possible. Patrons, I would like to encourage you to install the Patreon app on your phone.

[00:46:07] Audio and Video rewards for patrons

[00:46:07] Annie Sargent: It’ll help you enjoy your rewards while on the go, including audio and video rewards. This week I published three audio rewards. Number one was an article in slow French. The theme this time was Quelle est la meilleure façon d’apprendre le français, or What’s the best way to learn French?

[00:46:31] Annie Sargent: Number two was, Learn how to say the names of Paris Metro Stations. This week I went through all the stations on line 2. It’s difficult to guess how to say proper names in French, but if you practice a little, I think you’ll get the hang of it.

[00:46:48] Annie Sargent: Number three, I also published a recipe for a simplified version of the Bouillabaisse. The flavors are right and it only takes a half an hour. The Bouillabaisse is the specialty of Marseille, it’s a delicious fish stew and I just had to have one last Sunday.

[00:47:06] Annie Sargent: I’m increasing the number of Patreon rewards because I am gunning, really gunning for 500 patrons. I have been stuck at around 450 for a long, long time.

[00:47:20] Annie Sargent: Every week I gain a few and I lose a few. Perhaps if I’m more active on Patreon, I can kick that trend. What I’m saying is that I need you to become a patron because there’s lots of good stuff on that feed and if you install the Patreon app you can enjoy all of that easily on the go.

[00:47:40] Annie Sargent: Many thanks to Mary Pilch for sending in a one time donation by using the green button on any page on JoinUsinFrance.Com that says “Tip your guide”.

[00:47:52] Annie Sargent: Mary wrote: “Thank you for your podcast. I enjoy listening and learning more about French history, wine, food and culture. I’ll be visiting the Loire and Provence in May. I can’t wait.”

[00:48:05] Annie Sargent: Well, thank you, Mary. Your donation keeps it going and it’s much appreciated. Bon voyage.

[00:48:12] Annie Sargent: If you are preparing a trip to France and listening to as many episodes as you can to get ready, keep listening to the podcast because that’s a great way to prepare your trip.

[00:48:22] Itinerary consult service

[00:48:22] Annie Sargent: But you can also hire me to be your itinerary consultant. Here’s how it works. You purchase the service on JoinUsinFrance.com/boutique. Then you fill out a document to tell me what you have in mind. We make a phone appointment and then we chat for about an hour. And then I send you the document with the plan we discussed.

[00:48:42] Annie Sargent: My time is always booked up several weeks in advance. You can see the date for my next availability on the only page where you can buy this at my boutique.

[00:48:53] GPS self-guided tours of Paris

[00:48:53] Annie Sargent: And if you cannot talk to me because I’m all booked up, you can still take me in your pocket by getting my GPS self-guided tours of Paris on the VoiceMap app.

[00:49:04] Annie Sargent: I’ve produced six tours and they are designed to show you around different iconic neighborhoods of Paris, Eiffel Tower, Ile de la Cité, le Marais, Montmartre, Saint Germain des Prés and the Latin Quarter. And the Eiffel Tower one, you can also get in French if you would like.

[00:49:22] This week in French news, strikes over retirement rules

[00:49:22] Annie Sargent: Now, this week in French news. Ah, well, as much as I would like to tell you that the strikes are over and that all these changes over retirement rules are finally resolved. Well, no, no, not yet. I am recording this introduction on Wednesday and a lot is happening today and until the end of the week.

[00:49:43] Annie Sargent: What is certain is that this reform is extremely unpopular and most French people are very unhappy about this. Even people who don’t go on strike say they support the strikers and they don’t want this change to pass. But I think it will pass because we don’t have a choice in the matter. Money to pay pensions does not grow on trees.

[00:50:06] Annie Sargent: But we’re going to have to wait a few more days to find out.

[00:50:10] Strikes in transportation

[00:50:10] Annie Sargent: This week the strikes in transportation continued and I think they are likely to continue until the end of March. As I mentioned last week, there are two cities in France where garbage collection is at a standstill, Paris and Nantes.

[00:50:25] Annie Sargent: The photos I saw of garbage piles in Paris looked terrible. A few arrondissements in Paris have hired temp workers to collect garbage but Paris stinks this week. And you know, the French ethos is that we hate what this is doing to our lives, we don’t want to be stuck without a way to get to work on the metro, we don’t want to smell the garbage piling up. But French people support the strikers. We hate it and we support it. And I think other countries have similar problems.

[00:50:59] Annie Sargent: You know, if I may venture a comparison, a risky comparison, many Americans don’t like what’s happening with mass shootings, but they still support the right to bear arms. Well, French people are like that when it comes to strikes. We don’t like it when garbage piles up. We can tell that it’s a public health hazard, it’s a terrible image, but we support the right to strike. So what are you going to do? So be patient, I think within another two weeks it’ll die down, but for now it’s still like… it’s still bad.

[00:51:34] Paris Olympics tickets

[00:51:34] Annie Sargent: On a happier note, the Paris Olympics seem to be on the right track. I was selected to purchase the first sets of tickets but I gave up on it because it was so expensive and I’m not the only one.

[00:51:46] Annie Sargent: Lots of people did not make a purchase. I wanted to get five tickets, and most of the tickets that were available to buy in the first round were over $100. Well, euros actually, per person, and you had to buy tickets for three events. So five people times $100 is $500, and then three events, that’s $1500 at the very least, you know, depending on the events it was more. And I know that hotels are going to cost a bundle in Paris that those weeks obviously, and I couldn’t decide what events I wanted, so in the end, I gave up my turn and let other people spend the money. Pretty soon we should be able to buy tickets for just one event. And that’s what I would like to do. Give me some women’s basketball and I will be a very happy camper, and I doubt these will be the most expensive tickets anyway. Basketball is going to be held in, well, most of basketball is going to be held in Lille, so that’s clear on the other side of the country. It’s a long drive, but it’s worth it. So I’m waiting for those single tickets to open and I would also love to attend some Paralympics events, but the tickets are not on sale for that yet, so I’ll keep an eye on it. And, you know, I’m hopeful.

[00:53:05] Notre Dame will not be open for the Paris Olympics

[00:53:05] Annie Sargent: Now what you need to know is that Notre Dame will not open until after the Olympics. President Macron set a target date of 2024 on the night of the fire. But the Olympics are going to be over in August and I doubt they’ll open anything with Notre Dame until later. I hope that they open just a tiny bit, you know, like so people can file in and look a little bit, but probably not. So don’t count on it.

[00:53:33] Annie Sargent: Now getting around Paris during the Olympics is going to be trouble. It’s trouble in every city that does this, right? It’s not just Paris. If I were going to be in Paris during the Olympics, I would plan on riding a bike to the events.

[00:53:48] Annie Sargent: They are developing new bike lanes to all the venues. So look into that because the metro is going to be a mad house. There’s a lot going on to make sure that security, cybersecurity, all of that is adequate. Cities like Toulouse where we don’t have any Olympics events are going to be sending police officers to Paris and they’ll be set up in dormitories.

[00:54:14] Annie Sargent: Oh my god, this is going to be so crazy. Now in Paris, they have a lot of sports installations already. They’re not going to build many new ones, but the few new ones that they’re building, construction is on track. So, you know, it’s good. They are still hoping that the Seine River is going to be clean enough to hold some of the swimming competition, but I don’t know if it’ll happen. That would be really, really cool though. On track for the Olympics, which is great news to me.

[00:54:44] Join Us in France trailer

[00:54:44] Annie Sargent: You can help your friends plan their visit to France, go to JoinUsinFrance.com/trailer and share the trailer for this podcast with them. It’s short, it’s sweet and it may just be all they need to decide to give it a try.

[00:54:59] Annie Sargent: Show notes in a full transcript for this episode are on JoinUsinFrance.com/433.

[00:55:08] Annie Sargent: A big thank you to podcast editor Cristian Cotovan who produces the transcript of the podcast so you can find in which episode we talked about that place that you want to go to.

[00:55:19] Next week on the podcast

[00:55:19] Annie Sargent: Next week on the podcast, an episode about an weekend road trip that I took with Jennifer Gruenke in September.

[00:55:27] Annie Sargent: I have to tell you, I have so many episodes in the can that I am now just releasing recordings I made months ago. I’m grateful that episode guests are so patient with me. Never worry about me running out of episodes, there’s so many things to talk about.

[00:55:44] Annie Sargent: Send questions or feedback including ideas for great episodes to Annie@JoinUsinFrance.com

[00:55:51] Annie Sargent: Thank you so much for listening and I hope you join me next time so we can look around France together. Au revoir.

[00:55:59] Copyright

[00:55:59] Annie Sargent: The Join Us in France Travel Podcast is written, hosted, and produced by Annie Sargent and Copyright 2023 by Addicted to France. It is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial, No Derivatives license.

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