It is not an easy matter to open a bank account in France. We
tried the post office in a proletarian moment soon after we arrived. We were asked to return the next day to make
an appointment. Your credit card does not
help you get a phone line any more than the money you’ve stashed away in
Switzerland. You need a French bank account. Jeroen emailed his colleague who
suggested we try the Société Générale.
One does not just walk into a back in France. One presses a
button and the security person releases a switch to allow admission. A sign at
the door states that people in masks and are not admitted, and bank robbers
must have a piece d’identite and a rendez-vous.
Monsieur Lausberg welcomed us at the Société Générale branch at
Place de Gaulle without prior rendez-vous and plied us with coffee. He is the man who deals with the foreign born.
Although M. Lausberg does speak some English, we insisted on speaking French,
using hand and shoulder shrugs with “Baah” sounds to fill in the many gaps
which M. Lausberg filled. Agrafeuse is French for stapler, I bet most of my
family, friends, readers and fans (see how I slipped that in) don’t know that.
What did we need to start a bank account? Piece d’identity, a
passport works. Jeroen’s passport was acceptable, mine, not-European, was not.
Then we needed proof of address and here we showed our rental contract for the
house in Valbonne. He who triumphs first has made a mistake. There were two
problems with the contract: It was in English and in my name. M. Lausberg asked
us to get a French translation and have the proprietere change the tenancy to
my husband’s name.
The French love paper. Not the kind you fold and tuck away in
your handbag, or in Jeroen’s case pull out of your back pocket, dog-eared and
ready to tear. The French do dossiers, file folders for four-holed punched
paper safe in water-proof plastic protectors and a final flap with
criss-crossing elastic bands that render third-line of security. I am told
dossiers become a life-long habit, perhaps even an addiction but I don’t
believe I am at risk.
Jeroen’s ATM card has a picture of Lucky Luke shooting faster
than his shadow. If you don’t know about Lucky Luke, get on Amazon and buy the
Goscinny’s. The Stagecoach. It
features Jolly Jumper, the horse that can run so fast and play chess so slow
and Jesse James. M. Lausberg prefers Obelix to Lucky Luke. It’s close.
M. Lausberg told us that his daughters spoke English and Italian
fluently, whereas for him English was a heavy foreign tongue. He is of Belgian
descent and can make better frites than any Frenchman. We offered to teach him
essential English phrases for bankers just in case he gets transferred to the
New York office in a dystopian future.
1. This
is a hold up.
2. Unmarked
bills
3. Getaway
car
4. Burglary,
theft, pick-pocket
5. Armed
robbery
6. Drive-by
shooting
7. Don’t
call the cops
8. Ransom,
kidnapping
9. Let
me see your hands
10. I
don’t got all day.
M. Lausberg punched our new address into his computer with obvious
satisfaction when we returned to report our move to Antibes from Valbonne. The
apartment we rent would cost a little over a million euros. Would we qualify
for a loan? No? Would M. Lausberg make
some special arrangements to help us get that loan? M. Lausberg’s vocabulary increased with a new
phrase: White collar crime.
We are now officially Antibois and proud of it. Why not Antibien? Or Antibais? M. Lausberg
explained: Nicois from Nice, Marseillais (pronounced mar-sigh-yay) from
Marseille, Strasbourgouis from Strasbourg, and Parisien from Paris, a cold grey
busy city in the North that knows to pretty itself with black and gold. We are
in the South of France.
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