2 Les Bobos The Bobos

(Bourgeois Bohemians)
2.2 TRANSLATION OF CONVERSATION 1: MINCE ALORS, C’EST
MOI LE BOBO ! DAMN IT, I’M THE BOBO!
I had this conversation with Chloé, a designer who has just moved into a
‘loft’ or attic apartment in our Parisian suburb of Pantin, and the elderly,
retired Bruno who’s worked and lived here for decades. The first time
you listen to the conversation, try and work out who is moving to Pantin
and why.
track 02.02

Chloé Wow, feels good to get together over a drink, out here
on the terrace at Brunello’s, on the canal! Pantin is quite a
change from Étampes, a real dormitory town!
Bruno Oh, you’ve only just got here, you know. Cafés like these
are new in Pantin. I’ve been here since the war, I’ve seen
the change.
AB Oh yes … So, what are the most striking changes you’ve
seen?
Bruno Well … This was a working-class town with loads of
workshops. But that’s an old story; there are no more
factories! The slaughterhouse next door has become
Villette Park with its museums and concert halls. The
Grands Moulins (Great Mills) is now the chic headquarters
of a bank. Talking of chic, Chanel and especially the
Hermès workshops, are getting bigger, and now that there
are big art galleries like Ropac, you see the arty high fliers
around here. Soon the biggest ad agency is moving into
the old customs warehouse. They’re comparing Pantin to
Brooklyn and Berlin now!
Chloé Ah, the ‘boboisation’ of District 93! There’s much talk about
it, but I don’t really understand what’s going on. What do
you think, Bruno?
Bruno Nah … it’s quite marginal. Cool, hip youngsters moving
out from Paris to live here. They’re looking for bigger
homes at a lower cost!

Translations and answers 9

AB There have been some improvements. The new market
square next to Hermès … with that ‘country market’ air
about it, it’s very ‘bobo’, very ‘cool’. But this ‘coming up’ of
a neighbourhood would scare the working classes away,
surely …?
Bruno Oh, I’m quite sure of it. It pushes up rents and property
values. We’re only at the beginnings of this gentrification,
but we’re definitely going to see its long-term effects.
Chloé Hey! All of a sudden, it hits me …! In fact, the typical ‘bobo’
is me – the creative professional working on their Mac, and
doing quite well. Detests racism, loves ‘world cultures’, but
has no black or Arab friends. Loves retro, organic, biking,
votes for the Greens, the bobo! Hey, that rhymes!
AB So you know the song, ‘Les Bobos’, by Renaud! It’s really
funny. He loves art exhibitions, the bobo, he listens to
Manu Chao, hates the beaufs1 who read the Figaro … OK,
I’ll cut out the rhyming. He loves Hungarian cinema, longs
for new ways of life …
Chloé That’s it, he or she! Hold on, that’s a spitting image of
me! It’s depressing … I dunno, are we supposed to be
ashamed of it, of being a bobo?
Bruno Oh, no, no! But the social divide is quite glaring. We called
it ‘champagne socialism’! Moving to neighbourhoods
in the East, to the other side of the ‘Périph’ (ringroad /
beltway), tearing down the Berlin wall, almost … it’s so
exotic, the kindly anthropologist living among his Maori
people! But hey, he’s careful, keeps his distance, and
makes sure he gets his kids into the best Paris schools!

Question: Who is moving to Pantin and why?

Answer: It’s the cool young people looking for bigger and cheaper places
to live and work.
C’est de jeunes branchés qui quittent Paris pour s’installer ici, ils cherchent
plus grand et moins cher !

1
From beau-frère, brother-in-law: a vulgar, stupid, arrogant man (usually chauvinistic,
right-wing) who jumps to simple conclusions on complex social questions.

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2.2.1 Conversation 1: Did that make sense? Check your
understanding!
track 02.03
1 Que deviennent les sites industriels abandonnés à Pantin ?
Les abattoirs sont transformés en parc culturel, les Moulins en banque
chic et l’entrepôt des douanes en agence publicitaire.
2 Pourquoi la montée en gamme de Pantin risque de faire fuir
des gens ?
Parce que ça fait monter les loyers et le prix du mètre carré.
3 Pourquoi Chloé a-t-elle l’impression que le bobo, c’est elle ?
Parce que, comme le bobo typique, elle fait un travail créatif et
intellectuel, gagne bien sa vie, est antiraciste et aime les cultures du
monde mais n’a pas d’amis noirs ou arabes, aime le rétro, le bio et le vélo !

2.3 LANGUAGE PLUS

2.3.7 Exercises
track 02.06
1 Nous, on se retrouve souvent à la terrasse. On y est très bien.
We often get together at the terrace. It’s very pleasant there.
2 Elle y réfléchit tout le temps, même si elle en parle pas
beaucoup.
She thinks about it all the time, even if she doesn’t talk about it much.
3 Est-ce qu’ils feront faire des avions en Chine un jour ?
Will they get aircraft made in China some day?
4 Elles se débrouillent pour se réserver les meilleures places !
They manage to get the best seats for themselves!
5 Il s’est rendu compte que c’était lui, le bobo tout craché !
He realized that he himself was the spitting image of a bobo!
6 He has old friends who’ve worked at the slaughterhouse.
Il a de vieux amis qui ont travaillé à l’abattoir.
7 Often, (some) young artists come to show him their work.
Souvent, de jeunes artistes viennent lui montrer leur travail.
8 Her new friend’s an old man, but a handsome man.
Son nouvel ami est un vieil homme, mais (c’est) un bel homme.

Translations and answers 11

 9 This new façade, it looks chic, it’s going to push up the rents!
Cette nouvelle façade, ça fait chic, ça va faire monter les loyers !
10 It’s a beautiful apartment; it has a 19th-century touch to it. (In
French, ‘it makes 19th’.)
C’est un bel appartement, ça fait dix-neuvième.

2.4 TRANSLATION OF CONVERSATION 2: RÉAMÉNAGER,

REVALORISER, ÇA RAPPORTE ! REFURBISH, ADD VALUE, IT PAYS!
You’re going to hear my conversation with two other friends, Antoine and
Hélène. The first time you listen to our conversation, try to listen out for
reasons why Antoine chose to live in an attic apartment.
track 02.08

AB Antoine, you’d count among the first ever bobos of

Montreuil, wouldn’t you?
Antoine Well, I can’t say I love the label … But I’ve got used to it.
And I have to admit that I do quite fit the description. Born
into a family of top executives, you study to be an engineer
then drop out in defiance of your parents’ values, become
an artist, want to explore different ways of life …
AB Your parents were posted to San Francisco …
Antoine Yes, but I left home, I had mates who were artists, I wanted to
be part of the ‘underground’ culture, I used to hang around
by the Docks late into the night. We were sick of paying such
high rents for soulless apartments, we dreamt of virgin open
spaces in which we could experiment with music, video,
wrought-iron work, painting, organize events …
Hélène And you managed …
Antoine Oh, quite. It was the disused warehouses on the Docks that
we found fascinating; we’d go there at night. Huge spaces
with high glass ceilings, abandoned … The play of light in
that empty space, it was magic, the magic of despair! We
came upon all sorts of social outcasts, besides – prostitutes,
drug addicts, tramps who wrote poetry. Then a group of us
rented a warehouse together, and we did it up. It was …
how do I put it … a mythical, enchanted relationship with
urban, and social, marginality. But it ended up becoming a
very cool, very arty place.

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Hélène Then you got back to France, and you had to do it again, in
Montreuil …!
Antoine You know, after those high ceilings, I just couldn’t live in a
chicken coop again! And then, we knew how to do things
up, turn a rotten place into something valuable. And here
again, it became cool. Do you realize, the real-estate guy,
with his flashy new car, he was my buddy … Argh! ‘Hey
Antoine! Come in, Ma’am. The artist’s place! Here’s what
you can do in Montreuil!’ This wasn’t the point of the
thing at all at the beginning. But now, that’s all I do, repair,
refurbish, and revalue. And it pays!
Hélène It’s above all this atmosphere that’s so, er … transcultural,
that you’ve created here that takes us beyond borders! Yes,
that’s the key idea! Let’s get out of our borders! It’s time
that ‘culture’ too gave up its grip on whole countries, that
each of us be free to choose or reinvent his or her space,
culture. As a bobo, you’ve succeeded in that, at least!

Question: Why did Antoine choose to live in an attic apartment?

Answer: He and his artist friends were looking for ‘alternative’ adventure. Tired
of paying so much for soulless apartments, they wanted space to experiment
with music, filmmaking, wrought ironwork, painting, event organizing, etc.
On en avait marre de payer des loyers si chers pour des logements sans âme,
on rêvait d’espaces ouverts, vierges, pour mener nos expériences artistiques
en musique, vidéo, ferronnerie, peinture, organiser des événements …
2.4.1 Conversation 2: Did that make sense? Check your
understanding!
track 02.09
1 Pourquoi les jeunes artistes voulaient-ils quitter leurs
logements ?
Parce qu’ils étaient petits, trop chers et sans âme. Les jeunes rêvaient de
grands espaces pour mener leurs expériences artistiques.
2 Pourquoi Antoine était-il attiré par les entrepôts abandonnés ?
Parce qu’ils correspondaient à son rêve d’espaces vierges, de culture
« underground », la marginalité urbaine, c’était l’aventure !

Translations and answers 13

3 En France, Antoine a-t-il pu profiter de son expérience américaine ?
Oui, il était ingénieur et artiste à San Francisco, il avait appris à retaper
et revaloriser des entrepôts désaffectés, et en retrouvant plus tard
des espaces industriels abandonnés à Montreuil, il a pu répéter
l’expérience, et ça a payé !

2.5 WHAT DO YOU THINK? TIME FOR YOU TO TAKE

PART IN A CONVERSATION!
track 02.10
1 Partagez-vous certaines valeurs typiquement attribuées aux
bobos ?
Évidemment ! Les bobos sont des intellectuels créatifs qui critiquent
les conséquences désastreuses de la societé industrielle productiviste.
Pour sortir d’un monde dirigé par des banquiers, on a besoin de
réfléchir, de trouver d’autres manières de donner un sens à la vie que
d’essayer d’amasser toujours plus d’argent !
2 Y a-t-il des contradictions entre les valeurs affichées des bobos
et leurs choix de vie ?
Apparemment oui ! Leurs valeurs affichées semblent assez radicales,
universalistes, ils veulent un monde plus juste et achètent des produits
bio équitables, ils détestent qu’on affiche sa richesse de façon vulgaire
(voitures, piscines, golf, yachts …), mais gardent bien leurs distances
par rapport aux couches populaires de leur quartier … !
3 Est-il possible, et désirable, qu’on choisisse sa culture, quel que
soit son pays ?
Pourquoi pas ? Dans beaucoup de pays qui étaient soumis à une
même culture religieuse dans le passé, on considère aujourd’hui la
religion comme un choix personnel. De la même manière, ça ne devrait
pas déranger si je choisis de manger, danser, ou décorer ma maison
autrement !

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