How to play it like a french teen
Alix, my stepdaughter, is 14. She teaches us a few things about what it’s like to be a teenage girl in Paris.
You’ll be happy to know that in Paris teen slang, a pain (literally: bread) basically means someone hot. “Like, you’re walking in the street with one of your friends, and you see a guy or a girl who’s super good-looking, you go: meuf ! meuf ! meuf ! pain ! pain !” Alix explains. (For the uninitiated, in France we use something called verlan, which is a kind of slang where you flip syllables around. So femme (woman), fe-me, becomes me-fe, and then meuf).
But it doesn’t stop there. La boulangerie (the bakery) is the place where you get your pain (which sounds funny to write in English now that I think about it). If your school is full of hot people, you say something like, “I’m going to la boulangerie!”
But if la boulangerie is closed, that means you’ve got no room left for more pain. “Like, you already have a pain, you’re in a relationship, basically.”
Back in my day, the only bakery-related slang we had was miches, which literally means “loaves”and was vulgar slang for girls’ boobs. “That doesn’t exist anymore,” Alix says, with pure disdain. When I ask if they use any other bakery terms, Alix laughs: “Well… if you’ve got a bunch of pains, your friends will call you a boulangère. But like, it’s not a compliment, ok?”
Crêpes Waouh, raclette, and Madame Loïk—in that order
When it comes to food, French teens today have the same deal as always: they need to eat fast and keep it cheap. “At lunch I usually go to Monoprix with my friends. I always get the cacio e pepe pasta for €3.94. But it’s a scam—you have to pay 30 cents for cutlery, so now I always carry some with me. I collect them,” says Alix. Aside from pasta boxes, the big new thing is the salad bar at the Franprix supermarket. “You build your own salad: lettuce, hard-boiled eggs, tuna, salmon, mozza, quinoa, croutons… And it’s by weight, so you can get one for like €1.50!”
In France, le goûter—the after-school snack—is pretty much a real meal. “Me, I get barquettes au chocolat (those LU chocolate boat cookies), gaufres liégeoises (Belgian waffles), and my friends get crêpes Waouh. I’m not that into crêpes Waouh, but when there’s some around, I steal!”
At home, of course, we try to balance out this hellish teen diet with well-sourced, healthy meals. But when I ask Alix what dish she likes best at home, she doesn’t hesitate: “La raclette! And cheese. Morbier, comté, brillat-savarin with truffle…”. Then she adds her signature snack idea: “At my friend Abi’s place, we dip chips in a mix of Madame Loïk (a kind of whipped supermarket cheese) and capers. So good!” Et bon appétit !
Less French, more Parisian
Alix doesn’t call herself française, but parisienne. “I was born in Paris, I live here, I wear marinières (striped sailor shirts), I go to cafés, I walk everywhere, I chill by the canal. And soon I’ll have a Vélib’ card. Even more parisienne!”
Her favorite walk is up to Sacré-Cœur to look at the view from the top of Montmartre.
“One day, my friends and I were looking for a stylé (cool-looking) bar to take pics. We went to the close-by café in the Marais. We stopped taking photos pretty fast, but we kept going back. Now everyone knows us there, and if we don’t show up, they get mad at us!”
Alix says most teens go to Les Halles in Châtelet to shop, not cafés. But she hates it. “It’s literally the worst place on earth.” She’d much rather “chill on the quais, go to a café, order a noisette (an espresso with a dash of hot milk ), a limonade, a Pulco (lemon syrup drink)… And sometimes it’s free. That’s cool!”
Two kids and cigarettes
Like all teens, Alix listens to music non-stop: in the street, in the car, in the metro, all the time. “I really like Josman. I love how he sings. It’s not just ‘I’m gonna fuck you, dirty bitch’ in every single song, you know. It’s got more style. Same with Damso, I like him too. I’m going to see Josman live this year! Can’t wait.”
When I ask Alix where she sees herself in 20 years, her answer is immediate. She goes “Alors”, sits up straight, and goes: “In 20 years, I’ll be 34. I’ll live in a Paris apartment. Maybe in the 9th, 10th, or 11th. I like rue de Lancry, avenue Trudaine, rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine…” And what’ll make you a real femme parisienne? “I’ll smoke cigarettes!”