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La Concierge Crisis
A Paris concierge in happier days
Yet another venerable French tradition is close to extinction. For as many years as anyone can count the institution of the 'concierge' has been embedded in the Gallic psyche.
The number of 'concierges' is now reported to have dropped by nearly nearly 10,000 over the past decade throughout France. 'Concierges' are almost always women of what the French like to call: "Of a certain age". (Meaning fifty-something).
Their role has been to collect the mail, clean the corridors, feed their cats, and look after children back from school before their parents arrive back home.
They are also famous for peeping out of their curtains in cramped ground-floor lodges and to know everything that happens in the building where they live. (Mistresses and marital rifts for example). And the secrets of their neighbourhood.
'Concierges' are renowned for gossiping among other 'concierges'.
For some reason 'La Concierge' in a Paris residence, after the Second World War, was almost always a migrant from the northern region of Normandy.
In the 1970s, Portuguese women took over. It was then that they preferred to known as "gardienne".
But what is actually prompting the demise of the 'concierge' is thrift and something called the "door code". It is cheaper and easier to tap in a number on a panel at the front door of the the apartment block than to pay wages of an average of 12,000 euros (£9,000) per year before tax.
Adieu madame. It's been nice knowing you.
