View from the Back
Ramblings of a retiree in France
Things about France that surprised me: the importance of la Pharmacie
I’ve previously mentioned that one of my least favourite places is the pharmacy, any pharmacy. This is largely because of the queues. It’s not the volume of customers but rather the amount of time taken to deal with each one and their myriad of purchases, going through the pros and cons of all the products on offer. Yes, the advice of the pharmacist is keenly sought, never more so than over the last few months, by the hypochondriac-prone French.
The pharmacy is a cornerstone of France’s (quite rightly) revered healthcare system, not to mention the beauty industry. You’ll find at least one in every small town and even in some relatively small villages. On the French Riviera, we seem (to me) to have one every 100 metres! In fact, there are around 21,000 pharmacies across the whole country. In some places, pharmacies are the only places where you can go to for medical advice if there’s no doctor’s surgery nearby and, many French will talk to their pharmacist before visiting their GP.
Laws currently regulate where you can buy medication and medical equipment, and most of these can only be prepared and sold by a pharmacist. Pharmacists are also authorised to prepare medicines for specific conditions or for other medical establishments such as hospitals. But this exclusivity is under threat.
The reverence with which the pharmacist’s advice is held carries over from medical to beauty products. While I’m waiting in one of those interminable queues I might get to overhear a conversation between customer and pharmacist with the latter’s weighted opinions on, say, the correct moisturiser. It’s rare to see anyone question the authority of the pharmacist or even their lieutenants: no-nonsense, white, lab-coated salesladies. They’ll analyse skin problems and lead you to anything from mink oil face cream to Homéoplasmine, a waxy balm traditionally used to soothe nursing mothers’ chafed nipples, a great remedy for chapped lips, to Embryolisse Lait Creme Concentré, the well-priced and truly wonderful face cream with the disconcerting name. A number of these products have achieved cult status in the skincare industry and are now available globally.
Elaborate pharmacy window displays change according to the seasons. At exam time, their windows will be full of ads for, and boxes of, things that I’ve truly only seen in France: memory pills, anti-snoring tablets and, of course, pills and supplemental regimes for le fatigue. This year these have been replaced by anything and everything to help ward off COVID-19. Prevention and protection have been the key themes.
After exams, comes the summer holidays and everyone wants to have beach-ready bodies. So the pharmacy will showcase slimming remedies, anti-cellulite pills, pre-bronzing capsules, gel for “heavy legs” – the last one is something I’ve only ever seen in France. What are heavy legs? All the French women I know have enviably slim, svelte legs.
Come autumn, pharmacy windows are full of fascinating fungi charts. Autumn is wild mushroom season bringing in cèpes, girolles, chanterelles and the sinister sounding trompettes de la mort (trumpets of death) – all of which are edible. This is one of the more important functions of the French pharmacist. They are all required to study mushroom taxonomy as part of their training and provide the service of examining your basket of foraged fungi and oint out any that are not edible.
Alas, as with many other icons of French culture, such as cafés and bistros, the pharmacy as it exists today is under threat. Firstly from parapharmacies, often within supermarkets, which can discount heavily, and online – an ever- growing channel. The current government has floated the idea of deregulating pharmacies, which pharmacists worry will allow supermarkets to also begin selling over-the-counter drugs and which will also potentially allow corporations to buy up the typically owner-run pharmacies. The highly personalised service would be just one casualty of that model, they say. To protest, they upheld another French tradition: they went on strike!
You just described life in Israel! Except for the deregulating pharmacies, there is no chance of that at the moment. But it is quite a different world. When I’m away from Israel and Europe I miss the old apothecary type feeling that makes the pharmacy the place to be!
Nice article.
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Thank you
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Fascinating. You have the perspective of an informed outsider but the knowledge of a local insider. 🙂
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Thank you!
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How interesting. I had no idea about this and it is a pretty different experience where I like.
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*live
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This is quite common in Europe where each pharmacy is individually owned there are no Walgreens or Boots. However, things are changing…….so it’s only a matter of time.
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Wow, and would happen to the fungi foragers?
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The pharmacist will tell you which ones you can eat and how best to prepare them. You can obviously only forage on common land. I usually go with knowledgeable friends. I once found a cepe but it’s usually pied de moutons.
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That is such a neat skill! I hope that practice will not disappear.
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Me too otherwise………
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What a fresh perspective! Enjoyed the read! 🧡🧡🧡
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You’re welcome Yeka
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Love your warm lovely glow as always Sheree! 🧡🌼🧡🌼🧡🌼
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Thank you
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very interesting!
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Thanks
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Sending Peace and Light 💡
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Thank you 🙏
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Interesting that you should say that, because we were also totally shocked by the amount of pharmacies. Makes you wonder what has made the population this way. heard from a champagne-producer that this was really bad – also for his business. He said, in the olden days champagne used to cure everything. These days they swallow pills instead. What a sad, sad story!
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Give me champagne every time!
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Love these pharmacies!
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😎
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It would be sad to lose the private owned pharmacies. I also think that one usually gets good advice there. They certainly know more about medicines and food supplements than many doctors.
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They are incredibly knowledgeable
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Eeeew! That does not seem pleasant and oh boy, as soon as you said “regulate” where you can buy … my American-ness ruffled. lol When I was a kid, I remember how much we relied on the pharmacists opinion, which was akin to going to the doctor. Those days are disappearing even here. Still now and again I hear people say, “ask your pharmacist!”, so I do.
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Excellent ! That’s exactly it ! Now living in the US I miss these knowledgeable advices. Sometimes I have a question at the pharmacy corner of my local Walgreens but it’s not the same quality for an answer and you cannot do that every time, just for really specific prescription medicine and you actually need to talk to the pharmacist in charge. When I started to read your article I immediately thought of the mushroom inspection and advice and you mentioned it later on ! It used to be that way when as kids we would go with my father and my great grandmother to gather mushrooms in the French Riviera back country. I haven’t been foraging mushrooms since and I was wondering if the pharmacist would still do those mushroom inspections and advices. I am glad it’s still the case.
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Thanks for dropping by Mich
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