Cuckoo

Yes, I heard my first one of this year this morning. Really. But what about this story for why we foreigners, and especially elderly British ex-pats like me, have such problems understanding French bureaucracy.

I am now close to being able to file my own Demande de Permit de Construire for my new house, almost finished actually. I’m just waiting on the ‘Controle Thermique’ to show that the house will meet current requirements relating to energy efficiency and insulation and then I’ll be able to file it.

One of the ‘challenging’ areas is that of the materials and colours that will be used in the building’s construction. All French regions and départements have a ‘colour palette’ that relates to the available local materials and their colours together with the colours that have traditionally been used in the area for items such as window frames and shutters (‘menuiseries’). The ‘rules’ have become more relaxed in recent years in some places – like Rouffignac locally, for example – but they are still applied pretty stringently in places like Fleurac. This is because Fleurac is in an ABF (Architectes des Bâtiments de France) area and they (ABF) have a brief to safeguard French heritage and tradition in areas which are regarded as worthy of special attention.

ABF are very powerful and can reject a Demande de Permit de Construire without right to appeal, so it’s always a good idea to stick as closely to their guidelines as you can. Having had a bit of a bumpy ride to date with my new house build project (see previous posts) I naturally want to have colours which are as close to my personal choice as possible whilst sticking to the local colour palette in order to optimise the chances of my Demande de Permis de Construire being approved. I therefore went to an authoritative source, which I won’t name, to see what choices were available.

And I was incredibly disappointed. I was handed a colour chart (see below) and told that I must only choose colours from category ‘C’, which was marked on the chart by a ballpoint line.

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The reason why I was so disappointed was that the available colour range was not only extremely limited but was also very dark and unattractive, indeed totally unsuitable for the contemporary design that I want to build. I’ll go on but first I’ll explain what the chart is all about.

The chart contains three rows and four columns. Down the left-hand side are the row names starting with ‘Façades’ (the colours for stonework, mortars and joints and renderings), ‘Menuiseries’ (the colours for woodwork, doors, windows and shutters) and ‘Ferroneries’ (the colours for ironwork, gates and fences). The columns show the colours in each tone range ranging from ‘Clair’ (light) on the left to ‘Foncé (dark) on the right and the reason for my disappointment was that all of the colours apparently available in Fleurac are at the dark end of the range.

This surprised me for two reasons. Firstly, the house builder had told me otherwise. My contact had specifically said that I could have cream woodwork (not white mind), dark red-brown shutters and a rendering (‘crepi’) with a pinkish hue to complement them, whereas this ‘authoritative source’ was seemingly telling me otherwise. Secondly, when I did my ‘survey’ of contemporary houses around the land where I intend to build my house, almost all of them had white (or cream) woodwork.

So this presented me with yet another dilemma – did I take the latest advice as gospel (even though I hated it) or did a dig deeper. I decided to do the latter, in the form of the ex-ABF gent at Rouffignac who had thrown cold water on my house design just a week or so ago. I thought that with his background he must surely be able to give me an authoritative answer, and so I popped in to see him yesterday.

And at the end of the day, lucky I did. This is how the conversation went.

Me: I have this colour chart and have been told that in Fleurac I am limited to the colours in column C

ex-ABF man: Yes

Me: So I have to choose from just these colours for my ‘enduit’ (external wall rendering) and my ‘menuiseries’?

ex-ABF man: Yes

Me: So would this also include the ‘bardage’ (the boards on which the gutter is mounted)?

ex-ABF man: Yes

Me: OK, I want to have dark red-brown shutters but what if I want to have cream painted ‘bardage’ – could I?

ex-ABF man: Yes

Me: Doh! OK, and what if I wanted my PVC double-glazed doors and windows to also be cream – could they be?

ex-ABF man: Yes

Me: Doh again! OK, I see that on the colour chart there is no pinkish colour available for my crepi ‘enduit’ – is there one?

ex-ABF man: Yes

By this time my brain was reeling somewhat as it seemed that everything that I wanted and had been told was forbidden I could actually have. At this point ex-ABF man whipped out a colour reference swatch and also a folder of ‘enduit’ colour samples labelled ‘St Astier’. I said that I thought they were very nice and asked if I could choose from them. He said that I could and in a few seconds I’d chosen colours from the swatch for my shutters (‘volets’), my gutter fascia boards (‘bardage’), and my windows and doors (‘menuiseries’), the latter three all being the same.

As I seemed to be on a winning streak, I decided to go for broke and ask about roof tile colours. ex-ABF man then whipped out another materials sheet and after sternly confirming that I did want flat tiles, didn’t I, wrote down the ‘approved’ maker’s name and product code. So I then had all of the information that I needed to complete my Demande de Permit de Construire and I was delighted, if somewhat bemused by the whole experience.

I told my French neighbour, Chantal, about it when I got back and she was as confused as I was, so it seems that it’s not just we foreigners who have problems understanding French bureaucracy – the French themselves do too. Now is that cuckoo or what… 🙂