We talked about Religion first, and mostly about the banning of the veil (la voile) in France. In France it is against the law to wear any religious symbol that "is a menace to the public order." Apparently wearing a symbol of one's faith is considering menacing to those that do not follow the same faith. "La voile" was banned in both France and Belgium. I asked Nathan if there were any problems with the new law at his school. He said that there were a few students at his school that had protested against the law and wore their veils to school anyway. The principal had to tell the students to remove their veils. I asked Nathan if the school really cared that much or if it was just a question of following the government's law. He said that his teachers didn't care and didn't ask the students to remove their veils unless prompted by a person of higher status. Then I asked him if students who wore a large cross or other Christian symbol were ever asked to take if off. He said yes. So I think that for the most part the government is trying to keep all religious symbols out of the open. Nathan asked me if we could wear whatever we wanted in America and I told him that people can wear any and all religious symbols.
After religious we discussed Education for a while. Nathan went to Catholic school up until middle school and then went to a public school for high school. He said that at his public school there was a mix of Catholics and Muslims. He said that there were a lot of fights at school over religion. Nathan came to the United States for college so he could learn English and also because school here is much easier than in Belgium.
Then we moved onto the topic of immigration. In France immigration is a huge problem. There are a lot of immigrants that live in "le banlieues" (ghettos) in France. Some are legal and some are not. However, even though their living conditions in France are not the best they are far superior to what they would be living in in their native country. France, however has begun to blame the immigrants for problems in the economy. There is very strong support behind a political group called "Le Front National" that is right-wing group of anti-immigrants. Le Front National wants to return France to the French, and to kick out all of those who can not trace their lineage back to France. I asked Nathan if Belgium had the same sentiments regarding immigration and he said that Belgium liked the immigrants. He said that the Belgian government tried to help immigrants whenever possible.
We ended out conversation talking about working and living in France. I told Nathan that I would really like to work with fashion in Paris someday. He said that Paris would be a wonderful place to visit but that he couldn't imagine living there. He said that it is extremely expensive and that Belgian is generally way better. He also said that the French aren't as nice as Belgians. Although the Belgians may be nicer and less expensive they can't offer me a Fashion Week so he hasn't persuaded me to abandon all of my Parisian dreams.
Throughout our conversation we were able to communicate with only a few misunderstandings. Sometimes I would conjugate my verbs in the wrong tense or use the wrong pronoun but he would correct me or help me continue forming my sentence. For me, speaking has always been difficult because I can't write everything down first so sometimes I forget what tense I'm in or which pronoun to use. But overall I think I did a good job! And Nathan complimented me on my accent so that made me feel good. I haven't forgotten much at all even though I'm not taking a French class this semester.
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