There are few nationalities which can boast a stereotype as
well entrenched as the French. Riding a bicycle with a string of onions and a
beret, it’s a stubbornly embedded image. Yet as anyone who has been to France can
tell you one with little basis in reality. Bicycles might be a common enough
sight in Paris as in any other European city, but berets are few and far
between while onions are confined to the supermarché. You’d be forgiven for
thinking that this stereotype was conjured up out of thin air, the product of
some Francophobe’s fevered imagination. And though it might seem out of place
in modern France it does have a historical basis. To understand how it emerged
you must first learn about the ‘Onion Johnny’.
One of Brittany’s finest agricultural products is the rosé onion. It was first brought to the Roscoff area from
Portugal by a 17th century Capuchin monk. In 1828 a farmer named
Henri Ollivier had the idea of renting a barge and selling his onions in England.
At this time Brittany was still an isolated and remote corner of France, making
it easier to sail across the Channel rather than haul vegetables to Paris. His
trip was a financial success and from that point on Roscoff farmers
increasingly travelled to England to sell their onions. The rosé onion was not
only particularly flavoursome but also long-lasting, explaining its appeal. The
sellers were christened ‘Johnnies’ by the English, which they translated into
Breton as ‘Ar johnniged’. As the century wore on their reach expanded and they
became a common sight in both Scotland and Wales too. As Breton and Welsh are
closely related the Johnnies had a distinct advantage in the Welsh-speaking
valleys where they were able to pick up some of the language without
difficulty.
At first onions were carried on a stick over the shoulder, each
bundle weighing up to four kilos. But from the 1930’s on bicycles became
increasingly common, preferred as an easier way to transport onions. Draped
around the handlebars, the Johnnies could now carry up to 150 kilos. As the
Johnnies were the only contact that many British people had with the French at
that time, it was assumed that all of France rode around on bicycles with
strings of onions draped around them, giving birth to the stereotype. It wasn’t
an easy life though. The Johnnies would sail for Britain after the Feast of St.
Barbe in July and not return til January. During that time the women were
expected to take in the onion harvest as well as manage their households.
The 1930’s might have been the decade which saw the French
stereotype born but it was also the beginning of the end for the Johnnies. After
the ‘Golden Era’ of the 1920’s, during which the number of Johnnies travelling
to Britain reached their peak, the 1930’s saw economic collapse, devaluation of
the pound and the introduction of protectionist tariffs badly impact on their
market across the Channel. During the war it became impossible to travel to
Britain and things only improved marginally following the end of the conflict.
But in 2012, with economic conditions in France still suffering following the
financial crisis, a replica of an 18th century sailing ship, the
Etoile du Roi, set
sail from Roscoff to London. Loaded with onions, it was hoped that the
British market would prove more receptive.
If there’s anything to take from the history of the Johnnies
it’s the historic economic ties between Britain and France. Long before the EU
and the Single Market Bretons were a common sight on British streets, their
wares highly prized by the British public. With the spectre of Brexit looming
over the Channel and hard Brexiters insisting on a complete divorce from the
Continent, it seems pertinent to resurrect the memory of the Johnnies and their
long association with Britain. They are just one of many economic threads which
have bound Britain to Europe throughout history.
