The French Lost Boys

There is a particular kind of person that one will find all over France, and for some odd reason, are in abundance in Besançon. CSI has dubbed them "the lost boys." It seemed like a good name until...

...someone thought I meant the movie starring Keifer Sutherand about vampires.

...someone else thought I meant the characters from Peter Pan.

...and someone else thought I meant the refugees from Sudan.

...and I later found out it also refers to the guys who leave polygamous groups (like the LDS).

Well. From this point forward, when I refer to the French Lost Boys, I do not mean any of the above groups. I am talking about a group of ragamuffins who appear to be vagabonds or street punks.

They dress like street punks: grungy clothes, multiple facial piercings, combat boots, etc.

They act like vagabonds: sitting on the sidewalks, lounging around, with nothing to do but sit around, smoke cigarettes, drink beer, occasionally play a guitar or beg. And by beg I mean put out a sign that says "Please give money."

And their dogs lounge around with them with the same, non-chalant, I-reject-the-world attitude.

Yes, they have dogs. They all have dogs! And not mangy looking dogs, but well-kept, well-loved, and well-fed dogs. Big dogs. Dogs that sometimes wander around unleashed and frighten me just a little bit.

I've long wondered about the French Lost Boys because, it seems that while acting much like homeless people... it seems that they aren't homeless. They don't sleep on the street. They just sit there in the day time. They're clean, as are their dogs. They don't have all their life possessions with them. Some of them even have cell phones.

I asked my teacher about them one day, and she said they don't really have a word for them in French. She explained, "Many times, they come from wealthy families. They want to reject their families' wealth, and the culture of our society here in France, and in order to look more 'cool' by "roughing it." Thus...they hang out on the street with one another trying to look like they just don't care about anything. But they don't need to work because they still have access to their families' wealth."

They're hipsters! The Lost Boys are simply a French street punk version of hipsters.

I'll try to get a picture sometime, but they kind of freak me out a little bit.