Door code

The electronic device you see in the picture is a door code system for our apartment. By using the scroll buttons, one can search and select a name, then press the “appel” (which means “call”) button to ring the concerned person’s apartment. The resident answers the call and unlocks the main door.

In certain buildings, you will only find a code, with names rarely displayed on front doors. Without knowing “Le code”, you won’t get past the outer door, which usually leads to a small inner courtyard or a stairway. Some buildings have intercoms between the front door and individual apartments, but most older buildings do not. Thus, the cipher block at the entrance keeps unexpected and unwanted guests outside.

In Paris, friendship without a code is almost non-existent. Sharing your phone number is personal, but giving out your front door code is intimate. Most buildings are protected by codes. In the earlier seventies, there was a concept of a guardian who supervised the whole building, but now they have been gradually replaced by these door codes due to cost-cutting. Although our building is old, we still have both a guardian and a door code.

In short, in Parisian vocabulary, “Just dropping by” doesn’t exist, unlike in India.