French bread has a well-deserved reputation for excellence. The French housewife buys freshly baked bread each day, because the standard loaves from French bakeries do not keep well. Today, no French housewife would dream of making her own bread, although this was not so at the turn of the century. In some rural areas, for example, everyone would make their own pain de campagne about once a week. Once the oven was lit, a child would be sent out to the neighbors to find who had made bread the day before and so collect some fresh dough-starter - there was no yeast on sale in those days.

Nowadays people normally buy long loaves of white bread: baguettes weighing 250g (1/2 lb), gros pains of 400g (14 oz) and flutes or ficelles of 100g (4 oz). The taste and quality of the bread varies from good to better, depending on the baker. Pain de campagne is now made by bakers, in either large long loaves or round ones weighing about 1kg (2lb). It is a coarse bread that improves with keeping and has a fermented, winey taste.

In some baker shops it is also possible to buy pain de seigle, rye bread made into flat round loaves, or pain complet, a brownish-grey loaf of wholemeal flour. The baker will also make brioches, buns made with an egg-enriched dough, and croissants, delicate crescents of puff-pastry dough.