Here in Paris, where a strike could be called any minute, taking commuters by surprise, all is quiet – for now. The sun is out, the skies are blue, although it’s growing colder by the day.
Strolling about, browsing in bookshops, dodging cars when jaywalking, is still a delight in this city of light. I went to the W.H. Smith Bookshop on Tuilleries and came upon a fascinating book entitled, The Arrogance of the French, which went for a pricey Euros 31.10.
Although shocked to the depths of my frugal soul by the price-tag, I felt compelled to buy it since it was written by a guy I thought had long ago departed this vale of tears, namely Richard Z. Chesnoff. Remember Dick Chesnoff? My old friend Chesnoff was the NESWEEK Editor who had written that lavishly illustrated picture book on IMELDA as Superma’am during the zenith of the Marcos Hegemony.
It turns out that after quitting NEWSWEEK, Dick had gone off to live in France for most of the past 20 years, while writing for major American magazines and newspapers as a contributor. (Mostly the US News & World Report, and for the New York Daily News, where he was a columnist.)
Chesnoff, who apparently divides his time between southern France and New York City, declares in his witty, sarcastic, pungent new opus (Sentinel Publishers, 2005) that "next to bicycle races and soccer (or le foot, as the French call it) anti-Americanism is arguably Europe’s most popular sport. It has been for almost a century, or at least decades – and certainly since we last sent over fleets of our aircraft, ships, arms, as well as several million men and women to liberate the continent."
"You name it, and the Europeans are ready to criticize it. What’s more, tens of thousands are prepared to come out on the street to shout about and demonstrate against anything America: be it MacDonald’s, or our policy on pollution, or our war in Iraq . . . If it weren’t so annoying, it would just be boring."
". . . To the French we (Americans) seem evil incarnate.
They perceive us as neo-imperialistic, greedy, and ruthlessly competitive – the ‘hyper-power’ as former French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine defined it, a self-serving nation whose riches are acquired at the price of Third World economic destruction and European cultural impoverishment."
I’m inclined to agree with Dick’s complaint. I saw it reaffirmed in the UNESCO general assembly meetings last Monday and Tuesday. The Francophone nations and their allies in Africa, Asia and even sub-Antartica thumbed their noses at the American delegate’s plea for a vote on the Convention on Cultural Diversity to be postponed and the draft be reopened for discussion and amendment.
They voted to adopt it, with poor USA and Israel the only dissenting voters. I guess, despite disgust and disappointment. America’s representative, Ambassador Louise V. Oliver, while continuing to strenuously object, won’t recommend to her boss, US President George W. Bush, that the US abandon UNESCO and walk out as it did 20 years ago.
But the "Yanks" are disgruntled.
Things, alas, have begun to change. Parisians are actually learning to smile. But will Paris still be Paris after the collapse of snobisme? The danger signs are all around: the French being helpful to tourists, going out of their way to give them directions and guiding them to museums, boutiques, bistros and other diversions – why, sacre bleu! even when a stray American still has the gall to blunder into Paris, he’ll – but especially she’ll – find relatively friendly Frenchmen. Even les flics (the cops) have become increasingly kind and accommodating.
Whether frowning or smiling, Paris has that mysterious charm, that special cachet, that extra sparkle (more bubbly than Champagne). The English language, and other tongues, in fact, use words the French invented – like chic, style and savoir faire. And the French, although the younger people have gone quite sloppy (faded, dirty jeans are the fashion for the young women) still excel in these very things.
My heart leaps up whenever I catch my first glimpse of the rolling meadowlands of France, the leafy and well-manicured trees and greens, the unique tiled rooftops and gables, and the gray garrets of the Parisian arrondisements, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysees, and the Etoile, the golden cupola of L’Invalides (were the great Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte lies entombed in a sarcophagus of red porphyry) – and, of course, my old accustomed haunts of the Quartier Latin around the Boul’ Mich – the Boulevard St. Michel – Boulevard Raspail, and Montparnasse where Jose Rizal once lived.
The Germans love France, too – even more than I do. There’s an old German saying. "Frohlich wie der liebe Gott in Frankreich!" (Happy as Dear God in France). The Germans truly love Paris so much that they invaded France in three wars within a century. And when the German General Occupying Paris, towards the end of World War II, was ordered by Adolf Hitler to blow up and burn down Paris before retreating from the city, he defied Der Fuehrer and absolutely refused Paris forever, he said.
Again, I must repeat while rhapsodizing about Paris, that the French are not very loveable people, per se. And the stuffy Parisians least of all. While Julius Caesar who wrote the first "Progress Report" about the Gauls (the French) while he and his Roman Legions pined away for the warm and sunny climes of Rome, divided Gaul into partes tres – three parts – the Parisians think that France is divided into only two, namely Paris and The Provinces. Other French from "outside" cities complain about the Parisians’ caracteres mauvais (most of the Paris folk are immigrants, though, even from Algeria and Morocco). As for the French-speaking Walloons from Belgium, they are often regarded as bumpkins from "la civilisation des pommes-frites." I enjoy those Belgian pommes-frites (fries) immensely, however – they’re especially tasty when hot, with mayonnaise, taken as you walk along in the cold of Winter.
The French, in sum, have a clear vision of their role of greatness in the world. They are puzzled that most of the world doesn’t speak French. They are right to point out that there are, nonetheless, 300 million French-speaking people around the planet, including the inhabitants of vast regions of Africa – and Canada ("Vive le Quebec libre!"). They note, proudly, that 27 countries (notably in their former colonial preserves in Africa) have adopted French as their official language.
Yet, the 362-year old body, the Academie Francaise (founded by King Louis XIII), with a handpicked membership of 35 to 38 distinguished men of letters devoting their lifetime to safeguarding the "purity" of the French language, is losing the battle. The French of this Academy, like Horatius at the Bridge, are determined to keep the "enemy," the English language of the hated Brits, out, for they say it would corrupt the way the French people think, write and speak. Sad to say (for them) English – and, zut alors, "America-speak" are winning the contest – there are Hotels Le Weekend already all over France, more ubiquitous than Hotel Ibis. That creeping contagion called Franglais, as insidious as MacDonald’s, "Starbucks" and Le Drugstore, is on the march.
But what the heck. Paris will always be Paris. Annoying but incomparable. Beautiful in both poetry and prose. The Paris Metro is incomparable, too. It covers 192 kilometers underground, serves 360 stations (including one called "Stalingrad" despite the disgrace of Stalin in Russia itself) and is utilized to speed five million Parisians and aliens, like me, through the metropolis in every direction – for the measly fee of one carnet of ten tickets, costing less than 12 euros.
For me this is the crowning achievement of France’s mission civilisatrice.