Category — General

A friend from London says she often hears her compatriots complaining (presumably after visiting France), ‘Why can’t France be more capitalist? You have to go to about five different shops to buy your headache tablets, your newspaper, your fish, your groceries, and your bread. It’s so inconvenient.’  The people who say this must be taking as their benchmark a place like Asda, or similar superstores where you can buy absolutely everything in the one shop—food, books and newspapers, pharmaceuticals, clothes, and even furniture and household goods. I did go into one of those places once when there was absolutely no alternative, and it’s not something I want to repeat.

Maybe such places do make a country more ‘capitalist’ which presumably means more profit-oriented. But profit for whom? For the owners or bosses on their obscenely high salaries, and probably also for those gamblers we call ‘shareholders’.

But the sort of capital I am more interested in is ‘social capital’, a concept well known to those such as sociologists and social workers who care more about the quality of the lives of individuals, rather than the quantities of material gain, or profits. Social capital refers to our daily interactions, our conversations, our recognition of each other, if not by name, certainly by face. This starts to happen quite frequently, at least it seems to here in Paris, after only a couple of weeks of buying my daily necessities at the cheese shop, the coffee supplier, the boulangerie, and even in my local restaurant (the wonderful Le Square Trousseau from Paris je t’aime fame), all in my immediate neighbourhood.

Of course, these petits commercants also have to make a profit—their own livelihood depends upon it. But there is something very satisfying, that goes way beyond concepts of profit and loss, about buying my still-warm morning baguette from the people who have been up since before dawn to bake it. Or my coffee from the man who buys the raw beans wholesale and then roasts them in his shop in the rue d’Aligre, only grinding them when I have chosen the particular variety that I like.

The couple who run my favourite vegetable stall in the daily Marche d’Aligre know me as l’Australienne, and the wife likes to practise her English with me, while her husband corrects my French.

Even in my local Franprix supermarket (where I know several of the cashiers by sight, if not by name), a quick chat can start up in the (very frequent) queues. This evening, the woman in the queue behind me said (in French of course), ‘Oh your hair looks so nice and shiny!’ I thanked her for the compliment and explained that I’d just coloured it, as one of my daughters-in-law had brought from England a couple of packets of the type I like, but of which I couldn’t remember the brand. We then moved on to discussing our children’s ages (almost the same!), whether we had grandchildren or not (she does, I don’t), until the queue finally moved, and we bid each other a bonne soirée.

Superstores probably exist on the outskirts of French cities like they do in many other countries, but for people who have a choice about whether or not to use them, I think we need to stop and reflect on what sort of society we want to be part of.  As anyone who reads Wikipedia could tell us, our word society comes from the Latin word societas and before that socius, meaning comrade, friend or ally, and signifying interaction among individuals who are friendly towards one another, who give each other mutual assistance.

There are many things I love about living in the 21^st century, but uber-capitalism at the expense of social capital is not one of them.

I usually write about Paris as if all readers are familiar with it, know where to go, where to stay, have friends to visit who can show them around, and so on.  But what if it’s your first time? If I think back to my first time here, it was spent in great confusion, not really knowing what to see in my very limited few days.

I’ve just done a little research, and I think if you are in this category, and want to see as much as possible of what Paris has to offer, the Paris Pass is ideal for you. With so much included in this pass, you really can’t go wrong. The Paris Pass includes entrance to over 55 top attractions, including Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Musée Louvre.

One of the best features of the  Paris Pass is that you can bypass the entrance queues. Even in winter these can be long at the main attractions, and in summer they can go for half a kilometre or more. A Paris Metro pass is included with the Paris Pass, as well as a map specifically designed for its users. An audio guide explains all the facts surrounding the different places, meaning you have the freedom to go where you choose with the expertise of a virtual tour guide. You really can’t go wrong with the Paris Pass.

First timers to Paris, and indeed anyone who has not seen it before, must go to the Eiffel Tower, and there are some great  Eiffel Tower tours. I think everyone should climb up it at least once in their lifetime. I remember standing on the top level years ago with someone special, thinking (in the words of a famous Australian advertisement—although referring in that case to the Outback): ‘It doesn’t get any better than this.’

The views from each level of the tower are spectacular, and nothing else quite compares. You can also dine in one of the exquisite restaurants, or sip on a French hot chocolate whilst taking in the breathtaking views  As it’s rather cold and foggy here at the moment, the early evening is the best time, when all the lights are coming on.

Whatever your other plans for Paris, first check out the Paris Pass.

I’m in the beautiful Grand’ Place in Brussels, en route to my current escape to Paris, via a conference in Belgium. If this fairytale square were in any other city in Western Europe, the exquisite architectural masterpieces would have all been bought up by boutique hotel chains, staffed by people far too posh to talk to ordinary (read non-rich) mortals, and the whole place would be beyond the wallets of most of us.  As it is, there’s only one hotel on the Place itself, and inside it’s most unassuming, even slightly shabby, but cosy and friendly. I wanted to stay in Brussels to have some French conversations on my way to the more Flemish-speaking Antwerp, and my objective has certainly been met.

Some lines describing Brussels, penned by exiled Catalan poet Josep Carner who lived here for 28 years until he died in 1970, come to mind (from his poem ‘Belgica’):

‘I would like to grow old in a city/ Where the soldiers don’t look too real…’

In the book Brussels by Andre de Vries, I’ve discovered that ‘many Belgians took great risks to save Jews in their midst by hiding them in their houses, so that considerable numbers survived the war.’ De Vries states that from the statistics it appears that ‘Belgians rescued more Jews from Nazi persecution than the rest of Europe put together’ (244).

And what am I eating for dinner? Moules marinieres and frites, of course!

One evening just before Christmas here in Melbourne I had dinner with friends at a relatively upmarket restaurant in St Kilda. Not long after we had sat down, a group of about eight people came in and were seated near us. From then on, our dinner conversation was all but drowned out by the yells, guffaws, and that particular type of ear-splitting faux-laugh that I assume is meant to signify ‘I am having such a great time, and am such a party animal…’

In my usual misanthropic way, I turned to my friends and said, ‘This would never happen in France. The waiters would ask them to be quiet. Actually, that wouldn’t even be necessary, as no French person would ever dream of carrying on like this.’

My friends didn’t refute this, as they don’t know France, but I could see in their eyes the look I often receive in response to my stated enthusiasm for France:  ‘Oh here she goes again–myopically extolling the virtues of everything French.’

So I was rather joyfully vindicated when one of my friends rang the next day (she of the particularly sceptical look, actually), drawing my attention to an article in the Melbourne Age newspaper, which said almost the very same thing I’d said the night before.

Incidentally, the photo above was taken at the incomparable and historic Le Bouillon Chartier, in Paris, an enormous restaurant, but where you can have a civilised conversation without ever needing to raise your voice. The men at the next table clowning around in the background of the photo did it so quietly that we didn’t even know they had done this until we viewed the photograph later! The restaurant itself, founded in 1896 deserves its own entry, which I will do when I’m in Paris again in a few weeks time, necessitating a revisit for research purposes.

I’m certain that Melbourne is home to more Francophiles per capita than any other city in Australia, perhaps even in the English-speaking world. I don’t have empirical data for this, just a strong gut feeling. A shopkeeper only has to give her shop a French name and stock a few things French and the Francophiles come like homing pigeons, including moi of course.

A Belgian friend (who is francophone and fairly Francophile, but whose mother tongue is Flemish) was here in Melbourne a few years ago, helping out in a friend’s handmade soap shop for a few months. The customers were forever asking her if she were French. The first few times, she tried explaining what she really was, but soon gave up as the women always seemed so disappointed to find she wasn’t. She found it easier to say, ‘Yes, I’m French’. She quickly discovered that the customers would invariably buy a great many more bars and balls of soap, when they thought they were being served by a Frenchwoman. Amazing, non?

One of these days I will conduct some research into the emotions invoked in Australian (and possibly mainly female) hearts and minds by the idea of Frenchness. It doesn’t happen to the same extent at all in England, I’ve noticed, where the longlived antagonisms and rivalries between the English and the French completely obliterate any emotional resonance of French glamour that so characterises the feelings of many Australians.

My latest evidence in my eternal quest for empirical evidence of Australian Francophilia is in the form of a little shop called l’uccello. Yes, I know that’s Italian, but the shop itself is stocked with more French items than Italian. The owner says she loves all things Parisian and Venetian, and was just enamoured of the Italian word for ‘bird’, that she had to use it as the name for her shop.  I told her I thought l’oiseau would be better, but she didn’t look convinced.

L’uccello is on the second floor of the Nicholas Building on Swanston Street (near the corner with Flinders Lane)—and there are a great many other quirky little shops in that building, if you are planning to visit. The Nicholas Building itself is considered the grandest commercial example of the 1920s palazzo architecture in Melbourne, is classified by the National Trust, and on the Victorian Heritage Register. It was originally built 1925-26 for Alfred Nicholas, one of the men who developed Aspro, after his chemist brother George Nicholas invented it around 1915. You can find more details on the history here.

But back to the shopping: I especially love the reproduction French pastoral-scene fabrics, and yesterday bought some to make European pillow-slips, and matching runners for the bedside tables; as well as some very lovely French vintage buttons.

by guest blogger Marc Cogan

Saturday showed us the last of the scheduled demonstrations against the Sarkozy government’s reform of the pension and retirement system–or, at least, of the current big change proposed by President Sarkozy: raising the retirement age from  60 to 62.   Now, the French unions and French workers are not delusional.  They too know that in this day and age retiring at 60 is a luxury few if any countries can afford.  But the unions are also all too aware that any change in the pension system passed into law this year will be only the first of a far more extensive set of concessions yet to come.  Rather than have the changes sprung on them one by one, the unions would like to be at the table negotiating the whole longterm package.

The series of impressive demonstrations put together by the major French unions over the last few months against the new laws–marches and strikes that were impressive both for the size of their participation and the breadth of public support–were more likely to have been aimed at leveraging an invitation to the unions to negotiate the new shape of the pension system than at stopping the passage of this first change.  Given the Sarkozy government’s majorities in both houses of the legislature, passage of the law was never in much doubt.  In fact, the law changing the retirement age from 60 to 62 received final approval on Tuesday, Oct. 26, when the Senate passed the final version of the bill.  This was more than a week before Saturday’s scheduled march, which would have made the march both futile and anti-climactic if its purpose had been to block passage of the law.

Seen in the context of a longer battle over the ultimate overhaul of the pension system, though, Saturday’s demonstrations took on their own appropriate strategic value, and in  this context were probably meant to be the culmination of the whole suite of demonstrations.   From that standpoint, they must have been something of a disappointment.  The weather certainly did not cooperate with the demonstrators.  Saturday dawned heavily overcast, and in Paris the rain began before noon–a steady, cold, and sometimes heavy rain.  Turnout was down, obviously, but in Paris at least, I’d say participation was still quite high.

The demonstration followed a familiar route: Place de la République to Place de la Bastille to Place de la Nation.  The organizers are real pros at this, knowing how to slow the marchers down so that the entire route is filled for hours; knowing when to hold marchers in place so that lines which may have gotten a little stretched and thin thicken up and seem more impressive.  As you can see from the photos, while umbrellas were de rigeur, the boulevards were pretty well filled, and for the more or less “standard” length of time for the itinerary.  (The photos were taken along the Boulevard Beaumarchais near the Place de la Bastille.)  The end of the marchers had still not filed through the Place de la Bastille more than two hours after the start of the march.

Spirits seemed good, despite the weather and despite the Senate vote which had already made the retirement age change law.  Many of the marching groups chanted calls for “tous ensemble, grève générale” (“all together now, general strike”).   While a general strike hardly seems likely at the present time–no noticeable public support for such a move, nor would this be the appropriate or most effective moment for it–Saturday’s marchers clearly recognized the need for some way of keeping the pressure on the government, and further agitation is no doubt being planned.