Rue Rude

The "Sages" okay the CPE; no one happy

The Conseil Constitionnel (the "neuf Sages") has just given its judgment: the CPE is totally legal.

It's a court that decides on the constitutionality of laws. Only a few people can apply to it for a decision-- the President of France, the Prime Minister, the heads of the Senate and Assembly, and since 1974, also 60 senators and 60 delegates. Because of the rather conservative composition of the court, most people expected it to decide this way.

The CPE is more unpopular than ever: 83% of the French are against it.

Jacques Chirac is going to speak tomorrow evening at 20h. He has been strenuously avoiding taking any public position. on it. I'm sure he approves of the CPE and yet wants to stay popular. The Socialists say they will not negotiate but want the withdrawal of the law.

In Paris, within the past few hours, thirty or so students blocked the Périphérique and invaded the Gare de Lyon to harass the TGV, but were "peacefully evacuated by the forces of order."

The whole thing is making me feel very foreign here. Maybe like French people in the U.S. faced by the 54% of Americans who do not believe humans evolved from earlier species. This is the best article I've seen in English on how the students feel. I have a lot of sympathy for them. I think they're wrong, and will lose the battle in the long run; but it's their country.

CPE: Rêve générale--the General Dream

The Constitutional Court is going to pronounce today on the legality of the CPE.

There is going to be another general strike in France next Tuesday, April 4th.

Students are blocking the highways all over France, especially around Rennes in Brittany and Marseilles. Some of them are blocking train stations as well.

Mais je rêve! In French, that doesn't have a good meaning.

The good news is, Jill Carroll has been freed!

Trümmerfrauen, the Rubble Women

A couple of days ago I had some deliverymen from Germany at my house here in Paris, nice guys who worked hard for hours and kept up a steady stream of jokes and good humor.

One of them stood looking at my bookshelves. "You like to read," he said.

"Ja," I said. "Do you?"

"Ja," he said. "I see you have a lot of books on World War II."

I was slightly embarrassed at all those books on Hitler, Nazis, the Holocaust, D-Day, etc.. "It's nothing new-- I've been interested in World War II since I was a little girl." I didn't say that I'd become obsessed with the war when I first lived in Germany, like so many people who move there.

"My mother was 17 years old at the end of the war," he said.  "She was a Trümmerfrau, spent ten years of her life cleaning up the rubble. She lost her two brothers in the war. One at Stalingrad. Kopfschuss. Shot in the head. One stepped on a German mine in the retreat from Russia. My father was in the Hitler Youth. He said everyone wanted to be in it, it was an honor and a lot of fun. They didn't know any better, they were children. They've spent the rest of their lives being sorry for it.

"I'm interested in World War II, too," he said, "but in Germany I couldn't have a bookshelf like this. Everyone would say I was a Nazi."

The Trümmerfrauen were a tragic generation. They were little girls, trained to be mothers only, as the Hitler Youth took all German children; they spent their adolescence at war. Half the young men died or came home wounded; after the war, Germany was rubble and the women had to rebuild the whole country from the ruins. When Germany started to be prosperous again, their youth was gone. And all along, of course, people outside Germany felt they got what they had richly deserved. They had been the enemy. They were the generation that had been the most convinced Nazis.

A Trümmerfrau, Helene Lohe, taught me German as my babysitter years ago when I first moved to Germany. I'll write about her some day.

Here are two statues to the Trümmerfrauen in Berlin, and a couple of photos of the real ones.

The 75-year-old Daddy

Seen in a "palace hotel" lobby.

A tall, tan, pretty, slightly hard-looking blond American woman, about 35, and her very bratty toddler (I'm a mother, believe me I have a lot of sympathy, but this was a case of just pleading ineffectually with a whining child-- and the child was winning. A grownup should not be pleading with a child of two).

And a gray-haired, wrinkled, well-dressed man of at least 75, trying to read the newspaper in peace. The child's exhausted, unhappy-looking "Daddy."

It reminded me of that famous old saying, "Marry for money and you work for a living."

This is the first time I felt sorry for the male half of that equation.

"Tidal wave in the streets"

Casseurs with hoods and masks are all around Place de la République right now breaking things and causing mayhem right now, 20h30-- stay out of central Paris if you can.

All right, I know I said I wasn't interested in the CPE. I'm not where the action is this time, and I hope it stays that way. But I am listening to the radio while I type and it's been pretty interesting. Between one and three million people in the street! Dominique de Villepin is surprising me with his adherence to his CPE in spite of the huge demonstrations and the media that seems 100% against it (sometimes the reporters seem just as enthusiastic as the  people they are interviewing). I don't know if Villepin is being proud, even arrogant, or if he really believes in it and is ready to sacrifice his own political career (which is what is happening now)-- or maybe both at the same time. He just had a "séance houleuse" (howling storm of a meeting) at the Assemblée Nationale. I heard part of it and while the Prime Minister was speaking you could hear someone shouting "Arrêtez! Arrêtez!"

Reuters just now:

               Left and UDF attack, Dominique de Villepin hedges.

Taunted in the street by hundreds of thousands of people opposed to the Contract of First Hire (CPE, Contrat première embauche), the Prime Minister also had to go into battle in the plusher surroundings of the Assemblée Nationale.

As a governmental strategist, Dominique de Villepin first sent in as his front line his light horse: Jean-Louis Borloo, Gérard Larcher, Catherine Vautrin-- to defend the CPE and try to contain the assaults from the overwrought leftist deputies,  whose voices were joined by that of the UDF delegate Hervé Morin.

"One does not build a personal destiny against one's own people," called the president of the Socialists, Jean-Marc Ayrault, to the Prime Minister as soon as he started speaking about current affairs. "Forget your pride, withdraw the CPE, make peace with the French people!"

He barely finished these remarks when the Minister of Employment, Jean-Louis Borloo, jumped off his bench. "You can't reduce this real debate to a personality question! I frankly find that is really out of place!"

The socialist deputies cried, "Withdrawal! Withdrawal!"

The president of the UDF party spoke in his turn to denounce a "climate of extreme tension" and a "conversation of deaf people" between the government, the unions and the students.

"France cannot afford the luxury of locking itself into a lengthy crisis," pursued Hervé Morin. "Honestly, the CPE is not fundamental to that extent."

This time it was the delegate minister of employment who took the microphone, under the boos of the opposition deputies, whom the UMP president of the Assembly tried in vain to restore to calm.

"Monsieur Valls! We're not in Evry!" called out Jean-Louis Debré to the Socialist delegate from that suburban town, while Gérard Larcher almost shouted to make himself heard: "The government also hears the nation's disquiet."

"LE VOILA ! There he is!"

Jacques Brunhes, one of only three communist or communist sympathizers present-- the others had all gone off to the demonstrations-- spoke in his turn.

"You have chosen, Monsieur le Premier Ministre, to play the game of destruction," he accused. "You are playing with fire, a terribly dangerous game for democracy and for France!"

The UMP deputy Jean Leonetti tried an ecumenical way out of the crisis. "My dear colleagues, beyond our differences...there is at least one  element where we can agree: on the diagnosis."

This time, Dominique de Villepin took the microphone to answer the delegate of his own majority, setting off a furor among the deputies of the left and of the UDF.

"There he is!" cried Jean-Louis Debré from his high perch. "You yell when he doesn't talk and you yell even more when he does talk! Try to make sense!"

While the hubbub covered the first words of the Prime Minister, the UDF deputies, led by François Bayrou, walked out. "We're leaving the UMP to itself!" said Hervé Morin.

Dominique de Villepin remained inflexible on the fundamental question: "The Republic is not prior consultations, the republic is not ultimatums!" He held to his proposal of negotiations on adapting the CPE. "There is still some useful time [before the CPE comes into effect in April], let us put it to work and have a dialogue."

A few minutes later the Socialist delegate Arnaud Montebourg tried some fighting words. "Are you going to deign to descend from your equestrian statue at last to answer us, the elected representatives of the people?" he called to Dominique de Villepin, before asking a question which, however, concerned an entirely different subject.

Over the last few questions, interest died down, deputies started to leave the room, to the annoyance of Jean-Louis Debré, who could not help calling out, "If everyone leaves, I'll stay here alone!"

S'expatrier

Libération had a special dossier on Expatriates today, along with the usual editorials about how the CPE condemns young people to slavery. Of course, it's not an accident that "Ireland and the United Kingdom welcome many [French] graduates in marketing and communication. 'Unemployment is weaker there and they have the impression that a chance is given to young people.'" And yet those horrible countries do not have lifetime employment!

I do pin my hopes on young French expatriates. It's been quite a theme lately. Most people from any country who live abroad when they are young learn a lot about their own culture. It's got to be good for France, just as it's bad for the U.S. (although understandable for geographical reasons) that only 3% of the population has a passport.

Years ago Valérie Lemercier did a hilarious one-woman show in which she twisted ordinary words to make them sound horribly obscene. One of them was s'expatrier (to leave one's own country), which turned into Sex Pas Trié [indiscriminate sex]. Ever since then, I can't hear the word without inwardly snickering. I suppose it's my true, nine-year-old nature coming out.

I'm sorry if I don't write about the literally burning issue any more. I feel as if I have seen it all so many times already. Germany and France are the dinosaurs of Europe and will be the last to adapt, just as GM will go on dying for a long, long time because it's so big.  In the last week, when I was in Germany, several ordinary Germans who heard that I lived in France told me that they were proud of the French for fighting to keep their "acquis sociaux" [literally, "social acquisitions," a phrase that has come to mean the rights that normal employees have in France, such as six weeks of vacation a year, a 35-hour work week enforced by inspectors, and a job for life. The price it exacts from those who are not in the system is also an acquis social, just as it was impossible to find an apartment in New York City when there was rent control].  "We Germans don't fight for our rights the way the French do. It's a shame."

It didn't seem to cross their minds that any nice person might have a different opinion. It reminded me exactly of visiting southern Louisiana right after George W invaded Iraq. You were not allowed to be against our "awesome Christian President" (a quote from one of my favorite cousins)  fighting terrorists who hate freedom.

But Die Gedanken Sind Frei!

Instead I will tell you that the local towns in the Pyrenees where five bears have recently been introduced are planning to name them all. You can propose your choice of name here and the municipal councils will decide.

And yesterday on the way to the airport I noticed that the large gypsy/ Rom encampment at the Courbevoie exit was gone, razed to the ground. I mentioned it to the taxi driver, and he said he had seen bulldozers there about two weeks ago. I wonder where the people went.

The good driver

Me to seven-year-old boy in back seat: Put on your seatbelt, Augustin.

Augustin: At home, I don't have to!

Me (shocked): Your mother doesn't make you put on your seatbelt?

Augustin: No, my mother is a good driver.

National strike tomorrow, Tuesday 28 March, practical info

Yes, it's a big general strike against the CPE. A good day to stay home!

Here is some practical information if you live in France or have to travel there. [From the Nouvel Observateur's site]

Trains.

Seven out of eight of the SNCF (French trains) unions have given a préavis de grève [official notice of a planned strike] from Monday 27 March at 20h/ 8 p.m. till Wednesday morning 29 March at 8h/ 8 a.m.   

The SNCF plans to run two trains out of three on the TGV, 40 % on the Corail, 51 % [sic] on Paris suburban trains. The Eurostar, Thalys, Elipsos, Artesia trains will run normally (en principe!). You can find out what is going on (in French) by dialing 3635, which costs 11 cents a minute.

For the Transilien trains, dial 0805-700-805.

Freight containers: 01.53.33.18.30
Other freight: 01.56.76.10.19

Also www.sncf.com for the long-distance trains and www.abcdtrains.com for the Transilien trains. You can also listen to the radio on Monday 27 March from 18h/ 6 p.m. till 19h30/ 7:30 p.m., and on Tuesday from 6h-8h30, as well as on CityRadio of Paris (107.1 FM) every ten minutes from 6h till 10h and from 17h/ 5 p.m. till 21h/ 9 p.m. for the Ile-de-France network.

The RATP. [Paris Metro and RER]

Metro: Half the trains should be in circulation, while the RER will have two out of five trains running on line A, one in four on line B. For the RER A, there will be no connection at Nanterre-Préfecture; also none at the Gare du Nord on RER B. More info: www.ratp.fr or free phone number 0800-151111

In the Provinces.

There will be at least 24-hour strikes in 71 cities.
Angers, Annecy, Annonay, Aurillac, Avignon, Bayonne, Belfort, Besançon, Bordeaux, Boulogne-sur-mer, Bourges, Caen, Calais, Cannes, Chambéry, Charleville-Mézières, Châteauroux, Clermont-Ferrand, Corbeil-Essonnes, Le Creusot, Montceau-les-Mines, Dijon, Douai, Dunkerque, Elbeuf, Evreux, Forbach, Fos-sur-mer, Grenoble, Le Havre, Lens, Lille, Limoges, Lyon (www.tcl.fr), Le Mans, Marseille (www.rtm.fr), Maubeuge, Montbéliard, Montluçon, Montpellier, Mulhouse, Nantes, Nice, Nîmes, Orléans, Pau, Quimper, Reims, Rennes, Roanne, La Roche-sur-Yon, La Rochelle, Rouen, Saintes, Saint-Brieuc, Saint-Etienne, Saint-Malo, Saint-Nazaire, Sète, Strasbourg, Toulon, Toulouse, Tours, Valence, Valenciennes, Vannes, Versailles et Vierzon.

One-hour strikes in Béziers, Brest, Laval et Saumur.

Airports, Air transport.

There will be disturbances and flight cancellations "concerning all traffic" --no more precise information. The air traffic controllers unions have given a préavis de grève.

Paris airports: Two main unions have called for a strike.

Air France: Eight unions have called for work stoppages for between three and a half to 24 hours.

Préavis de grève have also been given for the security companies at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports.

Stormy weather in Paris

Everyone is talking about the weather. It's just bizarre. One minute it is cold, the next warm. Sunny, but raining. Cold and wet. It doesn't feel like spring. The buds are barely visible, even though normally by this time of year the forsythia are bright yellow and the daffodils are out. It's so cold! I thought these clouds yesterday were so beautiful.

I needed to get my hair cut and a few days ago I had called the hair salon to make an appointment with Janine and Paul, as usual. "Janine n'est pas libre," said the receptionist. It sounded final, as if I had better hang up and go away.

"Well, then what about Manu?" I said. "Is she free? I'll go with Manu."

"Very well, Manu à quinze heures, et ensuite Paul."

I was delighted. I actually prefer Manu, who is more fun to talk to and really does a better job.

I was in another appointment when my cell phone rang. "Call the coiffeur, it's urgent."  Alarmed, I called the coiffeur. The receptionist passed the phone to Janine.

"Madame, what is this about your going to Manu? Why didn't you ask for me?"

"But I did, Janine! They said that you were not libre."

"Well, you should have spoken to me. Next time, just have them call me. Would 15h15 arrange you?"

"Euh, that's fine," I said.

"Good," said Janine, satisfied. "A très bientôt!"

This reminded me of the time when my dentist accused me of unfaithfulness. I felt so guilty.

To be fair, Janine has been through a lot with me, from the time I was an hour late because one of my kids put handcuffs on our timorous Hungarian au pair, and we had to take her to the nearest fire station to get them off (which amused the bored firemen no end; they had a special pair of four-foot-high shears for the job), to a time when the concierge had been especially nasty and I fell into Janine's arms sobbing when she innocently asked, "Ça va?" 

Afterwards I had to go to the Champs-Elysées. There must have been an important Spaniard in town. They change the flags according to who is visiting.

In the late afternoon I went by a little square in the 16th, where some high school students were hard at work setting up a stage for a planned manif, probably against the CPE. I felt sorry for them when it started pouring down rain right when the manif was supposed to start. There was no one there an hour later.

I also saw a few pro-CPE stickers. Typical that they were in the 16th, I suppose. The latest survey showed that a majority of conservative voters is for the CPE, but that the majority of the country in general is against. Anyway, the CPE is dead, as this newspaper shows. (The casseur with the metal bar is wearing a Burberry scarf.)

 

Then I saw a poster that interested me even more. An anti-crotte poster. It says, "You won't stand for that in your home? Paris is your home!"

In 16 years in France, I have seen people  pick up after a dog... twice.

 

The friendly conductor

Back in Paris, thank goodness! It's been too long.

I arrived on the overnight train. I bought my ticket at the last minute, and the only bed left on the train was a first-class compartment. It cost 179 euros.

The conductor was a dark, short, rather sleazy-looking Frenchman about 50, who spoke a bunch of different languages. I heard him flirting in bad Japanese with a very pretty girl as she was getting out. When he got to my compartment, he took my passport and ticket and put them in a folding file. (When the train passes the border in the night, the conductor meets the border police. In the morning he gives you everything back, along with coffee, tea, or chocolate and a biscuit.) "Est-ce que je peux vous proposer un sandwich? Ou un coca?" he said when he came back later.

"Is there any wine?" I said.

"Oui. Du rouge, n'est-ce pas?" he asked with an expert air.

He brought me a small bottle of Bordeaux and a plastic glass and then we chatted for a few minutes. I guess that it's a pretty lonely job, being a night conductor. However, as train jobs go, I imagine it's a very good one. But he was a little too nosy for me. When he finished a sentence with "...Mademoiselle, euh....ou Madame?"

"Madame," I said firmly, and shut the door.

"Don't forget to lock it," he called through the door in English. "I cannot always 'elp myself!"

(This is actually a security measure that all travelers should take. But I laughed anyway as I turned the lock.)