Rue Rude

Dominique-nique-nique

This song, written and sung by a Belgian nun nicknamed Soeur Sourire (Sister Smile, or The Singing Nun as she was known in the U.S.) about Saint Dominic, the founder of the Dominicans, was a huge hit worldwide around 1963. Since Saturday I have heard it several times-- because certain interpretations of it seem to apply so well to the current scandal around extremely rich Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Dominique, nique, nique                     [Dominique niques, niques
S'en allait tout simplement,                simply let himself go
Routier, pauvre et chantant                on the road, poor, and singing,
En tous chemins, en tous lieux,          on all the paths, in every place,
Il ne parle que du Bon Dieu,               he talked only about the Good Lord,
Il ne parle que du Bon Dieu...             he talked only about the Good Lord.

Ni chameau, ni diligence,                   No camel, no coach,
Il parcourt l'Europe à pied                 he crossed Europe on foot
Scandinavie ou Provence,                   Scandinavia, Provence,
Dans la sainte pauvreté...                    in holy poverty....]

Nuclear energy in France and Japan

The horrendous stories coming out of Japan since the earthquake, and especially the very real possibility of a nuclear meltdown, made me remember what I usually try to forget: the power for my lamps and washing machine and computer here in Paris comes from nuclear plants.

In 1986, when the Chernobyl nuclear reactor melted down in Ukraine-- still in the Soviet Union at the time-- I was living in Munich, Germany. The Soviets told no one about the meltdown. The radiation from Chernobyl, swept by the wind, blew to Sweden where the Swedes detected it and warned the world. But it then blew south over all of Germany and in Bavaria, in fact right over Munich, fell to the ground as rain. I was out in that rainstorm and got soaking wet; we had received no warning. A radiologist taking a walk with his child that day sued the government for endangering its citizens.

Below: A map from the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation of the Surface ground deposition of caesium-137 in Europe

The Germans reacted to Chernobyl with strong measures to protect people's health. Here's what I wrote about it later:

"The Germans ran article after article in all the newspapers about what measures to take, what not to eat (wild mushrooms and berries), what the exact dangers were. As the wind and rain from Chernobyl swept across Europe, the German government ordered all the cattle and schoolchildren in Germany indoors for a couple of weeks, forbade the sale of wild mushrooms and berries, and had the wooden structures in every playground in the country planed. The newspapers were full of advice about radiation and iodine and what measures everyone should take.

"In the middle of the crisis, I took the train to Paris to meet my brother. As soon as you crossed the border, there were cattle grazing peacefully in the fields again and children playing outdoors. The newspapers were full of other things. If you mentioned Chernobyl, the French would say, “That was a week ago!” The reason for the different approaches: France got and still gets most of its electrical power from nuclear plants." The French government did.... nothing.

From the Greek government's Demokritos Institute of Nuclear Technology (below) -- A Map of the Risk of Nuclear Accidents in Europe:

I still don't eat cheap wild mushrooms-- a lot of them come from the Ukraine. 

"Why France is impossible to reform"

Lack of inspiration today, so I just took a photo of this week's cover of L'Express, which says it all.

I have an old university classmate who is quite far left by American standards, although he would be fairly mainstream left for French-- oddly, he used to be far right in college; I have always thought that people on the extremes politically have much in common. Anyway, on a listserv discussion of the French strikes yesterday, he wrote, "Really, do you think [France would] have a welfare state without the strikes? We've [Americans] got no strikes and no welfare state." 

But I thought back to the Dutch, with their long history of taking care of the poor and orphans through city foundations, or the Germans, who had Bismarck impose a welfare state from the top, or British, many of whom had never been as well off as during the war when everything was rationed, so voted for Labor after the war in spite of loving their Churchill. Why are the French so different? Would France really be worse off if they weren't always in the streets?

 

Condoleezza Rice is in town

President Chirac is presiding over a conference on the future of Lebanon. Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz of the World Bank, the Lebanese Prime Minister, forty representatives of other countries, and the Secretary General of the United Nations are in town.

A good day to avoid the Arc de Triomphe area!

Darfur at the airport

As Le Monde reporter Corine Lesnes has pointed out, it is odd that the French, who tend to feel a connection to Africa because of their anciennes colonies, have not seemed interested in Darfur. So I was surprised to see these posters all over Roissy/CDG last night.

*[First poster] Darfur: Beyond the news [ad for new 24-hour international French news channel, France24]
[Second poster]  400,000 people massacred. We won't be able to say we didn't know.  UrgenceDarfour.com

(which I just visited, and the website is really bad. The main action seems to be a petition. Here is a site I find much more useful, at least for British and Americans. Too many French websites are just bad. There is usually way too much emphasis on looks and fancy Flash animations--and not enough on simplicity and ease of use. Somehow that seems very French.)

Delanoë disaster. The Mayor is killing Paris. Oh, and me, too.

"Aren't there any taxis in Paris?" asked my innocent visitors from Rome, who had walked all the way to my house from the Place de la Concorde (about 45 minutes) in the middle of the day without finding one. On a Friday.

 

 

"I hate the mayor! I hate the mayor!" I have taken to chanting in the car as I sit in interminable pointless traffic jams whenever I venture out of my neighborhood. Pointless, because the traffic jams are produced for the sole reason of making my life hell, as you can see from the citation* above. Merci, Monsieur Delanoë!

For example, a left turn is the obvious way to get to the boulevard Magenta [the major thoroughfare in and out of Paris to the north] from the Gare du Nord parking lot.

So-- let's block it! says the mayor.

Make all the drivers go around the block onto the completely snarled boulevard de la Chapelle! (Snarled because of the mayor's innovative bus lanes now completely hogging the avenue.) A maneuver which now takes half an hour. All the while,  the cars honk; they get into accidents sliding past each other with centimeters to spare; they run their engines; they clog the intersections so pedestrians can't cross; they block the buses.

Going around the block would take even longer if there were not a disgusted-looking policewoman making everyone run the red lights.

This mayor, who has no driver's license, is creating a city in which drivers waste 62.2 million hours a year in traffic jams.  But that's okay, because drivers are bad!

He has absolutely no understanding of what it takes to be a mère de famille in a large city. I think he hates us. We're not cool. We're not his image of young, fun Paris, zipping around on our bicycles going to museums and gallery openings, or riding to work on the metro with a newspaper as seul bagage. (The mayor is a confirmed bachelor.) 

Not mothers doing the shopping for a family, or bringing children to different schools the same morning, or picking up people at the train station with large suitcases.

Not foreigners who are passing through Paris for a day or two in their car. Not an old person who can't walk easily. Not a delivery man who has to work longer hours and is late for appointments because the traffic is deliberately stalled. Not inner-city shops and restaurants who need customers from too far away to walk home. (I scarcely go there any more.)

Especially, not anyone from the suburbs. The suburban commuters are suffering the most, but they don't vote in Paris, so the mayor doesn't care about them. Even though most car drivers in Paris work there. And even though most people in Paris use their cars because they NEED them.

This is a city where large packages are forbidden on the bus. Anyway, buses are stuck in traffic jams despite the mayor's giving them two-thirds of the road (which is the reason there are traffic jams). So that most people who do take the bus are people without jobs. (Did I mention that buses have two-thirds of the road?)

A city where you cannot get a cab at night, in the rain, during school holidays, on weekends, if there are more than three of you, or after the metro closes. [Shortcut: each word is a link to people complaining how you can't get a cab in Paris.]

A city where there are no elevators or escalators into most metro stations, and where a current "respect" campaign pictures as public enemy number one a mother trying to get onto the metro with a baby stroller. How dare she?

Today I had the malheur of having to go to the Gare du Nord and the airport in one day.

*Update: Here is the quotation, which was posted under "Today's Quotation" for that day:

Ce n'est qu'en leur faisant vivre l'enfer que nous obtiendrons un jour des automobilistes qu'ils renoncent à leur bagnole.

The only way to get drivers to give up their cars is by making them live through hell.

--Yves Contassot, the deputy mayor for the environment under current Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë

Ségolène Royal and the Rainbow Warrior

Yesterday I was reading Le Parisien's special on Ségolène Royal. There was an interview with one of her brothers, Antoine, who runs a sawmill in the south of France. "Hey, listen to this!" I said as I read. "Ségolène Royal's brother was one of the French secret service guys who blew up the Rainbow Warrior!"

Antoine said in the interview that their brother Gérard had told him that he had actually put the bomb (posé la bombe) on board .

For those of you too young to remember, the Rainbow Warrior was a Greenpeace ship that had gone to New Zealand in 1985 to protest French nuclear testing in the South Pacific. The explosion sank the ship and one of the crew died. Later the French secret service people who were imprisoned for it in New Zealand were given the Legion of Honor.

My family showed a typical lack of interest in this startling admission, but to my surprise Antoine has gotten his sister into hot water and the Parisien interview is big news-- especially in New Zealand, of course. Ségolène Royal came out swinging, attacking the media for publishing this kind of thing during an election campaign "without verifying it." As for her brother, she could not answer any questions about him and suggested reporters talk to the Defense Department.

Hey, one of my uncles was a pilot in the Korean War and used to fly a nuclear bomb around. But don't quote me.

Update: The plot thickens! It turns out that in 1985, when Mitterrand gave orders for the Rainbow Warrior to be exploded, Ségolène Royal was working as conseillère technique au secrétariat général de la présidence de la République, i.e. working with Mitterrand.

The Losing-Machine

The Socialists are trying so very, very hard not to have Ségolène Royal as their presidential candidate. How dare she get ahead of dinosaurs like Lionel Jospin! It's getting ridiculous.

Now they are insisting on six debates-- three televised-- among all the Socialist candidates before the primary vote on November 16th.   The obvious reason for this is to get rid of Ségolène, who, according to popular wisdom, has no ideas of her own. Instead, the bewildered Socialists will turn for comfort to one of their dinosaurs!

Yesterday evening Mme  Royal  lost her temper. "You have to wonder if some people don't want to lose-- if they haven't started the losing-machine."

["C'est à se demander si certains n'ont pas envie de perdre, si la machine à perdre n'est pas déclenchée."]

Update on Thursday, 28 September: Lionel Jospin has just announced he is quitting the race. He avoided endorsing anyone.

Summer of bombs in Lebanon

"Did you have a nice summer? Where did you go?" I asked the young clerk at a store I go to regularly.

"I was in the south of Lebanon in July," he answered.

"But you're not Lebanese?" The boy has red hair and freckles and looks franco-français.

"No, we were on a youth charity project to help with irrigation canals," he said. "I was not expecting to hear bombs every night! The embassy sent cars to find out about our situation and then helicopters to pick us up. Then we went by ship to Cyprus."

The middle east is nearer here.

On the road again

Tonight I was back at the airport at Roissy, flying to Scotland. A new twist in the constantly changing regulations is that this time all the computers, cameras and cell phones had to be carried in your arms and turned on right before you got onto the bus for the plane.

Drinks and meals on the plane all cost money. "What about water?" I said.

"You have to pay for it."

"Even though we are not allowed to bring our own bottles onto the plane?"

"That's right."

When I got here I looked up the airline's own website FAQs and found:

Can I take my own food and drink onboard?
...Customers are not permitted to take any drinks onboard[sic].
We are providing extra water in-flight.

Five of our suitcases are still missing since Monday. When I mentioned this to a gate agent, he said, "Have you seen the baggage claim area? So many bags are lost right now because of the new rules that they are bringing them over to warehouses by tractor-trailer [semi-remorques]."

Ça promet!