French for at the moment, no, not the rugby fans who saw some spectacular sport in Toulon’s rugby victory over Clermont-Auvergne in the European Ruby Cup in Dublin
last weekend, but the farmers.
The first four months of this year were absolutely lousy in terms of weather, with persistent wet and cold. This made the process of saving fodder for feeding cattle practically impossible. Many farmers are so cash strapped that they couldn’t afford to buy in extra supplies and in a typically bureaucratic response, many of the authorities involved could see what was coming down the line but did little to plan rescue measures in advance. In the end, consignments of French hay started arriving
recently, much to the relief of many farmers in the southern part of the Republic. Never has French help to Ireland been so welcome!
This piece of good news was in contrast to the disturbing news that has come out of France in recent days. First of all, there were the economic reports that consumer spending and confidence in France is at its lowest level for 30 years. With France, a king pin of the EU, teetering on the brink of
recession, it’s hardly surprising that serious social problems are starting to emerge. Last week, a middle aged man committed suicide in front of a group of young school children in the 7th arrondissement in Paris. Then at the weekend, two young children were found dead in an apartment on the outskirts of Lyon, having been apparently murdered by their estranged father. Yesterday, Tuesday, saw an even
more bizarre happening, when a 78 year old right wing historian, having ranted in his blog about the new law in France to legalise gay marriage, committed suicide by shooting himself in front of the altar in Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. At the time, 1,500 tourists were inside the cathedral and they all fled, rapidly. The historian was apparently making a Japanese-style hara-kiri call to arms to the
French people to oppose the now legal possibilities of gay marriage.
Just to round off this summary of strange news from France, at the weekend, it emerged that Marine Le Pen, leader of the far right Front National, had an accident while she was moving the grass at one of her three residences. She managed to fall into the empty swimming pool and broke a bone in her back. Even more strangely, if there was by any chance of a French presidential election right now, it’s quite on the cards that the Front National would produce the winner. Marine Le Pen says that the onward development of the EU is destroying the identities of the countries that make up the European Union. Similarly, she is opposed to the euro, as part of this process of merging
the various countries of the European Union into one single super state. Such is
the state of disillusion with politicians in France, especially President Hollande, who promised so much last year and is delivering so little this year (rather similar to President Obama in the US), that the Front National seems the party set to benefit most. It’s rather similar to the situation in England, where UKIP threatens to trounce the Tories; the Tories themselves seem set to dissolve
into chaotic factions over the issues of gay marriage and Europe.
Among all these signs of debilitating political chaos, at least some of the other news from France is more encouraging. In Haut-Rhin this past weekend, a cyclist with a difference broke a new kind of record. Riding what was really a jet-propelled bike, a vélo-fusée, at a disused military base, Francois
Gissy attained a speed of 263 kph. Just imagine if jet-propelled bicycles became the norm!
Then Disneyland Paris announced it was extending the celebrations of its arrival in France 20 years ago right through until September this year. Last year, 16 million tourists enjoyed the festivities and it
seems they will be equally popular this year. Brand new scenes are being added to the night time show, Disney Dreams. Another new feature of Disneyland Paris will be a new superior grade of accommodation, the Golden Forest Club, designed by French architect Antoine Grumbach. I remember well the consternation in many cultural quarters of France when it was announced that Disneyland intended to set up its stall in France. Many saw it as an unwelcome Americanised contrast to pure French culture, but these days, while so many tourists and their children continue to enjoy the Disney spectacle, the Disney presence to the east of Paris seems to be the subject of well, mere indifference.
Also to the east or more precisely, the south-east of Paris, we discovered a delightful small
town that is full of resonances of Impressionism, Moret-sur-Loing. It’s 74 km from
Paris and easily reached by train from the Gare de Lyon. Moret is of course indelibly linked with one of the great Impressionist painters, Alfred Sisley. His work, especially his later paintings, are now considered among the finest in the Impressionist portfolio but that wasn’t the case in his lifetime.
Sisley was born in Paris in 1839. His parents were both British; his father was a wealthy silk merchant, while his mother was immersed in the traditions of classical music. Sisley himself wanted to take out French citizenship later in life, but it never happened, and he retained his British citizenship until the end of his life. While in the first 30 years of his life, he had family wealth behind him, his father’s business was ruined in the aftermath of the 1870 Franco-Prussian war and thereafter, Sisley had a poverty stricken existence. He eventually married his partner, Eugénie, who was Breton. Up until
1880,they lived in the country to the west of Paris. Then they made the big move, to a small village near Moret-sur-Loing. This was close to the forest of Fontainebleau and the town of Barbizon, which had long been a painters’ paradise - Millet was just one of a number of leading painters working there in the 19th century.
Today, Sisley and Moret-sur-Loing are inextricably linked. We had gone there to pay homage to Sisley and his work and see for ourselves this most delightful town of 5,000 souls, set on the River
Loing. The town has 1,400 metres of walls dating from the 12th century, as well as two fortified gateways and 20 towers, as well as the Prieuré de Pont Loup and the church of Notre Dame. We walked across the bridge that had so inspired Sisley and saw for ourselves the narrow streets that had also so inspired him. There’s a statue to Sisley at the place de Samois, at the entrance to the town. Moret has another strange attraction, too, the Musée du Sucre d’Orge, the barley sugar museum. The nuns started making barley sugar in Moret in 1638 and their work is commemorated in this small but fascinating museum.
As for Sisley himself, who had spent almost the last 20 years of his life in and around Moret, he was a productive painter, who produced some 900 oil paintings, about 100 pastels and countless drawings. Yet in his lifetime, he and his work were scarcely recognised. When he died on January 29, 1899, a few months after his beloved wife, he was penniless. Yet today, if one of his paintings comes on the market, it will sell for millions. His work can be seen to good effect in the splendid Musée d’Orsay in the 7th arrondissement in Paris, the old railway station turned into a museum of Impressionism, yet to get the full measure of Sisley and what he was about, you need to make the trip to Moret-sur-Loing-well worth the journey!
I was reminded in another way of all the cultural and social differences that make France such a dazzling country, when I read of the efforts going on in the regional assembly in Corsica to make sure that the Corsican language is given equal status with French. France once had a multitude of
regional languages and French didn’t become the official language of the country until 1539. In 2001,Jack Lang, then a government minister, admitted that for more than two centuries previously, regional languages had been suppressed. They were seen as taboo, a threat to the unity of France. One of President Hollande’s more interesting commitments, immediately after his election last year, was to ensure the granting of legal status to minority languages in France.
These days,24 indigenous languages are recognised in France. Some, like Provencal, have practically disappeared, in its case because of its similarity to French. Others continue to thrive, like Breton; around 200,000 people speak Breton fluently, while around 400,000 more have some knowledge of
it. So Breton is alive and thriving, as is the unique Basque language in south-west France, which of course extends well into northern Spain. Another of the cross-border languages is Catalan, the traditional language in the region around Perpignan in south-west France and again, the local language of Catalunya in north-east Spain.
Non-indigenous languages are also thriving. It’s estimated that around a million people in France have Maghrebi Arabic as their mother tongue. Many other languages have taken root in France; just think of the Russian influence. Then English has made quite an impact, not just in regions like Paris, the Cote d’Azur and in the Dordogne. These days, English is much more commonplace in the Nord Pas de Calais region of north-eastern France, because English people have come to settle there whilst
working in the UK. These days, it’s almost as easy to commute by train to work in London as to be a commuter in the traditional commuter belt of south-east England.
All this linguistic diversity helps make France such a fascinating country, despite the best efforts of the Academie Francaise and its striving to keep French a pure, undefiled language. France may be going through a very turbulent and unsettling time at the moment, but it will never lose its fascination!