sunny one could be forgiven for thinking we were still in mid-summer! The recent run of mild weather has been incredible and welcome; in two months time, we’re probably going to be in the midst of a snowy winter!
In France, they’ve had other concerns, like earthquakes. The other afternoon, an earthquake measuring close to four on the Richter scale rumbled beneath Rennes in Brittany and was felt as far away as Quimper. The experts described this as a rare happening in that part of France. Just the other day, too, on the Cote d’Azur, a similarly sized earthquake was felt, but no-one took much notice. There, rumblings in the bowels of the earth are fairly frequent, although
fortunately, it’s been a long time since the last big one.
On February 23, 1887, a powerful earthquake measuring about six on the Richter scale hit the Italian Riviera and was felt as far west as Marseilles. In Menton, more than 200 homes were destroyed, while in the centre of Nice, many buildings collapsed and the esplanade was badly damaged. The death toll was substantial, about 2,500 in all, with all but about 500 of those casualties taking place on the Italian side of the frontier. In Nice, it was all total chaos. At 6 am the morning the earthquake struck, the centre of Nice was filled with tourists who had fled their hotels; altogether, about 12,000 people left the city on the first available trains, many still dressed in their pyjamas.
An emergency of another kind struck the other day. An Air France flight en route from Paris to Nice was having problems with its hydraulic systems and had to make an emergency landing at Lyons, but
fortunately, no-one was hurt.
All of which brings me to the events of late 1783, when the first balloon flights were made. On August 27 that year, the first ever flight by a hydrogen filled balloon, with no-one aboard, took to the skies from the Champs de Mars in Paris and landed in Gonesse, 21 km away and close to the site of the present Roissy airport. The first balloon flight with people on board took off in Paris on November 21, 1783, and in five minutes, flew eight km. A much more substantial flight took off at the beginning
of December that year when a manned balloon reached heights of up to 550 metres and flew for just over two hours. It’s amazing how far and how fast aviation has progressed since then.
Another piece of transport progression is coming to Nice. The centre of the city has long had a tramway system, but the plans to build a tramway from the centre ville to the airport, about 11 km, have been delayed by years of consultation and disagreements. Finally, however, work is starting on the line, which should be ready by the end of 2017. Nice airport is one of the most spectacular in the world, since some of the runways are built out into the sea, and when you’re landing or taking off in clear weather, the views over most of the Cote d’Azur, with the mountains as a backdrop, are truly staggering.
I was also reading a fascinating book about Paris the other day by British author Gillian Tindall. Her 2009 book, Footprints in Paris, A Few Streets, A Few Lives, gives a fascinating insight into what life
was really like in Paris in the 19th century, dirty and dangerous. The strike last week by 50 employees of Cartier in the rue de la Paix in the 2nd, was nothing new in the life of Paris-industrial relations have often been fraught, but usually at more manual level. It was unusual to see the employees of
a luxury jewellery and watch store manning the picket lines.
But back to the Tindall book. Among its revelations are the horrors that a former French president, Pompidou, inflicted on the city. His idea of modernity was to fill parts of the city with high rise tower blocks and cut swathes of motorways through Paris. It’s fortunate for Paris that he died unexpectedly in 1974; after his death, all his grandiose plans were abandoned, although the Pompidou Centre
remains as a testament to his grand follies. In building that centre, vast and historic areas of the 4th had to be levelled.
Gillian Tindall has written other excellent books on France. An earlier one, Célestine: Voices from a
French Village, is an excellent and moving account of life in a remote French village in years gone by, before mechanisation and automation had taken over.
These days, of course, that process has gone too far and I was interested in the piece written the other day by Steven Erlanger. For five years, he was the bureau chief for the New York Times in Paris, before departing recently for a similar position in London. His opinion of present day Paris is
that it has become too ordered, too antisceptic, too tightly policed by the politically correct for the city to have much of a louche life left, except for bourgeous adulteries. He said that beneath the mountain of clichés about Paris, the city has lost much of its ancient character. Even the great political battles between left and right seem much tamer now.
Erlanger also made the very telling point that France seems like a country that has lost its way, tainted by Islamophobia and extreme right nationalism. Another blight is the rampant phobia against gay people and communities. It’s telling that in her latest prediction, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Front National, says that the European Union is going to collapse into pieces, just as the old Soviet Union did, and that Europe is going to re-emerge as a series of sovereign states co-operating closely with one another.
The New York Times correspondent, while pointing out that many people who live in Paris treat the
place with studied indifference at best, contempt at worst, the present day inertia is evident in matters like street cleaning. Traditionally, the gutters in Parisian streets are washed down around six every morning. These days, that just isn’t possible, because so often they are blocked with rubbish. The area around the Gare du Nord, the Paris terminal of the Eurostar trains, is another case in point. These days, the area around the station, which for so many people is their first glimpse of Paris, is filled with young male Roma prostitutes, female Tunisian prostitutes and under-age Muslim and black bandes des filles - girl gangs. All very offputting, but having said that Paris will always be Paris - one hopes.
Still, slip-ups are exclusively French. The other day, the Vatican issued a medal to mark the first anniversary of Pope Francis. It bore a literal - instead of Jesus, it had Lesus. Sloppiness is everywhere these days, even inside the Vatican!
There's no going back, however, to some mythical golden age. A case in point was the other day, when the 200th anniversary of the defeat of Napoléon at the Battle of Leipzig was commemorated. The French leader was defeated by the Prussians and their allies, who included the Russians and the Swedes. It was a turning point for Napoléon’s European campaigns and two years later, in 1815, he was decisively defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. For the re-enactment of the battle, thousands
of overweight middle age enthusiasts of military re-enactments from all over the world descended on Leipzig and refought the battle. The French leader was played by a diminutive 46 year old lawyer from Paris. It was a devastating battle that saw some 100,000 soldiers killed. This time round, it was broadcast live on a local TV channel and several local clergy condemned the whole episode, saying that it was wholly wrong to recreate such carnage as a TV gameshow.
Needless to remark, the events at Leipzig 200 years ago went unrecorded in the French media, which instead chose to concentrate on the Battle of Ulm, fought between October 16 and 19, 1805, in which France was victorious. But my guess is that few people outside France have ever heard of the Battle of Ulm and it isn’t exactly a household word inside France.
Meanwhile, the head chef in the Elysée Palace, home of French presidents, has retired. Bernard Vaussion was there 40 years, but he has now become the honorary president of one of the most exclusive clubs in the world, of chefs to heads of state. Vaussion revealed the likes of recent French
presidents. Mitterand preferred seafood, while Chirac’s gastronomic tastes were obviously in his boots - sauerkraut and Corona beer. Sarkozy, who was on a strict diet, banned cheese, except when Angela Merkel was in town. The current president, M.Hollande, is much more accommodating - he will eat anything and frequently does.
I saw another interesting news item from France the other day, a flat to rent in Reims, for a mere €220 a month. But it’s only nine square metres and the one room contains everything, including the loo
perched beneath the cooker and a shower beside the minute kitchen. It’s all in the one room, which even managed to contain a microwave. And the fourth floor flat is in a building that has no lift.
I also spotted another interesting news item the other day. In the town of Leeuwarden, 110 km north of Amsterdam, there used to be a hairdressing salon until the other day. It was called “Hari”, because the building had been the birthplace in 1876 of Mata Hari. Unfortunately, the other day, the whole place burned down. Mata Hari was the lady who made a name for herself in the Paris of the early years of the 20th century by being an exotic dancer. In 1917, she was executed by the French on suspicion of being a German spy, a claim that has long been hotly contested.
Something else I spotted a couple of days ago was a piece on the Tribune de Geneve website about the small village of Céligny,halfway between Geneva and Lausanne. It was here in 1984 that the great
Welsh actor Richard Burton was buried; his grave is in the old cemetery. The new cemetery in the village has a very striking inscription over its entrance: Ici L’Égalité. We were in the village shortly after Burton’s burial and I wrote a piece about the graveyard and about Burton for a magazine here in
Dublin, complete with a photo of his headstone. It was all very evocative, but something else sticks in my mind about Céligny. That day, we stopped for lunch in a pub in the village and were served some foul concoction that included chicken. The meal was so disgusting that I can honestly say that it was one of the worst meals we’ve ever had out, in any location, Switzerland or anywhere else.
The Tribune de Geneve also has some fine photo galleries. The other day, they did a whole series of ads done over 100 years ago, featuring Geneva and its lake as the backdrop. They were absolutely stunning and a hell of a lot more enticing than most modern advertising.
Back at the ranch, here in Dublin, pensioners are on the march. The recent budget here cut a swathe through allowances for pensioners and it was all done without an ounce of compassion on the part of the government ministers involved. To them, it was all a mere book balancing episode. So yesterday the pensioners took to the streets in Dublin in an impressive and vociferous turnout. The present
government in Dublin is, it seems, more than happy to make cuts that affect the poor, the sick, the disabled and the elderly, all the while leaving their rich supporters totally untouched.
I was reminded of this attitude when I was waiting in a local café the other day for a friend. Outside, two policemen were busy taking every last details about someone who begs on the pavement there every day. I just thought to myself: if the beggar had been a banker, he would have remained totally untouched!
What’s worse about all the cuts in the recent budget here is that the Irish Labour Party, which is part of the government coalition, goes along with all this. As someone noted the other day, the present day Labour Party in Ireland is far to the right of George W. Bush. There’s much sympathy here in Ireland for the artist in Prague, who in view of the upcoming national elections in the Czech Republic, has created an extraordinary edifice which he has put in the middle of the Vltava River that flows through Prague. It’s a model of a hand, about 10 metres high; it depicted a hand, nothing else, but one finger on that hand is pointed skywards. It’s a very rude gesture not only for Czechs, who seem keen on rechristening their country Czechia, but far beyond and it sums up what people think of Czech politicians.
It also has lots of resonance here in Ireland,since it sums up perfectly what
people in Ireland think of their politicians.