|
Paris Notes, Spring 2006
Long, but very worthy, set of observations on the current troubles in France from a frequent American visitor. Get a fresh refill of coffee, snuggle up and spend an hour to be educated and entertained. This is what the Sunday NY Times might have been.Nous sommes tétanisés, said my French friend. [We are paralyzed.] The French are beginning to wake up, beginning to lift up their Ostrich head from the sand. As opposed to the frequent dismissals I ran across in the past when it wasnt accusations of racism I now met an increasing number of people willing to say, we dont disagree (the French really dont like to say youre right). But, as my friend put it, we dont know what to do. Were paralyzed. I have been visiting France fairly regularly all my life, but particularly since 2000, the nature of those visits has changed, and Ive watched a radical split occur between the Jewish community in France (which has grown increasingly alarmed at the violence against them) and your typical Frenchman and woman, who consider Jewish alarm if they even notice it as, well, alarmist. (For earlier posts on what I noticed, see here.) I havent been in France since last Spring, so a number of factors played in the mixture. Obviously the Fall (Ramadan) 2005 riots that started in the Parisian suburbs and spread through France sobered people considerably, despite the official position of the media, political, and academic elites that this was not a religious or cultural issue, but one of socio-economic inequities that could be solved by addressing those inequities. But more recently, there had occurred two things that sobered them considerably. Rest at link. Posted by: ed 2006-03-26 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=146642 |