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| Europe |
| Paris Notes, Spring 2006 |
| 2006-03-26 |
| 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 wasn’t accusations of racism – I now met an increasing number of people willing to say, “we don’t disagree” (the French really don’t like to say “you’re right”). But, as my friend put it, we don’t know what to do. “We’re paralyzed.” I have been visiting France fairly regularly all my life, but particularly since 2000, the nature of those visits has changed, and I’ve 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 haven’t 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 |
| #1 "Nous sommes tétanisés" is not we are paralyzed. Paralized is paralisés. In the mediacl sense Tétanisés is the state you are after an electric shock or when you get tetanos. You are paralyzed but all muscles are contracted while the muscles of "paralysés" (ie people who are in a wheel chair due to a spinal lesion) are flaccid It is never used when implying you are blocked from taking action because the other side is much more powerful than you, has an unassailable contract or can can blackmail you. It is exclusively used for a sudden emotional blow who leaves you temporarily unable to react: when the twin towers crumbled America was "tétanisée" but certainly not "paralysée" ie unable to move due to Jihadist strength. |
| Posted by: JFM 2006-03-26 12:50 |