The
south of France is wringing out the doormats and mopping floors after tropical
type downpours. Here in Paris I returned to warmth and grey skies and some rain
though not so much or so continuous as in the south-west of Scotland in August
which beat all its own wet records. Now we’re back to sun again, the yellowing
of the plane trees along the Seine and the boulevards and the soft light of
l’été de la Saint Martin.
Ramadan
is drawing to a close, Sunday night or Monday? And then it’s Eid and people
will be in their best bib and tucker for the occasion, swarms of small children
also in new clothes jiggling about. The pavements of the rue Marx Dormoy will
be bouncing with small excited feet. No doubt tons of sheep are getting their
throats slit so as to be transformed into aromatic stews. Can you imagine how
many sheep have to be slaughtered in France alone for this event? Des milliers
et des milliers. And plenty of adults will thankful that the daylight hours of
fasting are finally over, even though the evenings – les veillées du Ramadan –
are times of great conviviality.
Meanwhile
the farmers are spraying millions of litres of milk all over Europe in protest
at the vertiginous drop in prices and the difficulties they have in making ends
meet with the increases in animal feed and diesel and the rest. When did you
ever meet a poor farmer? That’s what the cynics would say but it’s true that we
all stand to lose if the producers (the farmers), the industrialists and the
distributors, don’t find a more coherent and fair way of managing the industry.
The ‘enlightened’ and in-work British meat-eater is getting used to choosing
wisely about which meat s/he buys and where it’s been shipped from. We’ve yet
to do the same for our milk products however and it was quite a surprise to me
to hear how much milk some EU countries are now importing from further afield
while their own citizens pour the home-grown stuff down the drains.
You
don’t have to go far in the 18th arrondissement to see other, human,
costs of the globalised economy. A group of sans papiers, mainly Africans from
France’s ex-colonies, has taken over a building on the rue Baudelique, calling
it the ‘Ministry for the regulation of all illegal workers’, a title which
they’ve daubed on a huge banderolle on the outside wall. They moved here at the
end of July when they were evicted by force – tear gas was used by CGT security
personnel – from the CGT building they’d been in for some months. The CGT,
France’s biggest union, doesn’t show itself in a particularly good light in
this dispute but some might say that’s always been the case with unions, as
much representative of narrow special interests as their capitalist
counterparts, the bosses. Anyway, these determined protesting men, (there’s
only a handful of women and children) – have until the end of September to make
their case with the high-ups and the bureaucrats before the ‘forces de l’ordre’
kick them out to on ne sait pas trop où. I suppose they could well end up in a
mosque or a church, recalling the occupation of the église Saint Bernard 13
years ago. Plus ça change…
I
caught a group of Mongolian musicians on camera outside the Centre Pompidou
yesterday and a dread-locked man drawing deep-throated growls out of his
didgeridoo. And on my way to the Parvis de l’Hotel de Ville to take a look at
what’s going on there - a big promotional event for sport for the handicapped
(Handisport) - I stopped for a chat with a young Roumanian man who was sitting
on the ground with his wares, ashtrays which he cunningly cuts and folds out of
discarded aluminium drink cans. He sells them at 1 euro apiece.
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