Paris bulletin 8 2009

Sarkozy’s rating’s have gone up since the UMP (‘his’ party) came out so far ahead of the Parti socialiste in the Euro-elections of last weekend. The Greens (Europe-Ecologie) with Cohn-Bendit and Eva Joly en tête de liste, made an impressive showing while the socialists in all their schism-ridden variations sank yet further in the popular vote. There was another mass demo on Sunday but with a much lower turnout than the  previous ones so some commentators are suggesting ‘que le movement social s’essoufle’ which I’m glad to see is translated in the Collins-Robert dictionary as ‘is running out of steam’, although given the appalling and relentless increase in unemployment one hopes that it isn’t. Maybe there’s not much a socialist alternative could introduce quickly to reduce the pain but we’re never likely to know one way or another as long as they go on the way they do at present. Lucky old Sarkozy – nothing like getting a boost in the polls without a single concession, without changing an iota of the hated reforms that have had millions out on the streets these past few months.

Unemployment and what it does to people is never far from your mind when you’re out and about in the north of Paris – so many young and old obviously marking time, waiting for the days to pass, jingling a few coins in their pocket, jumping the barriers in the metro and ducking and diving to survive. I went to the Gare du nord to sort out my Eurostar ticket to find the queue for the two o’clock train right to the bottom of the stairs and all sorts of whistles, sirens and rattles going full blast on the top level. A small but noisy band of CFDT-istes (Conféderation fédérale démocratique du travail - one of the four big unions), was the reason for the hold-up and if the decibels were any indication, not much evidence of essouflement there. What held my attention though, was less the noise and disruption at the top level and more the sight of a healthy, normal-looking young man rootling like an animal in one of the station bins, pulling out a Mcdonald’s brown bag and devouring a half-eaten bun of some kind on the spot. Just ask yourself – ‘Have I ever been that hungry?’

So for lots and lots of people things aren’t great. But there are always compensations – better a half-eaten bun than no bun at all, so to say. One of the compensations of capital-city living is finding hidden treasures in unexpected places. I was out shopping the other day in the area between Louis Leblanc and Jaurès metro station. It was shortly after lunch and the shop I wanted to go to – selling haberdashery – was still shut. So I wandered down the rue Lafayette. Some way along I came upon a passage leading back from the street to a church: l’eglise St Joseph Artisan, empty and peaceful, with the afternoon sun casting colours on the flagstones from the modern stained glass windows (created in les ateliers Loir and installed as I learnt later, in 2004).

It was only in 1958 that it took the name St Joseph Artisan. In its earliest manifestation it was known as St Joseph des Allemands, which made its purpose quite clear: to serve the spiritual needs of the great numbers of Catholic-professing, German-speaking workers who came to work in Paris in the mid-nineteenth century. Many Paris schools and public buildings have plaques marking the deaths of Jewish children who were despatched to the camps during the Nazi occupation. The college opposite my flat has one such, 700 children from the 18^th arrondissement alone. Still I didn’t expect to find that one of the priests of St Joseph Artisan, l’église des Allemands, was deported to Dachau in 1942.  

To finish on a brighter note, visualise an opera in the open-air, seats costing between 30 and 120 euros so probably not too many tickets being sold to those on benefits. The setting is the jardin du Luxembourg, devant le palais du Senat, the weather is orageux and more rain is forecast (it’s rained unremittingly all day). The opera is Rigoletto and it’s sold out. The performance goes ahead despite the ‘intemperies’ and the organisers issue us with capuches en plastique as we take our (very wet) seats. The capuches are exactly like those thin plastic bags you get your cleaning back in at the dry-cleaners. By mid-way through the rain is on again, a fine powdery mist that wafts around in the stage lights. The singers sing on and the spectators – unless years of experience of Edinburgh Festivals or Scottish glens have prepared you for this – start to raise umbrellas. This is not appreciated by those behind so, throwing elegance to the wind, people begin to unpack their capuches and one by one get themselves bagged up. By the end if you could’ve seen us from above we must have looked like a great big tray of cling-filmed edibles. I went home full of joy at the music and chuckling at the impact of les intemperies on le chic parisien.