February 27, 2006--I Love Paris!

If you’ve been following this blog you have been hearing my periodic rants about the French—How when Islamic youth took to the streets to protest the deaths of two teenagers, I mocked the French elite’s outrage that these youngsters who were French would do such a thing, ignoring the fact that merely calling these marginalized people citizens does not solve the problem of French racism; how when the foie gras industry was being threatened by animal rights advocates the National Assembly passed a law protecting gravage as a national patrimony; and how the French are blaming their obesity problem on the proliferation of American fast foods rather that taking a look at the changes within French society that are interfering with the traditional role of women to provide daily home cooked lunches and dinners; and how preposterous it was to assert that even though France has one of the slowest economic growth rates in Europe and the highest unemployment they had something better to offer than the “Anglo-Saxon” model—“soft power,” where enjoying one’s leisure is more important than having a job. And there was more.

But after a few days in Paris, I’m again in love with Paris, if not France. I suppose this is a version of the French hating America but not Americans.

First about soft power—it is affirming to ride on the Metro and to note how many people, especially young people, are reading. Not just magazines and tabloids, but books, real books (including some by American authors). If this is what the French are doing with some of their treasured non-work time, I say keep buying and reading books.

And then I am here to assert that foie gras is patrimonical. And I am glad there is a law to protect the gravage industry. In all its forms it is a national treasure and should be honored and protected from all PETA folks. Sorry Brigit Bardot.

But on the way in from the airport I did catch a glimpse of the miserable suburban ghettos where the Islamic French are confined and all the furious graffiti on literally everything. Both attest to the hopelessness of too many lives. This is still a national, and Parisian, disgrace.

In my renewed love affair with Paris, this is still unignorable. Love is not that blind.