... they really can't help themselves...

A neighbor leaves le Canard Enchaîné at our door each week.  It's a great way to catch up on the things that make readers chuckle.  There's nothing like a good turn of phrase and this newspaper is nothing if not filled with good turns of phrases.  And they provide interesting news, too.

Something caught my eye this week.

It's been a few weeks since Jacque Chirac passed away and there was a mass held in his honor.  All the notables were there.  Ex-presidents of the French Republic, African and Middle-East leaders, and the Russian President Putin were there.

Apparently Valerie Giscard d'Estaing got a little impatient with waiting for the ceremonies to begin.  He was overhead asking when things were going to get going.  If you know anything about Giscard and Chirac it probably is this; Giscard roundly disliked Chirac.  So there were chuckles when someone in the crowd said that this was the first time they'd ever seen Giscard impatient to see Chirac.

Some time into the ceremonies a quêteur passed through the crowd accepting offerings.  He came to the French ex-Presidents and "Scooter d'Amour" Holland pulled out a bill and dropped it into the basket.  Ex-President "Bling-Bling" Sarkozy just stood there.  This prompted his wife, the famous Carla Bruni, to tell him that the man was waiting.

The offering basket then headed to the heads of state.  The Congolese President hauled out a big wad of money and made his offering.  Seeing this, the King of Jordan hauled out an even bigger wad "like a henchman wasting no time hauling out a second bundle." [hastily translated from the original French]

Trump's Best Friend "fusille" Putin was approached next.  He threw the poor quêteur a "metallique" look.  This sent the quêteur scampering away, leaving hanging all those who were waiting to make their offering.

Gawds!  ...to have been a fly on the wall of this event...  Good thing we have le Canard!

What is the hardest language you will ever learn?

We were recently sitting with Dominique at the Wednesday conversation group out near la Bastille.  He posed the following question:

What is the hardest language you will ever learn?

Naturally everyone listening to him scratched their heads and offered up some, for us, very difficult languages.  Chinese.  Japanese.  Some of the obscure languages from Africa.

After a short while Dominique smiled and said "it's whatever second language you try to learn.  Every language that comes after that will be easier."

What he meant, in part, is that while learning a second language you pay attention to the details of what makes a language usable.  Once you've developed an approach it can be applied to learning subsequent languages.

I quickly have come to see it similarly to Dominique.  Just the other day I read a short passage in the news in Spanish.  I swear I don't know Spanish.  After struggling to learn French maybe I know more Spanish than I realize?  Maybe I should try a little Italian?

I know.  It's likely a bit more complicated than all that.  Still...

A few phrases and their histories...

We find ourselves surrounded by intelligent, self-aware, articulate French men and women.  It's amazing what we learn by paying attention and listening.

For example, just yesterday a kind women explained the history and use of "vous" et "tu."

I learned that you nearly always vouvoyer someone until invited to tutoyer.  The exception being adults tutoyer children.  But that seems to not really be the case.

The subtle change in the regulation is this: One uses "vous" for anyone of authority and anyone older than you if you are a child.  "Tu" is used between everyone else.

Historically, around the time of the 1789 Revolution the common people took on the airs of the monarchy and "vous" was commonly used.  That seems to have changed culturally and "tu" is now the preferred way to address someone who is not in authority.

Similarly, historically the address of "madame" was reserved exclusively when addressing women of the aristocracy and "mademoiselle" was used between commoners regardless of marriage status.  It's only in recent times that "mademoiselle" came to be used for addressing unmarried women.

Expanding our horizons just a little, there are phrases that show up in everyday use that even the French might not know the origins of.

For example, in a local store window there are T-shirts that say "En Voiture Simone."  There is a charming little book of the same title.  What does it mean?

The phrase currently means something along the lines of "let's get going."

The entire phrase is "En voiture Simone, c'est toi qui conduis, c'est moi qui klaxonne!"

Historically, the phrase comes from the reaction to a young woman who in the early 20th century was one of the first women to have acquired her drivers license.  Only men were allowed this privilege at the time, so it's very easy to imagine this phrase is actually demeaning toward women.

Here is one more phrase that we find interesting.  It is "la der des ders."

The full expression is "la dernier des derniers" and comes from the Great War (WWI) and literally means "the last of the last."

In use it is sometimes used to indicate the last of a series of something.  For instance it can be used to describe the very last episode in a TV series or a book series.

So that's it.  C'est la der des ders pour aujourd'hui.

When an American fete'd la France...

I think I'll just leave this video right here.  It's self explanatory I believe.

RIP Jessye Norman.

The city of lost dreams...

In my mind Paris had a lovely, sweet side to it.  As I say this I'm thinking of life depicted in the movie "le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain."  But this is only a dream and Paris is anything but a dreamy city.

Someone from America came for a visit a couple years ago.  They had a bag that wouldn't close and I suggested that it could become a magnet for pickpockets.

Sure enough, one morning walking up the street in an area well outside the tourist zones I caught a movement just behind me.  Instinctively I stepped back and into the on-coming path of the out-stretched hand.  The Romanian gitain quickly crossed the street and walked away.  I kept my eye on him as I asked if anything had been picked.  I was told the contents were safe and only then did I look away from the thief.

The incident bothered me.  I hate being prey for sticky fingers.

With the opening of the borders in Europe through the Schengen agreement has, in part, come the free flow of thieves looking for rich pickings.  Picks are typically from Romania and are gitain (aka gypsies).  It should be noted that the locals used to prey on each other well before the gitain arrived in such large numbers, but it's the gitain who currently run the biggest pickpocket operations.

Earlier this summer I was riding the metro and saw on a station platform somewhere near the center of the city a large group of young Romanians who'd been stopped and were being arrested by the RATP police.  It looked like it could have been a group of 20 to 30 youths all huddled together.

Just the other day I was talking with a friend who lives up in the 20eme arrondisement.  They said that this summer things had gotten particularly bad.  The Metro line 7 was being heavily picked.  People of Chinese decent were being targeted.  The story I heard was that merchants of Asian descent carried a lot of cash from their businesses around the city as a way of claiming smaller receipts that they had to pay taxes on and they were being preyed upon by well-organized picks.

The history of pickpockets and organized teams of criminals is rather well known here in Paris.  But seldom do we first hand witness a successful pick.  If they target me I've been so far lucky enough to put a stop to it by looking them directly in the eye and saying "arrêt!"  Usually they blubber "OK OK" as they back away.

Yesterday, Jude and I went to the Halle Saint Pierre to see an art rude exhibition.  Scampering home before the rains hit we jumped la ligne 12 to get off of the hill of Montmartre.

Around Gare Saint Lazare two Japanese young women boarded along with a crowd of folks from the railstation.  A fat Romanian woman stood next to where I was seated and effectively blocked the aisle.  At some point a 4 day stubble bearded young man with a hatchet-shaped face and nose came and stood behind the over-sized woman.

At a station around Concorde a group of people get off the train, including the fat Romanian.  I didn't think much about it until one of the Japanese girls got a startled look on her face and realized she'd been picked.  Hatchet-face pointed to three Rom that included two teenage girls I hadn't seen who debarked and just before the doors closed the two Japanese women quickly followed.

A stop or two later I saw hatchet-face put a wallet into the pocket of a lightweight jacket he held in his hands.  Not sure if it was his or if it was the Japanese girl's and not having a phone to call the police I just sat there like a lump on the log.  The man sat nonchalantly in a seat next to the door and casually got off at Pasteur and melted back into the city.

In addition to not like being preyed upon I really dislike feeling helpless.  In America people intervene if they see something going wrong.  That impulse is very much built into me.  But in Europe the only people I've seen intervene are the police.  Habits are clearly different here, though knowing this does nothing to make me feel better.  This kind of petty crime really turns my stomach and grinds my gears.

Parisians are not naive.  They certainly are not innocent.  Far too much has happened here for any of these things to be the case.  This is actually a rather cold-hearted place when viewed from certain perspectives.  Will justice be served to those thieves?  If so, when and how?

At some point in the night I remember thinking about the two Japanese women who had their vacation ruined.  I wondered how bitter they must feel after being violated by aggressive Romanian pickpockets.  I wouldn't blame them if they never came back to Paris. 

This place can be anything but a city of dreams.

des citations de Jacques Chirac...

La machine Chirac audio clips are worth a listen.

Le Figaro's citations are worth a read, too.

+/- 3 degrees of separation ~ Jacques Chirac

This morning on Telematin they ran a series of homages to Jacques Chirac.

Looking through the Lens of America we tend to know ex-President Chirac for one, maybe two things.

First, we know him for America's rebranding of that famous spud dish to "Freedom Fries."  Indeed, it was M.Chirac who said "non" to Baby Bush when asked to join the invasion of Iraq.

Second, if we are remotely aware we might remember that M.Chirac was found guilty of corruption after leaving office for things he did during his time as maire de Paris.

He came to presidential power promising economic reform, but he left with little to show for his promises.  And yet...

This is such a narrow lens to view the man's life through.

The French, it turns out, seemed to love him dearly.  He seems to have been a very real Man of the People kind of guy.

He loved sports.  He loved to eat.  He loved historical artifacts.  He was the first French President to openly talk about France's role in the atrocities of WWII.

By comparison, recent French Presidents are pale ghosts. ex-President Bling-Bling (Sarkozy) also faces corruption charges, but there is little public sympathy.  ex-President Normal (Holland) is perhaps best known for his Scooter of Love incident.  President Macron feels like a soulless ex-banker political numbers on a spreadsheet technocrat.

By these comparisons, Jacques Chirac was a Full Blooded Frenchmen in the classic style.

Someone who belongs to our French/English Conversation group would say "hi" to M.Chirac whenever he'd run into him at one of his favorite cafes here in Paris.

Our friend would occasionally be out walking the family dog and would spy the famous man sitting in his seat (a French friend pointed out to us exactly which seat that used to be and smiled that we would know anything about the subject in the first place) watching the world go by and call out to him, "Bonjour Monsieur le President".   M.Chirac was known to reply "Je ne suis pas President."  But, he told the our friend "you have a nice dog."

In recent years M.Chirac was seen less and less in his seat at the cafe.  He was looking like he was on the decline.  We knew the end would come sooner rather than later.

While we're heard stories from our friends, and while we remember the "Freedom Fries" incident, we had no idea Jacques Chirac had done so many things and had had such a positive impact on France.  Makes us wonder why it sometimes takes death for us to realize things that could or should be realized.

RIP ex-President Chirac.