Living with disabilities in France

Mickaël is back.

In January 2019, at the start of the second semester of the university year, that was just about the best news any of us had heard in a long time.

Mickaël, a student who had abruptly disappeared from the classroom two years earlier, was returning to complete his “licence,” the French equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. He was picking up where he had left off when the disease first took hold.

In the beginning, the symptoms looked like those of the flu: fever and aching joints. By the time he was diagnosed with meningitis, it was almost too late.

He survived. He emerged from the coma, his mental faculties intact. However, he lost his fingertips and both feet; his legs had to be amputated at mid-calf. He also suffered a severe loss of hearing and sight. For months he lay in a hospital bed. Then he spent months learning daily life all over again.

Today Mickaël travels on his own from Melun, a city to the south of Paris, to Université Paris 8, located in Saint-Denis, in the northern suburbs of the capital, over forty miles from his home. To attend 9 o’clock class, Mickaël must get up at 4:30 AM. Once he has showered, put on his protheses, dressed and made himself breakfast, he walks to the nearest bus stop, using only a cane that neatly folds when he’s in the metro. This is the first step in his journey.

The bus drops him at the suburban train station of Melun. From there he has a 30-minute train ride to Gare de Lyon, the major Parisian train station to points south. Once there, he walks ten minutes underground to line 14 of the metro.

This line, the most recent addition to the Paris system, is the only one adapted to the needs of travelers with disabilities. For all the other lines, it’s hit or miss. Sometimes there may be an escalator, rarer still, an elevator. In most stations, there are flights of stairs to climb.

After a bus, a train and a metro, Mickaël is not yet at his final destination. There is still one more leg of his journey, a change of metro lines, underground corridors to traverse, and then a ride on line 13. In French, I call it “la bien nommée,” the metro line that lives up to its name.

If “13” is an unlucky number, so are all of us who must put up with the overcrowding and delays, which are the daily lot of commuters who depend on this line. Mickaël often stands for the dozen stops of his ride.

Finally, a few minutes before nine, he arrives at the end of the line, Saint-Denis Université. There is an elevator in this station. He takes it to street level and hurries to class. At the end of the day, he’ll repeat the same itinerary in reverse, returning home after 9 in the evening.

Once home, he’ll make supper. Then he’ll take off his protheses and remove his hearing aid for the night. Thanks to them and to his glasses, Mickaël is able to attend classes and navigate a transportation system that has some serious catching up to do before it can claim to accommodate passengers with disabilities.

Such is public transportation in the Paris region. I might add, such is France.

In early May, caravans of the handicapped, les handicapés as they are called in France, set out from points all over the country, “on the road for (their) rights,” converging in major French cities on May 14th. On that day, a protest march was held in Paris, with slogans such as “liberté, égalité, mobilité,” and “my handicap is exclusion from major services.” The association “France Handicap” presented a letter to President Macron, reminding him of his campaign promise to make the handicapped a priority.

So far, reality has not kept pace, and his government’s measures in favor of the disabled are timid or limited to good intentions.

At this point, it may be interesting to note the French have chosen the English term “handicapped” for those with disabilities. This word, handicapé, came into use in France in the 1980’s as the inclusive term for all those with disabilities. In the United States, at about the same time, the term “handicapped” was discarded in favor of the “person-first” approach: a person has a disability; a handicap is a barrier or circumstance.

In other words, the Paris metro system is full of 'handicaps': stations with lots of stairs and no elevator or escalator. There is also the 'circumstance' of employment discrimination. In France, the unemployment rate among persons with disabilities (19%) is double that of the general population.

The current Secretary of State in charge of the handicapped, Sophie Cluzel, has pledged to create 100,000 new jobs for persons with disabilities by 2022. The government has also reaffirmed its commitment to making accessible all buildings open to the public. This is a work-in-progress and there is still a long way to go.

Throughout Europe, May 16th was Duo-Day. Begun in the Republic of Ireland in 2008, Duo-Day has set as its goal the bringing together of prospective employers and persons with disabilities. For example, after an initial contact through an on-line site, lawyers with disabilities meet the heads of law firms, disabled gardeners meet the owners of greenhouses or flower shops. On the evening news that day, a journalist in a wheelchair presented a part of the national news.

Meanwhile Mickaël has almost completed his bachelor’s degree. Despite an open sore on his knee, he travels regularly to university, a commute of over 2 hours.

He also battles with bureaucracy, one of the greatest handicaps a person with disabilities must face. A young man of unshakeable good spirits, he has met obstacle after obstacle. He is entitled to free transportation, but only in the zone where he lives. Because he is determined to finish his studies at the university where he began, located in a different zone, he must pay most of the ride out of his own pocket and this adds up to a lot of euros each day.

Mickaël has also learned to drive a standard transmission car. He thought this would entitle him to an aid for the purchase of a vehicle. The official response was “non.” He can only receive aid for a car adapted for “handicapés.”

Yes, Mickaël is back and may he go far—for a person with disabilities must strive ten times harder than the rest of us.

The Day After: Notre Dame de Paris

I remember my first time—my first visit to Notre Dame de Paris. I was 17 years old, a student at Pottsville Area High School, travelling with other students and with Mrs. Alice Ney, our courageous chaperone. We were fearless, sneaky. We did not stay with the group.

With my friend Jane Dolbin, who died in 2008, we wandered off and went shopping on Boulevard Saint Michel. We each bought a new dress and put it on in the boutique. Then we proudly marched down the boulevard and crossed the Seine to Notre Dame, paying a couple of francs to climb the steps to the northern tower, the one that, last night, was touched by the flames at the cathedral’s heart.

Once at the top, we had a panorama of the rooftops of Paris that took our breath away. The sun was shining, a strong wind was blowing, but little did it matter. We had a magnificent view of the famous spire of the cathedral, the one that fell a few minutes before 8 PM last evening. We also looked down on the flying buttresses that withstood last night’s fire and on the lead roof, held up by “the forest,” an immense wooden frame made of oak beams dating back to the cathedral’s construction in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Last evening the fire began in “the forest,” beneath the eaves. The lead roof melted, causing some parts of the vaulted stone ceiling of the transept to fall.

Standing atop Notre Dame nearly fifty years ago, wearing my Parisian minidress, I was unaware the wind had lifted it up around my waist, exposing my American panties to a delighted security guard. My friends knew; they did not tell me.

That is my first memory of Notre Dame de Paris. It may seem trivial, too personal, in light of the destruction wrought in a few hours to a religious and historical monument that has withstood wars and revolutions for more than 8 centuries. Yet, I’d go so far to say that Notre Dame de Paris, My Lady, is a personal part of my life, a friend whose door is always open; who, since my first trip to France, has welcomed me hundreds of time. She would smile and understand two teenagers who, on their first trip to Paris, wanted more than anything else to look like the elegant Parisians who surrounded them in the streets.

These days, whenever I can, I cross the Seine on foot, just so I can have a look at her. No matter what the weather or season, she looks beautiful, day or night, a great lady promising comfort and intercession to all who open their hearts to her.

But “these days” are now the past. At the time I write, there has not yet been an estimate of the damage. For example, it is not yet possible to approach the church’s magnificent organ, one of the finest in the world, rebuilt over time but still containing pipes from the Middle Ages, capable of “singing” like a choir of angels or creating the ominous rumble of approaching thunder. No one can say what state they are in today, nor can anyone know if, upon reconstruction, the church will regain its exceptional acoustics.

Paris, France, the world is in mourning for a beloved monument and a spiritual beacon, today covered with ash and exposed to more damage by falling rain entering through the roof. In one night, in our careless times, where no one has time to wait, and everything must be done asap, roaring flames proved they too can work fast, erasing the past in the blink of an eye.

Last evening, as the flames were being brought under control, President Macron opened a national and international fund raising drive to rebuild Notre Dame de Paris. A church, but more than a church, a historical monument, but so much more, this cathedral is “everybody’s home.” No one has ever paid an entrance fee to cross its threshold; Notre Dame welcomes us all.

In his 1831 novel Notre Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo gave the world its first bird’s eye view of the rooftops of Paris, and he played an important role in awakening public awareness to the church’s importance to all of France.

In the 20th century, Americans, perhaps more than the French, understood his message, and Hugo’s novel became a staple of Hollywood. In the 1923 silent film classic, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” the hunchback, played by Lon Chaney Sr., pays tribute to the church’s bells as he effortlessly climbs up and down the façade. In this moving excerpt, to the accompaniment of organ music, Chaney communicates the cathedral’s grandeur (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84lab78RiPg ).

In 1956, Anthony Quinn became Quasimodo and Gina Lollobrigida the beautiful and seductive Esmerelda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df2xIFEABjc ). And in 1996, it was Walt Disney’s turn in an animated version.
More than the Eiffel Tower, more than the Moulin Rouge, it is Notre Dame de Paris “who” reaches out to the world to say, “this is Paris,” and it is the city’s most visited monument. That is why today I feel I’ve lost a part of myself and I’m sure many others feel the same.

Yet the fire has not destroyed the church’s contours. The towers, the walls and the flying buttresses still stand, though weakened by time, neglect and now, flames.

The spiritual message of Notre Dame is that humans alone cannot save themselves. Now Notre Dame de Paris seems to be saying she cannot be saved without us.

Turmoil and Doubt: The Catholic Church in the US and France

On April 15th, Notre Dame de Paris caught fire and extensive damage was done to the centuries-old cathedral, known and loved as a religious and cultural symbol throughout the world. On Easter Day, the Archbishop of Paris, Michel Aupetit, celebrated mass in nearby Saint Eustache, a church whose architecture was inspired by Notre Dame.

In his sermon, the Archbishop thanked the firemen of Paris for their courage and devotion. He also asked, “Where is the body of Christ?” During this Lenten and Easter season, this has been a difficult question for the Catholic Church of France, shaken by scandals, lawsuits, and a much publicized court case involving its highest ranking dignitary, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin.

In the United States, the scandal of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church exploded onto the national scene in 2002 with the Boston Globe’s exposé of abuse within the archdiocese of Boston. The paper’s investigation resulted in the prosecution of five priests. It also served as a catalyst, giving many victims who had longed remained silent the courage to speak out. At that time, a Gallup survey’s findings revealed that, after the Boston scandal, 22% of American Catholics were considering leaving the Church.

This year, on March 13th, a day after the sentencing of Cardinal Pell of Australia to six years in prison for the abuse of two choir boys in Melbourne, another Gallup poll revealed that 37% of American Catholics surveyed expressed their desire to leave.

The Catholic Church in France has recently been shaken by the same type of scandals, yet in some ways the situation is more dire. If we compare figures, keeping in mind the variations in reliability of surveys in general, 23.9% of Americans (about 72 million) identify themselves as Catholics, and 39% of them say they attend mass on a weekly basis. In France, 53%, or about 35 million people, declare themselves Catholics, yet only between 2% and 6% of the general population attend weekly mass. This boils down to about one and a half million faithful in a nation with a population of over 67 million.

These figures, in terms of religious practice, make Catholicism a minority religion, alongside Islam and Protestantism, in a nation where most citizens declare themselves agnostics or atheists. Today, for the French, Catholicism represents a vague cultural identity, and few who call themselves Catholic understand the workings of their faith.

Also, the exposure of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church came later to France, in part because victims were too often ignored by Church hierarchy. A case in point is that of the priest Bernard Preynat, today 73 years old. Between 1970 and 1991, Preynat, very active in the Catholic boy scout movement, raped and molested dozens of boys. Only in 2016 was he indicted for sexual assault against minors by a person exercising authority.

Father Preynat, still a priest but without a parish, living under court supervision in Lyon, France’s third largest city, is expected to be brought to trial later this year. His case, however, has had serious repercussions on the Archdiocese of Lyon and on its bishop, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin.

On March 7, 2019, the Cardinal was sentenced to a six-month suspended prison term for the non-denunciation of sexual assault. In other words, the French courts accused him of covering up the crimes of Preynat, of which he was apparently aware. On March 18th, Cardinal Barbarin presented his resignation to Pope François, who refused it. The Pope gave as his reason the presumption of innocence, as Cardinal Barbarin is appealing the case.

In a nation like France, whose revolution was fought against both King and Church, this scandal has heaped more discredit on an institution already struggling to keep its foothold. In a French film called “Grâce à Dieu,” “Thank God,” released in February 2019, director François Ozon reconstructs the events of the Preynat case. The film's title is based on the words of Cardinal Barbarin who, in a public interview, declared that “grâce à Dieu,” certain accusations brought against the pedophile priest remain outside the reach of the courts because of the statute of limitations.

On the eve of this year’s Lenten season, another sexual scandal was placed under the national spotlight. On March 5th, a documentary was aired on Arte, a Franco-German public TV station. Its title: “Religieuses abusées, l’autre scandale de l’Eglise,” “Women religious abused, the other scandal of the Church.”

This documentary is based on two years of interviews and research by Marie-Pierre Raimbault and Eric Quintin. Its findings, once again, reveal coverups by Church hierarchy, too blind or too proud to identify the corruption in their midst. The most damning accusations concern two brothers, both Dominican friars, Marie-Dominique and Thomas Philippe, who, according to the women religious they abused, instituted a system of sexual slavery. Marie-Dominique Philippe, who founded a charismatic religious community in the 1970’s and died in 2006, was a close friend of Pope John Paul II, and there are those who believe the pope was aware of his behavior.

The year of 2019 may well be France’s “2002,” a year like no other concerning sexual abuse and hypocrisy within the Catholic Church. A French journalist and researcher, Frédéric Martel, recently published “Sodoma, enquête au Coeur du Vatican.” Translated into English, the book’s title is “In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy.” Though you may not have heard of the book, it is not difficult to realize what it is about.

After four years of inside investigation, with solid evidence to back him up, Martel accuses those church prelates who most decry homosexuality, be it in France or elsewhere, to be practicing homosexuals themselves. Though the book is often repetitive, it delivers ample proof of the Church’s double standard regarding homosexuality and sexual mores in general.

All of the above have made 2019 a painful year for the French Catholic Church. Yet, at the grassroots level, parish priests labor on. In direct contact with parishioners, they often bear the brunt of charges directed against their higher-ups. Many are responsible for several churches. Those who are reaching retirement age must often look towards French-speaking Africa if they hope to be replaced, as the number of vocations has radically fallen in France.

As Notre Dame burned, Father Jean-Marc Fournier, the chaplain of the firefighters of Paris, entered the church and saved the Blessed Sacrament. But, after decades of sexual scandal and a refusal by hierarchy to admit the sexual hypocrisy in its midst, can the Catholic Church save itself?

In Strasbourg, a taste of “home”

A few weeks ago, I had to go to Strasbourg for professional reasons. This French city, located on the western bank of the Rhine River, has not always been part of France. For centuries, its inhabitants pledged their loyalty to the Germanic Holy Roman Empire. Early on, its clergy embraced the teachings of Martin Luther, and Strasbourg, a “Free City” granted self-rule, became an important center of the Protestant Reform.

In 1681, after a rapid siege, the Sun King Louis XIV made a triumphant entry into the city. The Alsace region, of which Strasbourg was the capital, had already become part of the Kingdom of France at the end of the bloody Thirty Years’ War. Ignoring previous treaties, Louis XIV claimed this independent Protestant city for France.

Though he granted Protestants a certain freedom of religion, he returned the city’s beautiful cathedral to the Catholics. At a time of fierce persecution of Protestants elsewhere in France, Strasbourg’s Protestants were subjected to many restrictions yet could discreetly practice their faith.

In the narrow streets around the red sandstone cathedral, once the highest building in the world, Catholics and Protestants, French and German voices, mingled. The city was on its way to becoming, as it still is today, a hub of two languages and cultures. At times, they coexisted in precarious harmony; at others, neighbor was pitted against neighbor as two great Empires fought over the city’s destiny.

In 1871, France’s Emperor Napoleon III lost the city to Bismarck, first Chancellor of the united German Empire. The French Republic won it back after World War I, only to lose the city to Nazi Germany, which occupied it from 1940 until 1944. In 1949, Strasbourg was proclaimed capital of Europe and today, the Council of Europe has its headquarters there. The city, disputed for centuries, has become the symbol of European aspirations to live in peace.

I have been to Strasbourg many times; I like to go there because it is the one place in France where I feel “at home.” When I speak, no one ever asks me where I’m from. Like me, many Strasburgers have a hint of an accent when they speak French. Many, again like me, are bilingual. In the place of my English, they speak the Alsatian dialect of German.

If they see my family name, they simply assume I’m one of them. It’s the “i” in Honicker—rather than an “e,” as in Erich Honecker, the leader of East Germany at time of the fall of the Berlin Wall—that suggests I share their Alsatian roots.

I have other good reasons for feeling at home in Strasbourg. In a bakery there, I discovered an almond ring, a favorite pastry of mine, tasting exactly like the one my mother used to buy at the Danish Bakery of Pottsville, once located at 20th and Market Streets. Some readers may remember the Vienna bread, fresh-sliced and warm when it was handed over the counter by Mrs. Frederickson. There were also glazed doughnuts, still the best I’ve ever tasted.

I discovered (or rediscovered) the almond ring in a bakery at the edge of a canal in Strasbourg’s Old Town. That little bakery, its façade painted burnt orange, could have been a setting for one of Hans Christian Andersen’s tales. As the buttery pastry and the almond filling melted in my mouth, I was transported back to childhood and the delights of discovering that “European” treat in a bakery on Market Street, once painted burnt orange, just like the one in Strasbourg.

My interest in the Rhine River began in high school, thanks to Herr Hartley, my German teacher. He was demanding; he made us learn poetry by heart, and one of those poems I can still recite today!

He had us learn “Die Lorelei” by Heinrich Heine. The poem is the story of a skipper and his boat, dashed against the rocks because he could not resist the voice of a golden-haired Mädchen. Seated on a rocky summit high above the Rhine, as she combs her dazzling hair, this entrancing beauty sings a mournful tune, casting a spell on the skipper just as for decades, her words have cast a spell on me.

On my last trip to Strasbourg, I did something I’d never done before. I travelled to the banks of the Rhine and crossed to Kehl, Germany, riding one of the newest lines of Strasbourg’s tramway. Though I was not dashed against the rocks like the skipper, I lost, not my life, but certain romantic illusions about the Rhine.

Or I may have simply been in the wrong place. The legendary Lorelei inhabits a summit about 160 miles north of Strasbourg. Where the tram crosses the river, there’s not a rocky cliff in sight. Worse still, once I reached the German side, I entered a zone of gas stations and discount alcohol and tobacco stores offering prices the French, on their own territory, can only dream about.

There were also tacky hotels surrounded by bleak, almost-empty parking lots. This is not where Strasburgers go for the weekend; this is where those willing to pay go for sex. In Germany sex is an industry and brothels are legal businesses. In France, prostitution is hidden from public view, and clients, not sex-workers, can receive fines for paying for sex.

The only positive note of that little excursion was the purchase of a delicious soft pretzel in a Kehl bakery.

I don’t know much about my family history, but I suspect my past is connected to Strasbourg and the banks of the Rhine. Despite my claim to French nationality, I’ll always be a foreigner in France—except for Strasbourg, where I get a sense I belong.

As for the Rhine, once back in my country home, I picked up a book I’ve been trailing for years, Rhine Journey: a novel, by English author Ann Schlee. I bought this book over 30 years ago in a book store in New York. I finally opened and read it last month.

There I found it, the Rhine I’d been dreaming of. In a 19th century journey down that river, a young woman undergoes a transformation that quietly but radically changes her life. We follow her inner journey; we also intensely experience the Rhine River as it was then.

You can find it at the Pottsville Library. Don’t wait 30 years like I did. Pick up Rhine Journey and enjoy it now!

Springtime Preview in Normandy

Mésange, rouge-gorge, merle et moineau--chickadee, robin, starling and sparrow. They are all outside the window as I write, sitting at the kitchen table so I can watch them flitting in and out of the cedar hedge, roosting in the highest branches of a tall pine tree, basking in the morning sun on the still-bare branches of my neighbor’s cherry tree.

Still bare, but not for long, shouts this last weekend in February, as fields, gardens, vegetable patches and flowerbeds entice us into believing that spring is just around the corner. The sun is shining—has been for three entire days after months of gray and rain. The morning frost is heavy, but by noon temperatures are in the 50’s and rising. It feels like spring to me.

I’ve been avoiding my garden. It looks dismal in morning mist and rain, with trees black and bare. The earth, undermined by some very ambitious moles, has been turned into a bumpy terrain of muddy hills and swampy green valleys: this is my lawn, its uneven sweep interrupted here and there by what looks to be Celtic burial mounds.

They are my attempts at organic farming. As I build new vegetables plots with layers of branches, cut grass, dead leaves, scraps from the kitchen and horse manure, I worry that local authorities, who have a view of my land, will soon be accusing me of turning it into a private cemetery.

Very haphazardly, I must admit, I am trying my hand at permaculture, as defined by Bill Mollison, an Australian professor of Environmental Psychology: (It) “is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system.” That’s what he wrote in his 1991 book An Introduction to Permaculture.

Come true spring (I know this weekend is just a teaser), I plan to turn those “burial mounds” into living earth, to test associations of carrots, radishes, and onions; lettuce and cabbage; pole beans and zucchini; tomatoes and basil. That is the plan. Will it become reality? The sun warms the earth’s surface; underneath, it’s icy cold. I still have weeks to wait before I plant, but spring cleaning can already begin.

This weekend I’ve filled sacks with what the French call “green refuse”— “déchets verts,” trimmings from the cedar hedge, branches from a hazelnut tree. As I cut, I remember how delighted I was to discover a few in my garden. Times have changed. Now I see hazelnut trees as “pesky weeds,” trees that grow too fast, whose leaves block rain gutters and wispy branches dip over vegetable plots, depriving young shoots of light.

Catkins are already hanging from their branches. I glance at them suspiciously. Pollination is underway. Hazelnut trees can be incorporated into permaculture, I’ve read, and I should not (as I do) treat them as adversaries.

I’ve also been taking care of my fruit trees, my “chouchous,” my little darlings. I already had an apple and a pear tree. Last November 25th, on St. Catherine’s Day, the ideal moment of the year for planting trees because “à la Sainte Catherine, tout bois prend racine”— all wood takes root, I planted another apple and pear tree. I also planted a “mirabellier de Nancy,” a tree producing tiny yellow plums with a reddish blush, mirabelles, native to the region around the city of Nancy and, somehow it seems appropriate, named after me.

I scratch the earth at the trees’ base, but not too deep. I don’t want to disturb earthworms or microorganisms already at work. I sprinkle some fertilizer, “compatible with organic farming,” as I read on the box. I spray them with a spray, also “compatible with organic farming,” called “agriculture bio” in French. Last summer, blackflies coated the underside of the leaves on my cherry tree, and I’ve been forewarned: they are wintering in the bark and it is best to treat before true springtime sets in.

“Compatible with organic farming”—I’ve been wondering what that expression entails, so I’ve looked it up on the internet. I discover that in France certain products harmful to the earth, such as copper sulfate, are permitted. For organic wine producers, for example, they are essential, for without the use of copper sulfate as a fungicide, the grapes could not survive.

On the site of Ecocert, a private French agency that has become a world leader in the field of the certification of organic products, I find long lists of crop-production products, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers, “compatible with organic farming.” Some can pollute the soil or nearby bodies of water; others must not be applied to plants meant for human consumption. Obviously, organic farming does not eliminate all risks or damage.

Yet none are comparable to the dangers of the herbicide Roundup, considered a probable carcinogen. Roundup 360 pro was banned for sale in France in January 2019. At my local Centre Leclerc, the French Walmart, I found it on the shelves in the gardening section. There’s no trace of it, however, on Leclerc’s site on line. The local store may be trying to get rid of its last containers in stock.

As for the insecticide I’ve used on my fruit trees, it is composed of 85% canola oil, but what about the remaining 15%? The instructions warn against using the product near a body of water.

On Friday, February 22th, high school and university students throughout Europe skipped classes because they had more urgent things to do. They were protesting their elders’ betrayal of the planet, outside Parliament in London, in front of the Ministry of the Transition Ecologic in Paris. The movement #Youth4Climate, set in motion by Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, has spread to cities across Europe as, every Friday, young Europeans protest their parents’ neglect of planet Earth.

Permaculture, organic gardening, careful recycling, I’m trying to do my bit. I take the train, walk a lot, use my car sparingly, but in the country I’d have a hard time living without one. Sometimes I wonder if my actions even matter; it may simply be too late.

Meanwhile the sun shines, the garden calls. Snowdrops have blossomed, crepe myrtle is in flower. Tulips and hyacinths are pushing up out of the earth.

Today and every day, Mother Earth reminds us, we can’t live without her.

Prisons and Wild Roses

In the 1980’s, before I moved to France, I taught at a French high school in New York City, le Lycée français de New York. Students were extremely well-behaved, in part because of a rigorous, almost military, system of discipline.

Upon entering the classroom on my first day, I stepped back in near fright. Seeing me, uniformed students jumped to their feet, standing straight, shoulders back, and cried in unison: “Bonjour, Madame.” This was not my first teaching experience, but this had never happened to me before.

In one of my English classes, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter was required reading. I brushed up on Hawthorne and read the novel. Though I found it hard going, I was intrigued by this story of adultery in 17th century Boston.

The Scarlet Letter begins with two powerful symbols: the door of the prison built by the Puritan fathers and a wild rosebush growing off to its side. The narrator points out that all societies require their prison and their cemetery. More subtly, he suggests they need their wild rosebush as well.

During this month of January, I’ve been in prison and had prisons much on my mind. Don’t worry, I haven't been arrested. I was in Philadelphia and while there, I did something I’d been wanting to do for years: I visited Eastern State Penitentiary, the world’s first modern prison, and for anyone who has never been there, it’s well worth the visit.

Eastern State Penitentiary, or ESP as it’s known, is a place of many firsts. When its first prisoner entered in 1829, he discovered a simple cell with running water and central heating, the first institution in the United States to offer these conveniences, long before the President knew such comforts in the White House.

ESP also gave new meaning to the term “penitentiary,” originally reserved for priests responsible for penitents, or for the place where they were confined to reflect on their sins. It was a religious term. In the United States, in the early 1800’s, it became synonymous with a state prison.

Philadelphia is known as the Quaker City and prominent Quakers were among the prison’s founders. For these well-meaning men, prison was for repentance, penitence and punishment, a necessary ingredient on the road to rehabilitation. Prisoners of ESP lived in individual cells, lighted from above, with white-washed walls and wooden floors. They had a bed, table, and work bench. This represented relative comfort in 1829.

But they also lived in solitary confinement for as long as their sentence lasted, never setting eyes on another living soul. When they had to leave their cells, their heads were covered with a sack. There was no collective workspace or recreation. The prisoner was left entirely alone to reflect and repent of his crime. This mode of incarceration gave birth to what became “the Pennsylvania system,” exported throughout the world.

ESP was originally meant for 250 inmates. At the beginning of the 20th century, it housed about 900, requiring doubling up in cells. Long before, the strict solitary confinement imagined by the prison’s founders had come to an end.

In Paris, there is a 19th century prison whose organization was in part inspired by ESP: la Santé, inaugurated in 1867 and operational still today. When it first opened, Napoleon III was Emperor of France, and the chief administrator of Paris was a faithful ally, Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann. His mission was to tear down old Paris and turn the city into a modern capital, which included a state-of-the-art prison.

Haussmann commissioned architect Joseph Vaudremer to build France’s first penitentiary. Its name, la Santé, means “health,” an echo of a 17th century hospice that once occupied its grounds.

Vaudremer designed a prison that adopted not only the Pennsylvania, but also the Auburn system, named after a penitentiary in upstate New York. There, in the 1820’s, prisoners spent their days in a collective workspace and their nights in solitary confinement in narrow cells. Moving between the two, they marched in lockstep and were the first to wear striped uniforms.

In 2014, la Santé was the symbol of the general decay of the French prison system. That year it was closed for renovations. On January 7th, 2019, it reopened its doors to its first 80 inmates (the renovated prison is designed for 800) and then quickly locked them inside.

Each prisoner now has an individual cell that is basically a 90-square-foot studio with a small bathroom and an electric burner for cooking simple meals (many Parisians live in spaces that small, but they’re free to open their front door).

In some cells, however, bunkbeds have been installed. The French system is overcrowded and prison director Christelle Rotach anticipates an occupation rate of 150%.

Eastern State Penitentiary closed in 1970. Though it has been a National Historic Landmark since 1965, the prison was abandoned from 1970 till 1991, when restoration began. Today, ESP is also used as an exhibition space, a venue for special events, such as Bastille Day, and the set for films.

La Santé and ESP are both imposing reminders of a conception of punishment and control dating back to the late 18th century. That is when English philosopher Jeremy Bentham invented the panopticon, a mode of controlling prisoners through their fear of being watched.

For Bentham, the ideal prison (though he also applied his ideas to schools or hospitals), was a circular structure with a watchtower at its center. This became the floorplan of ESP, designed by English-born architect John Haviland, with cellblocks, like the spokes in a wheel, radiating from the central watchtower. From within, hidden from view, a single watchman could observe all inmates though they could never be sure when he was watching them.

Such a system encouraged prisoners to behave as if they were being constantly observed, prompting them to regulate their behavior at all times. This would lead, in Bentham’s words, to “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind.”

In Hawthorne’s 17th century Boston, there was only one prison. Today the United States has become a nation of prisons, with the highest incarceration rates in the world. As for prison reform, 21st century reformers seem no closer to knowing how to rehabilitate those behind bars than were those Philadelphia Quakers 200 years ago.

In one area, however, great progress has been made. Inside and outside of prison, video and virtual surveillance are everywhere, giving those doing the observing “power of mind over mind.”

These are hard time for the wild rosebush growing outside the prison door.

In Margon, France, a “Yellow-vest Christmas” and “Yellow-vest New Year”

A wooded hillside. At its summit sits a compact stone church, its bell tower a beacon since the 11th century. Below the church, a road spirals around the hill; a row of low stone houses hugs the edge.

At the foot of the hill, only a few hundred feet from the church and this postcard image of rural France, semi-trailer trucks and cars block a traffic circle bordered by a commercial zone of parking lots and discount stores.

This is where the “Yellow Vests” (they’ve named themselves after the yellow safety vests all French drivers must carry in their glove compartments) have set up camp, on a grassy slope between the church and the highway.

This is where some of them are celebrating Christmas and ringing in the New Year: three tents, a meeting space, a canteen and a “backroom” reserved for cots and food supplies. The place is Margon, a village in le Perche, near my country home in lower Normandy.

Margon used to be an isolated village perched on a hillside. Today it is the far end of a sort of strip-mall, with, at its heart, Centre Leclerc, France’s answer to Walmart. At the other end is Nogent-le-Rotrou, a town of 10 thousand inhabitants dating back to Gallo-Roman times, with high unemployment, an aging population, and lower than average incomes.

The day I visit the Yellow Vest camp, rain thrashes against the tents and the sky is dark, but the Yellow Vests are in high spirits, determined to stick it out on this muddy patch of earth till their demands for social justice are met.

Who are they? Why are they celebrating the holidays here? What do they want?

They want to be heard. They are ready to talk, to tell their stories, if necessary, to the world.

Jacques Roussel, 67, tried to reach out to President Macron, responding to his call to turn France into a start-up nation. Jacques began working in a factory when he was 14 and lives today on a pension of less than $1,000 a month. Looker younger than his age, obviously in good shape, he is a fervent cyclist and his idea for a start-up is to create a professional cycling school for girls and women in this region of hills and valleys, the perfect terrain for the sport. As of today, no such school exists in France.

He wrote to President Macron and his wife Brigitte. He got no answer. Now he is ready to go international. At a time when US-French relations are at a low point, he is looking for an American partner who would like to invest in his start-up and contribute to a positive form of cooperation between the two nations.

Of course, that’s not why Jacques is with the Yellow Vests and he wasn’t expecting to meet an American in Margon, but he believes start-ups should be for everyone and can’t understand why his government ignores people like him.

The rain is getting worse. We duck inside the canteen. Valérie, aka Mamy, graciously offers me a hot chocolate. She is here to take care of the canteen, receive the many donations dropped off at the site and make sure the Yellow Vests have hot drinks and food.

She comes daily because she and her husband, a self-employed painter, can no longer make ends meet. Usually she stays at home, takes care of the children, and does her husband’s paperwork. Watching over their finances, she fears they’ll soon not have enough to survive. She first put on a yellow vest out of frustration. Now Valérie keeps coming back because she has discovered a community of friendship and solidarity.

Sylvie agrees. She and her husband lost their business in a court-ordered liquidation. She is proud to have a daughter who attends university but, as in Valérie’s case, money is tight. The more we’re taxed, the poorer everyone becomes, she tells me. And then, she’s fed up with seeing people over 60 rooting in dumpsters because they don’t have enough to eat. That’s why she keeps coming back, for the people who’ve worked all their lives and can’t even pay the grocery bills.

Though he’s only 30, Nicolas too feels for the retired. He can’t understand why President Macron, while giving tax breaks to the rich, has increased the tax burden on retirees. That’s why, in late November, he left his village and joined the Yellow Vests. He has stayed and become the camp’s night watchman. In the early morning, he greets motorists with what may be their first smile of the day.

Jean-Marc Cipoire stops by daily to document events for Le Perche Web-TV, a site he created to give greater visibility to the region. He is on disability and lives on about $700 a month. He never goes to a restaurant, but nothing could keep him away from the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where he follows racing events for his web-TV. Spending as little as possible, he and his companion Sylvie pitch a tent and cook their food over a fire.

Sylvie has never been to Paris, less than 100 miles away. Nor has Magaly, 63, who, like Jacques Roussel, began working at14. She worked in a local auto parts plant, but somewhere along the line there was an accident, disability. Today she lives on about $600 a month. She owns a house, but the roof is about to collapse. She lives with her brother. He once worked as a locksmith but ended up in the streets of Paris. Magaly has taken him in.

Magaly’s dog Doudou, a black cocker-spaniel mix, is the site’s mascot. And like Nicolas, Magaly plans to stay as long as it takes, ready to start 2019 at the edge of the highway. Among all Yellow Vests to whom I spoke, she is the only one to express hostility to immigrants. Otherwise, the message is “everyone welcome.” Immigrants, the unemployed, workers, the retired, people of all races and religions, we’re in this together.

Leaving the camp, I feel buoyed up by the “Yellow Vest spirit,” warm acceptance of outsiders and generosity towards all, the “Christmas spirit,” in other words.

Recent events in Paris have made it all too clear that some Yellow Vests are ready to resort to destructive violence to get their message across. But the movement is about much more than anger or hatred. In places like Margon, people are creating spaces where they can speak up and be heard.

To quote one of the Yellow Vests, Jean-Michaël Verrier, a young landscape gardener, “Macron has accomplished at least one thing: he’s got us all talking to each other,” an excellent way to begin 2019.