A Tale of Times Past in France

Not all the same but all equal.

It was a long time ago, 36 years to be exact. Some things have changed, some have not. I was new to France. I had a lot to learn, but some things I already understood. For example, I already knew that all immigrants are not created equal.

I arrived in France in June 1987 with a tourist visa that I applied for at the French consulate in New York. France at that time was recovering from a series of deadly terrorist attacks centered in Paris. The Lebanese Hezbollah was planting bombs in the city to protest against French support for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War. That 8-year conflict lasted from 1980 to 1988, with casualties of over one million, soldiers and civilians combined. At the time, a visa was required to enter the country, but it gave me no rights except those of any tourist eager to discover France.

What the French didn’t know, I had come to stay, with hopes of a job. I’d been contacted by an international school ready to take me on. As my tourist visa excluded employment, I decided to inquire about a work permit at the city hall of Vence, the town where I was living in the Maritime Alps above Nice. This was my first learning experience about immigrants.

I already spoke French well, always a plus in France. The woman in charge of immigration invited me to sit down. I told her about the job offer at the school, one with a very good reputation. She was impressed. We both knew, however, that to obtain a work visa, it was necessary that I apply from the United States. Yet I left her office that day with a work permit, no longer a tourist, suddenly a legal immigrant.

France and the world were a different place then. There were computers, car phones, but no internet, wi-fi or cell phones. We still depended on the post office, and international phone calls were a luxury. In the French town where I lived, it was also easier to be racist.

In that southern town where the summer sun could be brutal, the main square was shaded by plane trees and at its center water flowed from a public fountain. On one side of the square were three cafés; on the other, behind the fountain, a parking lot. The fountain and the cafés were separated by a busy street. It was the demarcation line between the French and “immigrants.”

On the fountain side, on public benches, sat men, their skin creased and brown from working outside in construction, sweeping streets, collecting garbage, doing the unwanted work of French society. These men were immigrants from North Africa. Arabs, as the French called them. On the café-side sat the French and those that blended in, tourists, certain foreign residents, enjoying la dolce vita of the South of France. Everyone knew their place.

I think you can imagine where I sat.

In May 1988 François Mitterrand was reelected President. Very quickly a rumor began circulating that he was offering amnesty to all illegal immigrants. This was at a time when I was attempting to turn that temporary work permit into a one-year resident’s card.

To do that, I could no longer go to the city hall of Vence. This administrative procedure could only take place at “la préfecture,” the county seat of the Maritime Alps, an imposing monolith sitting alone on a hill on the outskirts of Nice. In this area of vacant lots, garages and shopping centers, many workers like those on the public benches in Vence lived in barracks built at the edge of the city’s beltway.

I set up an appointment, I put together my dossier, a thick packet of papers proving my identity and most importantly, proving I had a monthly paycheck. The big day finally arrived.

At that time I had a car, a bright yellow Citroën 2 CV, a ridiculous vehicle with, instead of rollup windows, Dumbo-like glass ears that flapped as I drove. It did not go fast but the motor was sturdy and dependable. I drove to the prefecture and parked. I approached the entrance turnstile where, already at that time, there was a security check. 

I approached and then I stopped. A mob of mostly young men, mostly from North Africa, Algeria, Tunisia or Morrocco, were trying to scale the high metal fence surrounding the building. Reacting to the rumors of amnesty, many were pressed against its bars, their arms passing through, their hands reaching out in desperation for the right to legally reside in France. Policemen held them back from the entrance checkpoint, where a sign was posted: Immigration Services Closed.

I could have turned back, made another appointment and returned another day, but I noticed the guards were screening people and letting some in. Those who did get through looked a lot like me.

I decided to give it a try. I walked up to the turnstile, a guard waved me through. After all, I “looked French.” Behind me, angry chaos raged. Moving forward, I entered the airtight building, where calm and silence reigned.

In the lobby, people stood quietly in line to renew their driver’s license. Workers carrying files walked through the halls. I followed arrows towards “Immigration.” No one blocked my way. When I got there, I saw the agents in their offices. Some were chatting, drinking coffee with a coworker. There was not a single immigrant in sight – except for me.

I asked a woman if I could enter her office and she said yes. We studied my file. Everything was in order. As with the work permit, the one-year card was issued on the spot. From that point onwards, though my immigration troubles were not over, each year things got easier.

On June 27, 2023, Nahel Merzouk, a 17 year-old Franco-Algerian, was killed at close range by a member of the Police Nationale in the Parisian suburbs. The shooting set off a week of violent rioting in France. Cars went up in flames, stores were looted, public buildings, including schools, were set on fire. Insurance experts claim damages amount to over 600 million euros.

In 36 years some things in France have changed; some have not. Immigration to France is not easy for anyone these days, but to get on in French society, it still helps to look like me.

 

 

A French Pollyanna

 

Earlier this month, on Sunday June 11^th, at 6:20 AM, an overpass collapsed due to a violent fire on I-95 in Philadelphia. It was noon here in France and I found out about it almost in real time scrolling through US news on my phone. A couple of hours later, while speaking to my sister in Pottsville, I mentioned the fire and she reacted with surprise. From the other side of the Atlantic, on another continent, I’d been the first to know.

News travels fast, and thanks to our smart phones, 24/7, we have the world at our fingertips. Often this means living our lives against a backdrop of violence, war and tragedy.

I think about this a lot as I carry on with life. I think about distance. For example, 1,000 miles from where I live, a war is going on. An entire generation of young men is being sacrificed in Ukraine, a country with a population of 43 million. Today fighting is going on in eastern Ukraine as, village by village, the Ukrainian army tries to regain territory lost. The death toll is heavy on both the Ukrainian and Russian sides.

We live in a world where it’s hard to ignore what’s going on at home or on the other side of the globe. To escape the news, we’d have to live like Henry David Thoreau, in a cabin we built ourselves, eating the food we raise. Even if you tossed your cellphone in the Schuylkill River and turned off the TV, current events would catch up with you somehow.

During the night of June 13-14, off the coast of Kalamata, Greece, a boat carrying refugees sank. More than a week later, the number of deaths, most likely in the hundreds, remains unknown. The 104 survivors, all men, speak of 750 passengers on board, with most of the women and children trapped in the hold. This is the worst refugee boat accident in the Mediterranean since 2016.

I am not a morbid person and I am not trying to depress my readers, but I ask myself and I ask you how to live life against a backdrop of bad news.

My response may be a cowardly one—I am not an activist by nature, but my decision is made. I try to make the best of each day, fighting bad news with a smile. I suppose that makes me a Pollyanna. I loved the 1960 movie with Hayley Mills, now a classic, and I enjoyed the book.

 

Playing Pollyanna’s “Glad Game,” I’m glad for my morning cup of coffee and fresh bread with honey, a breakfast fit for a queen. I’ll admit, I’m glad to no longer be teaching. That alone makes each day a gift. I live modestly but what does it matter when I can read, write, walk, garden, visit friends, live.

The morning after the tragedy in Kalamata, I heard about it on the radio while I was picking red currants in my garden. I have to use scissors to cut the fruit from the tiny stems. If I try to pull a berry from the bush, it crushes between my fingers and the berry juice stains my fingers red. That morning, while others’ hopes, lives and families were destroyed, I was enjoying summer’s splendor. The contrast made me feel beholden to life. 

 

Only yesterday, just as I was sitting down to write this article, my friend Sophie called with a spur-of-the-moment invitation to hear her son sing with the youth choir of Opéra comique. They were giving a free concert in the main hall of Musée d’Orsay, the museum of 19^th century art across the Seine from the Louvre. Art and music all under one roof. Carpe diem. I seized the day and hurried to Paris. It’s not hard to play the “Glad Game” in circumstances like that.

Somedays, though, it is. This past winter, I shivered through each day, huddled in front of the fireplace, my only source of heat, in the apartment I moved to in January 2022. Taken in by the look of the place, I overlooked there was no heat. The few radiators are good for nothing except running up the electric bill. There were days when, without my coffee and bread, I’d have found nothing to be glad about. The only way to warm up was to take a swift walk outside.

Now it’s summer. Last year I planted some honey suckle. This year it’s in flower and I can smell its sweet scent, one I came to love as a child. On our way to the East Side pool, my friends and I would stop at a honey suckle hedge, pick the flowers, and suck out the sweet nectar.

On this summer day, the windows are open, birds are singing and the air is fragrant with the scent of linden flower. And all’s right with the world, I’m tempted to say, except it’s not.

Here, the natural world is in peril and so are we. There is not enough water. For the moment, we are practicing voluntary water restrictions. In a neighboring département, strict conservations measures have been put in place, along with fines. What happens if we run out?

That’s another thing I wonder about. If we were the refugees, fleeing drought, who would take us in?

I also wonder what it would be like to play the “Glad Game” if I didn’t have shelter, food, friends and family always there to love and help. What if I were all alone and had to face mortal illness, war? I’ve not been tested. I don’t know.

On June 11^th, when the I-95 overpass collapsed, rescuers first believed there were no victims. Later in the carcass of the fuel truck that caught on fire, the remains of Nathan Moody, age 53 at time of death and father of three, were found.

Let’s hope in the months and years to come, his family can overcome loss and find things to make them glad.

They Do It Too!

 

Once a year, just like in Pottsville, they do it too! In this little village where I’ve taken up residence, peaceful, bucolic, lusciously green at this time of year, they do it: they get out their antique cars, their classics, and they cruise!

Saturday, May 13, 2023 was “Cruise Day” in Nointel and 8 other neighboring villages of this region of the Oise River Valley. Of course, they don’t call it a “cruise.” They call it a “randonnée,” a ramble, a leisurely day-trip. Beginning at 9 am, a cavalcade of classic cars travel from town to town, with frequent stops to give the locals a chance to admire these pampered vehicles.

It all began in 2016 and the idea originated with the current mayor of Nointel, Madame Martine Legrand, in office since 2014. She and her municipal team wanted to attract attention to this region, so close to Paris (a 35-minute train ride) yet so far away in its setting and way of life. Classic cars always attract a crowd and with 9 participating towns on the circuit, each municipality was given the chance to show off what the French call its “patrimoine,” its heritage, but also its potential for future development.

 

The idea took off and this year marks number 8 of a series of successful events.

Nointel is a small place. The population is under 1,000. It’s a strange combination of aristocratic grandeur, small village, and housing developments for commuters who go to Paris to work. The village has its chateau, an imposing castle with a majestic entrance and a walled park that hides cascading fountains and a thick forest. Today it is a conference center, its grounds closed to the rest of us.

 

The village also has its manor house, less grand. That’s where I live, in what has become an apartment building looking out on the village green. Here every dog owner in Nointel passes at least once a day, and with typical French “orgueil,” a kind of innate pride, most refuse to stoop to clean up after their pets. On this beautiful green, bordered with majestic linden trees, one must always step gingerly to avoid the doggy diamonds littering it everywhere.

And this is exactly where the cruise wrapped up. In the days leading up to it, the village maintenance team worked tirelessly, rain or shine, removing every single weed, every dog crotte from the cobblestone walk crossing the park. The eve of the event, the lawn was mown and manicured. On the big day, it was perfect. Best of all, after a week of rain and cold, the sun burst through and temperatures rose.

At 9 AM on the dot, the first cortege drove out from the main entrance gate of the chateau, open especially for the event. A small crowd was gathered to cheer the drivers on. At 9:40, the second group drove away, and already the crowd was bigger. From that point onwards, the cars followed an itinerary through local villages and towns, stopping in each for 40 minutes before returning to Nointel at the end of the day.

Compared to the Great Pottsville Cruise, 30 years old this year, this local event is still in its childhood. As for size, participation is limited to 80 vehicles—though there are no specific standards for what kind of car can participate. Looking out my window, I saw some fine vintage models of Peugeots, Renaults and Citroens from the 1930’s. There were also lots of sports cars, Karmann Ghia, Aston Martins, Porsches and Mercedes. And American models too: a gleaming red-and-white Mustang, a Dodge Challenger. 

Standing out among the other classics was the Citroen DS (those 2 letters pronounced together in French become the homonym for “déesse,” goddess). Once the car of presidents and the elite, French critic Roland Barthes described it as “the exact equivalent of the Gothic cathedrals, a great creation of its time, conceived with passion by craftsmen who remained anonymous.” 

Beauty and style aside, all those classic models, created before the days of clean-air emissions standards, make for a lot of big and powerful motors, and call it a cruise or a ramble, the purpose is show off what those motors can do. From early morning till after midnight, motors purred like the family cat, growled like a menacing lion, and roared through the streets of tiny villages at speeds, well, that were unwise. There were no buckets of water, no laying tracks. That doesn’t seem to be popular here. But there was noise a plenty, and what could be more appropriate for a day that celebrates gasoline-powered automobiles?

To register a car for the day’s event, participants paid a fee of 15 euros, and they got their money’s worth, à la française. Before they headed off, breakfast was served: croissants and hot coffee. And at the end of the day, when they returned to Nointel, an entire meal was waiting for them in an enclosed garden at eastern end of the village green, opposite the chateau. There, beneath an elegant green-and-white striped tent, participants, along with any spectator ready to pay for the copious meal, were served fresh French fries, grilled sausage, wine and beer.  

As I write, it’s raining and I’m cold, but the evening of May 13^th was perfect. The air was soft and warm, scented with lilacs and wisteria. The village green, looking its best, was transformed into a giant showroom for gleaming classic cars. Families, friends, couples, solitary car-enthusiasts, wandered from vehicle to vehicle, inspecting, taking pictures, admiring.

There was also best of show and a crowd gathered around the panel of judges. The winners were announced late in the evening. The mairie (city hall) has not published the results, so I cannot tell you which cars received a prize.

I can say people enjoyed themselves and the area around the tent was packed all evening. Still at midnight, motors were roaring as the classics pulled out to return home.

Sunday morning, there remained not a trace of the previous day’s event. I’ve rarely seen the village green so quiet, and it felt ominous—as if the future had arrived overnight and the gasoline-powered car, gone for good.