Paris Journal 2007

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. This is where Christian Estrosi, also known as “motodidact,” works in the 7^th arrondissement. He manages France’s overseas territories. A lamp on the rue de Varenne, not far from the Hotel Matignon, headquarters for the French prime minister, François Fillon. Needless to say, there were many security police around here. We were very, very safe. A smiling face on the avenue de Suffren. The monument at the Place Breteuil in the 7^th arr. Miniature orchids in a shop window on the rue de Varenne.

Thursday, July 12 I forgot to mention the rainbow! That day when we enjoyed the damp solitude in the gardens of Parc André Citroën, when the rain stopped, we turned, with the sun to our backs, and voila! We saw a rainbow, perfectly displayed against a backdrop of distant, dark clouds. The ironic part is that if we had stayed home, we could have seen most of the rainbow from our balcony. But with the tall buildings around the park, we just saw a couple sections. It was lovely. We work at the computers every day, and near the end of the day we watch final minutes of the day’s stage of the Tour de France. Then we go out walking. Yesterday evening’s walk was in the 7^th arrondissement, and it included a couple streets we have never walked on before! These were rue Éblé, and rue Oudinot. Rue Oudinot was named for Nicolas Charles Oudinot (1767-1847), the duc de Reggio and maréchal de France, and rue Éblé was named for Jean-Baptiste Éblé (1758-1812), a French general. I believe it was on the rue Éblé that we saw the Ministere de la France D’Outre-Mer. Nicolas Sarkozy recently appointed Christian Estrosi to head up this ministry. According to Huw Richards in his June 21^st International Herald Tribune column, “Responsibility for the overseas territories that are treated as part of France is in the hands of the Sarkozy confidant Christian Estrosi, whose lack of a college degree and past as a Grand Prix motorcyclist have earned him the nickname ‘motodidact.’” According to Outre Mer’s web site, these territories that are treated as part of France include: · La Guadeloupe · La Guyane · La Martinique · La Réunion · Nouvelle Calédonie · Polynésie Française · Mayotte · St-Pierre et Miquelon · Wallis et Futuna · TAAF (Terres australes et antarctiques françaises). Speaking of France’s colonial past, I read the other day that Nicolas Sarkozy refuses to apologize for it. That’s because he says there is a lot of good that came out of that colonialism, and he thinks the good outweighs the bad. I still think France needs to apologize for it. This European colonialism was fueled by the slave trade, for heavens sake. I know that Africans were selling other Africans into slavery, but that wouldn’t have happened so much if the Europeans had not created the market and trade. And look at what a mess it was for the US to deal with in the first 100 years of its existence. The Civil War remains the bloodiest war for the USA. I would love to hear Sarkozy really try to justify his position for nonrepentence in front of an audience of African and African-American leaders. More locally, there is an interesting story in the news about one of the homeless people of our neighborhood in the 15^th arrondissement. I’ve noticed her through the years, as I would take my morning walk up rue Linois to the Allée aux Cygnes. I never tried to give her any coins because she did not ask, and because I saw her yell at people who tried to talk to her. I haven’t seen her yet this year, and here is part of the reason. Evidently, the people who work for the city of Paris, looking after the homeless (Bapsa, the Brigade for assistance to homeless people), took this woman to a shelter. How they did it, I don’t know, because she has been known for fiercely refusing any kind of help. But there are other signs that Paris is working hard this year to get the homeless people out of sight. Or it could be true that the reason for her particular removal was all of the construction work that has begun on this huge complex, known as Beaugrenelle. Her name is Denise, and she is 65 years old, although she looks older. Her nickname is “Princess.” She had been living in the street on the rue Linois for 25 years. She has many suitcases, which she arranged as a sort of hut, with a tarp stretched over the top during bad weather. It isn’t a bad location, security-wise, because the neighborhood police station is very nearby. She did not beg. She did not accept money or the offer of a room to sleep in. She would accept a bottle of wine or cider, but not hot chocolate. If anyone tried to help her, she sent them on their way. But somehow, the helpers of the homeless got her to a shelter. There, when she refused to be separated from her bags, her bags were searched. In them, the workers found about €40,000! Longtime residents of the 15^th do recall seeing her in a bank, making withdrawals. The money was put away for safekeeping. She left the shelter. She reappeared later to claim her suitcases. Then I guess she decided to stay, at least until someone will return her baggage. This is a gigantic shelter called Chapsa, not in the center of Paris, but in Nanterre, in the Hauts-de-Seine. There she has been given a wheelchair, which she has not left since. She refuses to have any contact with the other residents of the shelter. She joins them for meals only, but just looks away from anyone trying to make eye contact. She speaks very little, except to mention a house that she owns in a village called Beg-Meil, in Brittany, and of course her precious baggage, now in the possession of the police. Her brother-in-law is going to come from Brittany and try to convince her to return to her home there. The newspaper reporters located one of her estranged relatives in Finistère-sud, the part of Brittany that forms the very upper-left-most corner of France. The relative said, “I thought she was dead!” The relative said that sometimes, a while ago, Denise would come back from Paris to stay for a while at the house that her parents (deceased) had owned. The only shopping they saw her do was to buy a wagon-full of wine bottles, which she would tote from the town back to the house, which was mid-way to the beach. Sometimes they would see her stumbling around in the streets of the town, drunk. Sometimes they would find her curled up in a ditch by the side of the road. One person in the town remembers that “the alcohol would put her sometimes in a terrible state, to the point that she would collapse just about anywhere.” The mayor of the 15^th arrondissement, René Galy-Dejean, has known about Denise for years. He has known that she is not without means, and that she came from the village of Beg-Meil in Brittany. He’s tried everything to convince her to go back to her village. He even tried to persuade a resident of the 15^th who regularly vacations in Beg-Meil to try to take her with him and get her connected with the local social services there. Numerous times, the mayor even called Denise’s sister in Brittany. Nothing worked. One thing is very clear: Now that everyone knows she has money, she would be in grave danger if she tries to live on the streets again. I hope her family is successful in convincing her to return to Beg-Meil and to change her life. ←Previous Next→

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