Paris Journal 2011 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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Whoaa! That book went fast. I finished Sarah’s Key in just two evenings of reading. I simply could not put the book down. I’d said that the new Coco Chanel biography would be next, but now I think I’d like to wait until I read at least one review of it in English. I’ve only read an article about it in the French newspaper, Le Parisien, and there seems to be some bias there. (The paper loves Coco so much, because she is a rags-to-riches example and she contributed to French culture.) This is the time of year when Le Parisien has a number of stories about how expensive everything is. Costs of back-to-school supplies for kids, for example, are up 7 percent in spite of the “morose” economy. The fruit and vegetable sales by the farmers directly to the people at the Place de la Bastille was a big success. The MODEF organization claims that the anger and distress of the farmers has never been so great as now. The distributers charge too much, say the farmers, and the demand is down because of the E. coli scares. The farmers’ organizations are calling to the Ministry of Agriculture for help. The headline story in yesterday’s issue of Le Parisien was about the rich people who say they are undertaxed. Warren Buffet leads the pack, of course, and the banner at the top of the two-page spread next includes the Americans Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. But after them come two French men, Maurice Lévy and Pierre Bergé. Maurice Lévy is making the same appeal in France as Buffet is making in the U.S.: tax the super-rich more, they say to their respective governments. Le Parisien calls this an “incredible thing” that Warren has started. The newspaper also describes Buffet’s and Bill Gates’ exhorting their fellow super-rich citizens to give away at least 50 percent of their fortunes. And it works, the paper reports, “Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, and the star-couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have not only signed onto the appeal for more taxing but also have promised to donate millions of dollars to charity.” Le Parisien adores this kind of story. Not only does the paper routinely look out for the little guy, the underdog, the oppressed ordinary working person, but they also adore Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. “The movement begins to make followers,” reports the paper. “Pierre Bergé and Maurice Lévy, the chief of Publicis [the 3rd largest communications group worldwide, leader in digital and interactive communication], have called for more taxing of the super-rich to address the public finance crises.” Pierre Bergé, the co-founder of Yves Saint Laurent and major stockholder in the newspapers Le Monde and Liberation, is quoted as saying, “The rich pay less proportionately than the others.” Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, the president and major stockholder in Virgin Mobile, is quoted as saying, “I have the means to be very generous,” and “being rich gives responsibilities. The first is to contribute to the nation’s solidarity above all in this period of crisis.” Le Parisien is giving Warren Buffet full credit because of his commentary published in the New York Times on Monday. The two-page spread also includes a sidebar that informs the reader that the super-rich in America are far more generous in giving to charity than their counterparts in France. The headline for the article is “In France, the richest give little.” Of the nearly 600,000 richest households in France, only 7 percent gave anything to charity. Of those who give, they only donate an average of 3,000 euros per year. And of the money given, often it is done in a way that is not disinterested; there is some return on investment for the donor. The rich in France consider their taxes to be their contribution to the nation’s solidarity. But the floor of the highest tax bracket, which begins at 790,000 euros, has been raised to 1.3 million euros this past Spring. So that means 300,000 taxpaying households are now going to escape that bracket. Well, well, well. The regular middle class in Paris does seem to be out there looking for value. In our big walk through our arrondissement yesterday, we stopped to eat dinner at Le Granite. It was good, and good value, but it is pricier than, for example, the Commerce Café on the Place du Commerce. We passed the Commerce Café while walking home after dinner. It was, by far, the busiest place around. The locals filled the place up with their presence and lively conversation. The food is good, fast, and not so expensive there. The menu has something for everyone on it. The menu at Le Granite, while extensive, is very classic. It is absolutely traditional French cuisine, but served with a bit of a creative twist. And the food is not fast. It is edible art. We each ordered the rack of lamb, with ratatouille for me and fries for Tom. The portions were reasonably small. The thyme sauce was exciting – a bit spicy. We didn’t waste a morsel. We had room for dessert: soupe de fraises et rhubarbe avec glace gingembre (chilled strawberry and rhubarb soup with a small scoop of ginger ice cream) for me, and tiramisu with spice cake for Tom. It was really nice, and the ambiance was calm and comfortable. A demain, mes amis. It is housecleaning time. Sign
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Friday, August 19, 2011 Fat
cats at the Louvre
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