Category Archives: Letter from Paris

Letter From Paris: Seasonal Signs in the City of Light … and Beyond

Posted on by
2
Nicole Prévost Logan

Nicole Prévost Logan

France is very festive at this pre-Christmas time.  I just returned from a short visit to the village of Sanary Sur Mer on the Mediterranean.  The grandiose gold and silver decorations contrasted with the bright colored “pointus” (small fishing boats) tossing about in the port.

Our next stop was Aix-en-Provence, which was also getting ready for the holiday season.  It is a pleasure to look for shops wandering through the pedestrian streets of the old town and discover the 17th century architecture  with its elegant courtyards and stairs.  Rows of prefabricated chalets selling glühwein and regional pastries lined the Cours Mirabeau (the heart of the city) ending in an illuminated fountain.  A hot chocolate in the old fashioned terrace of the Grillon cafe was a must.

If  Paris ever deserves its name of the “City of Light,” it is at Christmas time.  Each arrondissement  has its own style of illuminations.  They range from the elegant avenue Montaigne where trees and lights match the costly look of the main fashion houses to the more popular Bastille (where I live), which turn into an amusement park offering a stomach -curdling ride in the highest contraption of Europe.

The Champs-Elysees in Paris with Christmas lights.

The Champs-Elysees in Paris with Christmas lights (file photo.)

The sight of the Champs Elysees is spectacular.  This year the decorations consist of blue lights circling  the  trees.  The computerized lighting of the Grande Roue (ferris wheel) overlooking the Place de la Concorde makes it look as if it is exploding in the sky.  For many years, it has offered the best view over the city, .

The Eiffel Tower decorated for Christmas.

The Eiffel Tower decorated for Christmas.

The Eiffel Tower stands aloof and sparkles for a few minutes every hour on the hour.

Borrowing a tradition which used to be more common in Germany and Central Europe, Christmas markets are now found every where in Paris.  Their alpine look make up for the absence of snow.  The esplanade of the Hotel de Ville attracts visitors with free skating ring and merry-go-round.

And, of course, there is the Christmas shopping, including the most popular toy of the year: the clone.  I thought it was a good time for me to discover the latest and largest shopping mall in downtown Paris.  The modernistic glass facade of Beaugrenelle is part of the group of skyscrapers  built in the 15th arrondissement by the Seine river.  As a sign of times, the budget of many families been has been reduced to 300 euros per person.  As a result, shopping online and the use of newly-created second-hand supermarkets have exploded.

Oysters, foie gras and a good bottle of champagne are still the favorite with the French for their reveillon (meaning ‘the eve.’)  On the 25th itself, the celebratory meal will be planned around a goose and end up with a bûche de Noel (Christmas log.)

HeadshotAbout the author:  Nicole Prévost Logan divides her time between Essex and Paris, spending summers in the former and winters in the latter.  She will write a regular column for us from her Paris home where her topics will include politics, economy, social unrest — mostly in France — but also in other European countries.  She also will cover a variety of art exhibits and the performing arts in Europe.  Logan is the author of ‘Forever on the Road: A Franco-American Family’s Thirty Years in the Foreign Service,’ an autobiography of her life as the wife of an overseas diplomat, who lived in 10 foreign countries on three continents.  Her experiences during her foreign service life included being in Lebanon when civil war erupted, excavating a medieval city in Moscow and spending a week under house arrest in Guinea.

Letter from Paris: ‘La Conversation’

Posted on by
Reply
Nicole Prévost Logan

Nicole Prévost Logan

“La Conversation” is the kind of play Parisians love:  a brilliant exercise of actors just talking and conversing on all the subjects of their time.

The scene takes place in the Tuileries palace in 1802 between First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte and Second Consul Jean-Jacques-Régis de Cambacérès.  Bonaparte is a young general of 34, impatient to acquire more power.  Vladimir d’Ormesson, dean of the Academie Française  (a learned assembly of  40 “eternal” members, whose role is to perfect the French language), wrote an imaginary dialogue carried out in an elegant style.

The tempo of the conversation is rapid.  The topics move from the mundane to the lofty.  At first, Bonaparte discusses food, then becomes animated when telling a funny anecdote of a family fight over a shawl.  The conversation touches on Bonaparte’s relations with women, including a beautiful blonde he met in Egypt during the 1798 campaign.  When he speaks about Josephine, it is with a tangible emotion.

Although Bonaparte’s seven siblings are hard to manage, he acknowledges how much they serve his ambition of becoming a ruler over Europe.  A current exhibit at the Marmottan museum shows the striking personalities of his three sisters.  Elisa, grand duchess of Tuscany, is an enlightened patron of the arts and a powerful brain.  Caroline, the wife of dashing general Murat, is the ambitious and plotting queen of Naples.  Princess Pauline Borghese was so incredibly beautiful as to be called the “Venus of the Empire”.   She was also very generous and sold all her assets to accompany Napoleon during his exile on St. Helena.

The conversation flows along revealing Bonaparte’s  personality, his ambitions and his accomplishments.  Cambacérès just acts as a sounding board.  Meekly he expresses opinions which are swiftly bulldozed by the first consul.  Bonaparte  is proud of his military victories like the Pont d’Arcole, or Marengo.  He considers himself at the service of the French and for them has created a legal and administrative system (which still exists today.)  He brought down the monarchy of the Ancien Regime and wants power, but not as a king.  He looks at Rome, and what does he see?  Ceasar and the Empire. Yes, this is what he wants:  be the emperor.

In the small theater, a captivated public savors the references to their common historical past.   The uninterrupted conversation is  a refreshing break from the modern world of texts and smart phones.

About the author:  Nicole Prévost Logan divides her time between Essex and Paris, spending summers in the former and winters in the latter.  She will write a regular column for us from her Paris home where her topics will include politics, economy, social unrest — mostly in France — but also in other European countries.  She also will cover a variety of art exhibits and the performing arts in Europe.  Logan is the author of ‘Forever on the Road: A Franco-American Family’s Thirty Years in the Foreign Service,’ an autobiography of her life as the wife of an overseas diplomat, who lived in 10 foreign countries on three continents.  Her experiences during her foreign service life included being in Lebanon when civil war erupted, excavating a medieval city in Moscow and spending a week under house arrest in Guinea.

A Letter from Paris: Art Déco in the Air

Posted on by
Reply
Nicole Prévost Logan

Nicole Prévost Logan

“When Art Déco seduced the World” is one of the most popular  exhibits of this season in Paris.  It celebrates the artistic movement which bloomed in the 1920s and the 1930s.  Monuments of that period can be seen around the world — from Moscow to Shanghai or Brussels and particularly in New York City.

What is Art Déco?  In the lineage of late 19th century Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts movement, it is a celebration of “total art” forms with the use of multiple materials:  glass, wood, ceramic, wrought iron, and the introduction of reinforced concrete.  The style even included the production of furniture featuring textiles and fashion made famous by designer Paul Poiret.

The architecture and sculpture were characterized by geometric and stylized forms.  Completed for the 1937 international exhibit,  the Palais de Chaillot,  also called Trocadéro  is probably the most imposing monument of Paris and is built along classical, but very sober lines.  It replaced the much-maligned neo-moorish former Trocadéro.

Art Déco was the artistic expression of modernism.  It was emblematic of the relief felt after the end of World War I. Artists had a field day applying their creations to the most visible buildings of urban life like swimming pools or stadiums.

But what they enjoyed most were the department stores.  Their elegant cupolas, grand staircases, decorated with colorful ceramic, their crystal chandeliers dazzled the new consumer class.  In Paris, the department stores multiplied, including Le Bon Marché, La Samaritaine or Le Printemps.  Les Galeries Lafayette even orchestrated the  publicity stunt of a small plane landing on its roof.

Modern times meant an ever faster pace of life.  Nothing was more dashing than a Bugatti sports car surrounded by elegant “flappers” ready to take the wheel.  The new era also meant traveling the world.   On May 29, 1929,  the Normandie, the largest, most luxurious ocean liner ever built, made its maiden voyage from Le Havre to New York.  The ship turned into a “floating embassy” — a showcase for the diffusion of French art around the world.  Lalique, the master of glass carving,  created the panels of the Normandie’s first class.

In New York, the 14 original Art Déco buildings of the Rockefeller Center still stand.  One cannot miss the Alfred Janniot’s sculpture  placed above the entrance of the Maison Française.  The gilded bronze bas-relief represents the meeting of the American and the European continents.

Letter From Paris: Immigration Woes, Thanksgiving in France

Posted on by
Reply
Nicole Prévost Logan

Nicole Prévost Logan

The pressure of immigration into Europe is growing.  Thousands of immigrants are seeking refugee status for economic or political reasons.  The television showed an incredible scene of young men climbing over barbed wire like swarms of insects, falling down, being shot, to be followed by hundreds more.  It was not a scene from the July 2013 Brad Pitt’s science fiction film “World War Z,” but of the electrified fence erected by the Spanish government to protect its borders from African migrants.  Other walls exist around Europe.  The next one will run along the Bulgarian-Turkish border.

The tragic drowning of 300 people near the Italian island of Lampedusa in October shocked the European opinion.  The problem of immigration, if studied case by case, and not in terms of statistics, triggers strong emotions.

It was also the theme of “Welcome,” a 2009 French movie .  A well-educated and determined 17-year-old boy from Kurdistan wants to join his girlfriend in England.  For weeks he is stranded in an inhospitable refugee camp near Calais, in the north of France.  During his first attempt at crossing the Channel hidden under a truck, he is caught by the police, almost asphyxiated by CO2 fumes, his head inside a plastic bag.  His next plan is to swim across the English Channel.  With the help of a compassionate coach, he learns how to do the crawl.  At his first attempt, he is pulled out of the water by fishermen and brought back to France.  He tries again, but, just in sight of the British coast, a police boat spots him.  He drowns, while trying to escape.

Western Europe represents an Eldorado for all these asylum seekers.  By granting various allowances to the new migrants, France has become particularly attractive . But its social structure is becoming unable to absorb the ever growing numbers.  This year there were 70,000 requests for asylum as compared to 60,000 in 2012.

In October, the Affaire Leonarda (the case of Leonarda) illustrated the problems with the immigration policy in France and caused a political crisis.  Leonarda is a 15-year- old daughter of a Kosovo national (Kosovo is located in the Balkan Peninsula of Southeastern Europe and recognized as a sovereign state by 106 member states of the  United nations, though its status is still disputed.)  After living in Italy for 17 years, with his Italian wife and seven other children, the man decided to move to France in 2009.

Since then he has made four attempts to obtain refugee status, all of which were rejected.  The work load of the French judicial courts make the process so slow that the family had plenty of time to settle in France and put the children in school.  Time was on the side of Leonarda’s family given the rules on naturalizations: children born in France of foreign parents become French automatically at age 18 after spending five years in France.

In mid October, as Leonarda was getting off the school bus, the police arrested her and sent her back to Kossovo with the rest of the family.  The public opinion reacted in a fury, blaming the Socialist government of breaking the sacred rule of non-violation of the schools.

To the surprise of many, President Francois Hollande was the one to address the nation on TV.  He started by saying that the police had broken no law in arresting Leonarda, nor used any violence.  Then, during the last two minutes of his speech, in an unexpected switch, he concluded that, because of humanitarian considerations, he would let Leonarda return to France, but alone – an impossible situation for a 15-year old.  His position satisfied almost no one.

A brief word on a more cheery subject — American expatriates in France are very attached to Thanksgiving and celebrate it between friends and relatives, usually on the weekend

Letter From Paris: Taxing Times in France

Posted on by
1
Nicole Prévost Logan

Nicole Prévost Logan

In spite of lively street scenes in Paris, crowds strolling in the Tuileries gardens, restaurant terraces full of people enjoying a copious lunch and long lines at museums and movie theaters, the ongoing austerity measures imposed by the Socialist government contribute to a morose mood in France .

In the past two years, new taxes have multiplied.  More people have to file income taxes, some retirees are struggling to survive on their pensions, the Taxe sur la Valeur Ajoutée (TVA – the equivalent of sales tax in the US) on restaurants — after being lowered — is going up again to reach 10% next January.  Corporate taxes have also increased.

The population was encouraged to invest its savings into special accounts.  Promises of a guaranteed interest of 3 percent on these savings accounts have gradually vanished.  It is today below 1 percent.

The northwest region of Brittany is in in uproar following a new “eco-tax” imposed on truckers, fishermen and farmers.

A tax of 75 percent on annual incomes higher than one million will hit particularly the stars soccer players, who threatened to go on strike for one week-end in November.  When one knows how fanatic the public here is about its soccer matches, one might expect violent scenes.

The TV series called “A Village Français,” now in its third season, continues to enjoy top ratings.  It shows how the average French people behaved during the German occupation.  It depicts the whole spectrum of the population, ranging from despicable collaborators to courageous “resistants” with — in between — the vast majority just trying to survive and protect their families.  The show is done with honesty, avoiding black and white judgments.  By 1943 the French became more daring , as their spirits were lifted by the London broadcasts.

This is a great idea: for a small fee, courses in the English language are offered to the passengers riding the Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV – high speed train) from Rheims to Paris – a facility to be extended to other railroad lines.

Nicole Prévost Logan divides her time between Essex and Paris, spending summers in the former and winters in the latter.  She will write a regular column for us from her Paris home where her topics will include politics, economy, social unrest — mostly in France — but also in other European countries.  She also will cover a variety of art exhibits and the performing arts in Europe.  Logan is the author of ‘Forever on the Road: A Franco-American Family’s Thirty Years in the Foreign Service,’ an autobiography of her life as the wife of an overseas diplomat, who lived in 10 foreign countries on three continents.  Her experiences during her foreign service life included being in Lebanon when civil war erupted, excavating a medieval city in Moscow and spending a week under house arrest in Guinea.