Tag Archives: France
On a fait des valises (my bags are packed…)
Mes cher(e)s lecteurs, lecteuses, The winds of internet change have blown me from this simple but undiscoverable forum to the more complex universe of substack. (Learning curve as yet incomplete.) Please click the link for the latest posts, and join me there (at no charge) for the usual PointdeVue sensibility, book reviews, and a wider-ranging […]
Gangsters at the Gates
The sun-soaked, Phoenician-founded port of Marseilles has long been famous for its succulent bouillabaise, formidable soccer talents, and, in long-ago decades, blood-thirsty gang vs gang subculture. But while the cocaine trade of the ‘sixties and ‘seventies, as dramatized in the iconic film The French Connection, has faded from public awareness, it never went away. What […]
The Bells of Notre Dame Are Ringing!
To tell the truth, today I am content to listen to the newly resurrected bells (a trial run), or to classical music, or to small kids playing in the park. It grates, though, to hear the repetitive lamentations and blame-throwing, or American tourists in Paris who chatter and whoop… as if. As if anything. Leave […]
Don’t Drink the Water!
An Anglophone writer living now partly in France, well-versed in French leftist philosophy, brings out with much fanfare a novel that uses the serious French farmers’ and ecologists’ aggravation over ‘mega-reservoirs’ as background and hook. I’ll be curious to see what French readers make of this fiction, once translated. Meanwhile, the Arts Fuse published my […]
All Quiet Along the Seine
Paris feels uncharacteristically subdued these days. Even the demonstrations (Women’s Day, Palestine) are less raucous. Are we holding our collective breath in anticipation of the JO—Jours Olympiques? Going to be a long wait to exhale. Some predict chaotic crowds, while others argue that most Parisians will flee, leaving empty streets to the athletes and happy […]
Bastille Day Ruminations
July 14th. Bastille Day. Hallowed holiday in the Hexagon, celebrated with military marches and fly-overs, politicians’ cliché-crusted speeches—and fireworks! Millions of Frenchpersons lustily belting out the Marseillaise. A somewhat bizarre choice of national holiday, given that the glory that is la belle Patrie existed long before enraged crowds stormed the Bastille in 1789. Which was […]
Parallel Lives in Paris
Is any other major city as starkly, yet silently, divided as Paris? Not brawling London, not in-your-face New York. I recall also my teenage years in West Berlin before the Wall came down. There, on both sides, despite official enmity and opposing socio-economic scaffolding, intense curiosity reigned about how the ‘other half’ really lived. Letters […]
POINT de VUE: PARIS 
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