Last Call: The New Parisian Look
York, Byron
LAST CALL by Byron York The New Parisian Look Y WIFE AND I WENT TO PARIS in late fall to celebrate M our anniversary. It happened that we were there for what the New York Times called "a great...
...She is accused of saying there are "too many foreigners, notably Muslims," in France...
...The "anti-Nazi fighter" part required a little explanation...
...Like Brigitte Bardot...
...Perhaps she should shut up and start writing her opinions on walls...
...So the government said okay...
...It happened that we were there for what the New York Times called "a great national occasion...
...There were sweeping shots from cameras on cranes, dramatic rolling shots from cameras on tracks, and touching close-ups from roving cameras...
...They wanted more money for less work, plus earlier retirement...
...THE NEXT DAY, THE PAPERS CALLED Malraux a "writer, philosopher, adventurer, lover, bon vivant, anti-fascist and anti-Nazi fighter, orator and politician...
...Of the thousands of pictures broadcast and published before the ceremony, nearly every one depicted Malraux with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth...
...By the way, Malraux was one other thing: a smoker...
...Whether or not you believe in the broken-window school of criminology, it's not a good sign for the city...
...Malraux did indeed join the army and was captured by the Germans in 1940...
...Whoever is doing it, it is disturbing...
...it created incredibly long traffic backups around Bordeaux and other cities...
...The walls of many old Parisian buildings looked like those of many public places in Washington...
...The occasion was a ceremony during which the ashes of Andre Malraux—France's first culture minister and one of the country's all-time Deep Thinkers—were placed in the Pantheon, alongside fellow Deep Thinkers Voltaire, Rousseau, and Hugo, among others...
...So—like they had with the little gap in Malraux's war record—the authorities simply air-brushed the problem Gitane out of the picture...
...It featured legions of teenagers—all dressed in clear plastic raincoats on a drizzly night—carrying poster-sized photos of Malraux...
...In the U.S...
...Sure enough, it was a very big deal...
...The Pantheon ceremony itself— held on November 23, the twentieth anniversary of Malraux's death—was grand and strange...
...He didn't join the Resistance until 1944, when things were looking up...
...For the week preceding the big day it was virtually impossible even for a tourist to escape the pained, scowling visage of Malraux...
...When French TV wasn't running one of its magnificently stupid musical/game/variety shows, it was broadcasting long documentaries on Malraux...
...He said she looked like hell, but he was very excited nonetheless...
...According to the International Herald Tribune, Bardot—who is married to an associate of the right-wing leader Jean-Marie Le Pen—is being sued by two anti-racist groups...
...WHILE ALL THIS WAS GOING ON THERE WAS new evidence as if any more was needed—of why the French economy is in terrible shape...
...It gave them better sick day provisions...
...she might fit in well with some of the nativist Republicans that Stephen Moore wrote about in these pages last June...
...The graffiti problem was much, much worse than I had ever seen...
...That caused some consternation in newly-smoking-conscious France...
...She also allegedly said she doesn't like having so many alien cultural traditions to put up with...
...The day after we arrived, French truckers began using their tractor-trailer rigs to block major highways throughout the hinterlands...
...But in France, she'll have to defend her words in court...
...Unemployment is above 12 percent as the country struggles under the weight of its vast social safety net...
...There was also an interminable speech by President Chirac, and dramatic music to accompany the dramatic opening of the doors to greatness...
...It agreed to give the truckers full retirement benefits at age 55...
...The blockade succeeded...
...French truckers already take Sundays off, and they didn't want anybody else to drive then, either...
...The aging, leather-skinned sex kitten, whose autobiography sits atop the best-seller lists, is reportedly headed to court for her views on the immigration issue...
...And the graffiti had the weird, unintelligible look that one associates with the messages and logos of urban gangs...
...THERE ARE LOTS OF OTHER SIGNS that aren't so good, either...
...French TV devoted two channels to live coverage...
...As far as I could tell, that was not mentioned much during Malraux Week...
...Of course, she should have the right to say what she thinks...
...When the government issued a new stamp of Malraux, the photo it chose depicted him smoking...
...the production resembled NBC's handling of the Atlanta Olympics...
...And yet the French insist on enlarging the very system that's killing the economy...
...His weary, theatrical voice was everywhere...
...By the way, I met an American who said he had spotted Bar-dot window-shopping in an ultra-expensive Left Bank neighborhood...
...PARIS LOOKED DIFFERENT THAN IT HAD just a couple of years ago...
...82 January 1997 • The American Spectator...
...He escaped six months later, but instead of keeping up the fight, he headed straight for the ate d'Azur, where he spent most of the rest of the war...
...There were lots of posters on the streets...
...In less than two weeks, the government—which in the recent past has made at least a feeble attempt to take a firm position on labor demands—caved completely...
...It gave them better working hours...
...And in a particularly wimpy move, it agreed to ban foreign truckers from driving French roads on Sundays...
...To the anti-racist groups, this proves she is guilty of "incitement to racial discrimination...
Vol. 30 • January 1997 • No. 1
