France's Dynamic City
ALAN, RAY
Euro vista By Ray Alan France's Dynamic City Even when I was a small schoolboy in the north of England, I knew there was a city—nearly a thousand miles away in the south of France—called...
...A window-shopper, peeping in from the entrance, would be unable to see it...
...Yet the social atmosphere here does not seem unhealthy...
...Peace One evening, I saw two North African men sitting on a bench on the edge of the old quarter of Montpellier, nibbling olives and bread...
...Like all men of peace, he had enemies...
...but I can't decide whether this blackness symbolizes grief for lost innocence or is merely an anarchist revival...
...Cynics may wonder whether this is Catholic bait to attract gullible Jews...
...He will abandon it before boarding the ferry back to England...
...In some English towns, too, mosques at present attract bigger congregations than churches...
...a French woman asked in one such store in Montpellier...
...But huge schools, as crowded as anthills, seem to be undermining what was once an admirable educational system...
...Having found jobs, houses and better schools than Spain could offer (until recently), they have stayed on...
...Every seat was occupied...
...It's a reminder that 1.5 million Armenian Christians were slaughtered by Muslims in 1915...
...It was a beautiful poster, proclaiming in French: "Christians wish their Jewish brothers happiness and peace...
...One has the impression that Montpellier people do not usually object when North Africans open, for example, a conveniently situated store...
...It is served by good airline and TGV (high-speed train) services, and some of its streets are giving birth to rapid trams...
...The municipality celebrated New Year's Day, 1999, in the Coram with a delightful concert of American music played by the resident orchestra...
...as well as "Shalom...
...Rabelais, a master of both by the standards of his day, obtained a Montpellier doctorate in 1530...
...Medical research was becoming a science, boosted by the arrival of Jewish and Spanish doctors crossing the Pyrenees to escape the Inquisition...
...While another big southern French university, Toulouse-Mirail, gives the impression of being bogged down in 1968style goofball politics, Montpellier's three faculties have distinguished themselves in fields ranging from early Renaissance literature to state-of-the-art medicine...
...History and literature teachers may anger Muslim pupils by "neglecting" the Near East...
...I was disappointed...
...Le Maire The political team that has put Montpellier back on the map is led by a university professor, Georges Frêche...
...British tramps and their girlfriends begged and boozed in the city center...
...The hippies have gone home—disappointed (I'm told) to discover that only America loves them...
...Occasionally they put on shows of traditional Spanish music and dancing...
...Despite traces of the Renaissance and a whiff of Casbah, the old quarter was dingy and most modern buildings were dull...
...Strikes and demonstrations are almost routine items on French television news...
...They looked sober, and I decided to ask the bearded man what kind of peace he meant—peace between who, and where...
...I learned that a poster of this kind is displayed there annually, with the blessing of the cathedral authorities, before and after the Christian and Hebrew new years...
...Most young Arabs are not fanatics, of course, and many North Africans are Berbers...
...Walk along the evergreen-lined pathway dedicated to the Spanish Republicans whose resistance to Fascism for three years (1936-39) gave Britain and the United States time to wake up and begin modernizing their Armed Forces...
...Unemployment is shrinking...
...A fiveminute walk from there leads to a monument dedicated to the millions of Jews and others who died in Nazi murder camps...
...And it will win him the cat vote...
...culture...
...I don't know anyone, even in Spain, who can rival Georges Frêche's mastery of the art of pluriempleo (holding several jobs...
...Neat housing estates and apartment blocks have sprung up...
...plus a few Hebrew-sounding words (if, I suppose, he thought the person he addressed might be Jewish...
...There are fewer tramps, and most are accompanied by dogs rather than girlfriends...
...Re-elected Mayor three times, he is still popular, though he has annoyed some dog owners by publishing magazine ads and posters declaring: Don't let your dog spread shit...
...Montpellier women are slimmer than they were in 1983, and are wearing black as devotedly as Spanish women, day and night...
...They drank occasionally from a bottle of red wine, and seemed relaxed...
...As I approached him, two Arab teenagers ran between us and threw startling red firecrackers at him, shouting "Shaiytan...
...About 50 bars, groceries, pharmacies, and restaurants are displaying a red triangle expressing hostility to "fascism and racism"—and other trades are expected to follow suit...
...Devil...
...In addition to running a big city, he is a Socialist member of the French National Assembly and the president of the organizations that manage Montpellier's public works, its bus services, its huge hospital, and its philharmonic orchestra...
...Many of these newcomers disregard Islamic restrictions, sell European food and wines, and open every day, including Sunday and Christmas...
...A family man with five daughters, he writes books in his spare time (six so far) on historical and economic subjects...
...Never let dimwits kid you that French people are allergic to U.S...
...Soon, beside the path, you will see a low white monument covered with a text in the elegant Armenian alphabet...
...American hippies camped in a public garden and were surprised that the locals were less than enthusiastic...
...Sixteen years later, here I am again...
...As a token of confidence in Montpellier's expanding economy, its mainly Socialist City Council has decided to freeze municipal taxes for three years (1999-2001...
...teachers say television has replaced books in most homes —and, anyway, the Education Minister's main interest is geology...
...In a small park adjoining the Corum are reminders of horrors that civilized people will always hate remembering but must never forget...
...Berbers who migrate to France usually encourage their children to adopt French culture...
...The reason for this was probably climatic and medical...
...He is also vice-president of the FranceIsrael Association...
...The names of some of those doctors can still be read today on the walls of the medical school—adjoining the cathedral...
...On a hillside offering splendid views of the city, where old and new Montpellier meet, Mayor Frêche and his team have also built the Corum—a magnificent temple of music with two concert halls and facilities for opera and conferences...
...They did—and still do, every year...
...My first visit to Montpellier was in 1983...
...He and his companion shouted angrily in Arabic, and hurried away...
...Montpellier is an interesting city...
...Then they can give their show in the town hall," said the Mayor...
...Three days later, I saw him and his acolyte again, walking slowly in front of me...
...It deserves a quieter sanctuary...
...Parents complain that teaching standards are declining...
...Islam France's second religion, after Catholicism, is now Islam, strengthened by the flow of immigrants from Africa...
...You can trust a dog," a young Englishman explains, "and it doesn't have to have a bathroom...
...said another, laughing...
...Montpellier is now France's fastest growing city, with a population approaching a quarter of a million...
...Teachers in French state schools have to be neutral in religious matters...
...I don't think it is...
...A few years ago, Montpellier Spaniards couldn't afford a suitable theater or dance hall for a show they were planning...
...Statistically, such incidents mean little now —but one day, as the number of Muslim pupils increases, religious segregation may impose itself, as it has done in some English towns...
...In our century, thousands of Spaniards took refuge in France during the Franco dictatorship...
...Like other youngsters, Arab boys in French schools must occasionally take orders—and criticism—from a female teacher...
...It stands, unfortunately, on the edge of the park beside a road that has become a torrent of traffic...
...To read it, you must be inside the huge cathedral...
...Our municipal councilors had never so much as named a back alley after London or Washington, but they must have been crazy about Montpellier...
...Berbers sometimes remind French neighbors that they are not "stuck in Arab sand," and that they had a homeland in North Africa (as the Copts had in Egypt, the Jews in Israel, and the Lebanese in the Levant) many centuries before the Arab invasion...
...Even so, small shopkeepers—French and North African alike—fear hard times if Lionel Jospin's Socialist government forces them to adopt the "35-hour week" that big businesses are now accepting in some sectors...
...but some are disturbed by what may become a major problem in more than one city...
...and he lectures at Montpellier's law school...
...For most immigrants, assimilation seems to be easier in Montpellier than in the conflictive suburbs of Paris, Toulouse and Marseilles...
...Euro vista By Ray Alan France's Dynamic City Even when I was a small schoolboy in the north of England, I knew there was a city—nearly a thousand miles away in the south of France—called Montpellier...
...Clochards abounded, and the tourist trade didn't help...
...A contribution to Christian-Jewish harmony could be seen in Montpellier's lofty late-medieval cathedral, in the heart of the old city, until a few weeks ago...
...and roughnecks among them may try to exhibit machismo by mocking or ignoring her, especially if she is young...
...Our town had a Montpellier Road, a Montpellier Parade, a Montpellier This and a Montpellier That, and there were books about Montpellier in the public library...
...I didn't see them again...
...East of that is a memorial listing Montpellier citizens who died in the 1914-18 and 1939-45 Wars...
...Even subpolitical irritants, such as having to clean buildings and monuments on which nocturnal vandals repeatedly spray graffiti, can be an outrageous burden: It will cost Montpellier about $600,000 this year...
...The bearded man, a nonstop extrovert, spoke about peace to passersby—mainly in Arabic, but adding phrases of French (" Vive la Poix...
...It's the formula of the future...
...With friendly service and fair prices here, why struggle through traffic jams to shop in a supermarket...
...I discovered that, before 1914 and again in the 1930s, Montpellier had been a resort (cheaper than Nice, warmer than Pau) to which middleclass English families, hugging their "weak chests," fled from Blighty's blighted weather...
...I have seen two videotapes of Arab teenagers insulting French teachers...
...They were dressed in jeans and shirts, and the older man, who had a short beard, wore a white kaffiyeh on his head...
...But his dog would be foolish to trust him...
...Crude, perhaps, but justifiable...
Vol. 82 • April 1999 • No. 5
