Cicilie among the Parisians

Parc Floral, during the weekly weekend jazz concert.

One of my first blog posts in the autumn was on Le Square and the after-school socialisation among children and parents. Then came the grey and cold winter and street-life almost disappeared. Since then, I’ve returned several times to the seasonal changes and how social and communicative Parisians become as the temperature rises. Now summer is head on. The heat wave is said to reach its peak today, with 34-35 degrees in Paris. I’m staying at home during the day, trying to get on with at least one of the several blog posts that have been simmering in the back of my heads – and bothering my conscience – for a long time. Many of the neighbours across the courtyard have already left for holidays. The rest have their windows wide open like I have, and let various sounds mix between the houses. From my desk, I see the elderly lady get more visits from caretakers than usual, as the French authorities want to avoid the disaster from three years back when 15000 people, mostly elderly, died as a result of the extreme heat wave hitting Europe. Yesterday, some West African women – dressed in even more elegant dresses than usual, so I guess they had some kind of party or celebration – discussed and argued for hours somewhere in the yard. (Someone from a nearby window, who obviously understood their language, called one of them a sarkozyst on one occasion (apparently a summer hit invective – I also heard it in the park a few days ago)).

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Every blog post I’ve tried to write on gender strands for some reason or another before they reach the web. The following text was meant to be a simple and silly account of a quick bike trip around Belleville. However, when I let it rest for a moment in order to start sorting out the huge heap of paper – flyers, magazines, newspapers, brochures… -that was threatening to cover more and more of the surface space in my little office-cum-livingroom-cum-kitchen, I came a cross an old article about a café that I had just passed on my trip. This café reached the national media right after the Mohammad caricature affaire because they put up an exhibition with blasphemous caricatures right in the heart of Belleville. Well, the article in itself wasn’t enough to put me off track. It was rather it’s point of view, or framing, that threatened to put my experiences on my little trip in a new light. I started worrying that my silly little text had to become a bit more complicated.

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For those who read French, I can recommend Le Bondy Blog. A couple of journalists from the Swiss magazine L’Hebdo settled in the banlieue Bondy during the November revolts, and stayed there for more than 4 months. Before they left, 8 local youth got training in journalism and took over the blog after the professionals. Every post they write – be it miniskirts or soldiers from the colonies helping out France during the war – initiates a lively debate. I had just read Hanane Kaddour’s very instructive post on how geography determines which university you can apply for when I had the opportunity to have a closer look at 4 different university locales in the Paris area in just a few days.

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1st of May, in the morning, I cycled through the quiet streets to a bridge by the Louvre Museum. At the Pont du Carrousel, there is a commemorative plate for Brahim Bourram, who 11 years ago, on this day, drowned after he was thrown into the river Seine by skinheads coming from the annual Front National demonstration. Paris Major Delanoë had put down flowers, and every year MRAP – (Movement against racism and for the friendship between the peoples) – arrange a commemorative ceremony. General secretary Mouloud Aounit didn’t have a microphone, and I was too far away to hear what actually was said, but MRAP has posted a statement on their webpage, which I shall quote from as it speaks directly to the current situation in France:

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Initially, I hadn’t planned to go to the major demonstration against the CPE ("contract 'first employment'") as it only tangentially touches the focus of my fieldwork (tangentially, as the CPE – Contrat Première Embauche – is part of Prime minister Villepin’s plan for égalité des chances: youth unemployment is high in France and even higher in the Zones sensible which is in need of the equal opportunities). But as the echoes of the chanted slogans reached all the way to my flat – situated at least 20 minutes away from the standard demo route Place de la République/Bastille/Place de la Nation – and I saw the diverted traffic as I leaned out of the window, I realised that the scale of the event made it worth defying the heavy rain and head for Nation.

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A friend of mine said that he’d like to leave a comment on my blog suggesting that my fieldwork could have benefited by some knowledge of what happens in the city before lunchtime. As I have in fact been out there many times before 12 o’clock, I have informed him that such a comment is totally ill-informed. Today I’ll even prove that I was out before dawn on a Saturday. (Since it’s in the middle of winter – and winter indeed, since emergency measures are put into action with Plan Grand Froid niveau 2 and alerte orange (in this country not concerning terror dangers, but exceptional snowfall) in half of France – dawn comes not too early).

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It’s been more than two weeks now, since I’ve moved house. This move has made me realise that I in fact lived in a village before, and now I seem to have moved downtown. In downtown Charonne, I’m not recognised by the baker the second time I enter his shop, and the same faces don’t surround me on the street every day. In our little neighbourhood in Ménilmontant I saw familiar faces all the time, and even a shy person like me got to know the local merchants in not much time. As I think about how quickly I got a sense of the village-like place I moved from, I realise that I’m not able to give a good description of my new quarter yet, despite having lived here for a while.

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When I think about it, one of my favourite things to do in Paris is to hang out in squares (public gardens) after school time.

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