France - Hell, and Still Mostly Heaven
I initially canceled my Uber because it was a Mercedes Van and I don’t like not being able to open the windows.
You feel like a caged bird… never understood the design.
When I called another one the same van has already at my location and I felt bad canceling it again, and this was Paris not New York so the options weren’t infinite.
I entered the car to a polite older gentleman who playfully chastised me. I made up some excuse as we got going.
He was French-Algerian and shortly offered me a date.
“These are the best you’ll have. If you go to the Algerian market just ask for any dates and they are all delicious.”
When I was done I asked him for a tissue to throw the pit given the no windows situation, and he thanked me for it.
“Other people just throw it on the ground.”
As we traverse the entire right bank of Paris toward my office from the 17th to the 3rd, I admire his ability to avoid irreverent pedestrians, bicycles, scooters, and myriad other obstacles which seem to keep appearing.
None of this is made easy by the perpetual construction site that is the road we are on, where over half the width of the entire street or boulevard has been excavated to make way for the mayor’s grand plans, usually a bike lane or something else to get in the way of cars.
“Years this has been going on. She’s crazy, Hidalgo. She wants to make life hell for all of us.”
Several times along the way we are intercepted by men wearing orange fluorescent jackets stopping traffic at various checkpoints. This of course creates massive traffic jams every couple of minutes.
“We drivers had to fight to keep being allowed in these zones. They are trying to cut all traffic.”
Quickly, I realize that I won’t be working during this ride and decide to fully tune into Rachid’s other laments.
“You know, they really like to harass regular people. This week I stopped to buy a sandwich with blinkers on. I came back out 3 minutes later and had been fined.”
“I dropped off some passengers the other day and I had to let this family off in the bus lane because the other side was too dangerous. I was probably stopped for a total of 1 minute. A few days later I got a 130 Euro fine in the mail. I tried to contest it and I didn’t get anywhere. So what do you do? You just shut up and pay. Meanwhile, the cops don’t do anything about the real criminals. They don’t even go into some neighborhoods anymore.”
As I had been leaving my parents’ home earlier, my mother had warned me:
“Be careful with the riots today.”
I had laughed it off thinking that she was just being a protective mother but Rachid soon got to this topic.
“The Far-right is protesting today. There are also anti Far-right protests. I was trying to avoid the zone where you were going today. I hope it’ll be safe.”
For clarity, the zone I was going to was the center of Paris.
Not a single person I have talked to has spoken positively about the mayor, nor about most politicians in this country.
Which leads me to wonder why they were elected.
“Not enough people turned up” is one narrative I hear. “There are no good candidates” is another. But something else may be rotten in the state of Denmark.
We have finally battled our way to the Marais.
It’s a full blooming day of Spring outside.
Beautiful people walking around everywhere. Perfectly dressed families. Terraces swarming with life. Unexpected beauty at every street corner. Every corner and terrace is cinematic.
It is one of the first very sunny days of Spring. Everyone seems in the best of moods. The barista at the café I like is smiling and warm in a way that defies every Parisian cliché.
Everywhere I go in Paris and France, I mostly meet kind, thoughtful, cultured, and very well-meaning people who to some extent all feel a certain nostalgia for the greatness past of their country.
Despite that sunny afternoon, there is an underlying general hopelessness among a great part of the population. Maybe this can be extended to Europe…
I may anger people by saying this, but I almost feel in people here the sense of being part of a losing team, and one that was once right up there on the global pedestal.
There is still a remarkable sense of good taste and art de vivre, but it’s no fun being condemned to be a figurine in a painting or museum for visitors from all the world who most likely lack this polish, but are less suffocated by their own society.
I feel this incredible heaviness here at times, which I don’t in the U.S.
From conversations with friends, drivers and others don’t think this is isolated to me. You hear a lot of the same anecdotes and laments.
Even my founder friends here would tend to agree and often dream of escaping this dysfunctional utopia.
Is there something that can be done to turn the tide?
The optimist in me likes to believe so… but the realist in me knows that whomever takes on the challenge will be pushing a large boulder up a hill for a very long time, most likely while enduring insults and other unpleasantries.
But will it be worth it?
Most definitely, yes.
The entrepreneur in me is hoping that someone will step up and do something.