The boulevard of broken dreams

The boulevard of broken dreams

It is the epitome of romance and style. But Paris is in the grip of an

unprecedented 'flight of the young', with the disenchanted looking to

London and New York for a new life. On the eve of the French elections

a generation of young Parisiens, frozen out economically and racially,

are turning their back on the city

Andrew Hussey

Sunday April 8, 2007

Observer

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2052230,00.html

As you step off the Eurostar at Gare du Nord it's sometimes hard to

know whether you're really in Paris or still in London. This used to

be one of the smokiest, dirtiest and most romantic railway stations in

Europe. These days it is as anodyne, clean and dull as Paddington.

With its Upper Crust sandwich bars and McDonald's, it even looks like

west London. Worse still, the same effect is starting to take hold all

over Paris: there's a massive Virgin Megastore on the Champs-Elysees,

Starbucks is now all over the city - even in the former avant-garde

stronghold of Montparnasse - while Lily Allen, who is never off the

radio or telly, is the latest style icon for all snotty Parisian

gamines under the age of 20.

You don't have to spend a long time in central Paris, however, to

realise that there is one massive difference between the two cities.

Unlike grimy, busy London, Paris still moves at a relatively stately

place. The long boulevards are usually uncluttered, even at rush hour.

It's almost always possible to get a decent table in a good restaurant

without a reservation, even on Friday night. But as it slowly dawns on

you that Paris is a sedate haven for the middle-class and the

middle-aged, the fashionable areas of town - the so-called beaux

quartiers - can suddenly seem not just beautiful but eerie. This

phenomenon is most marked just south of the Champs-Elysees, near Place

de l'Alma, where Diana met her death. This is the heart of Paris, the

most important and cosmopolitan city in Europe; but with its empty

avenues and silent and uninviting streets, it can look just like the

opening scenes of a zombie movie. It's then that you ask yourself the

question that has been nagging you since you arrived here: where have

all the young people gone?

Interestingly, 'la fuite des jeunes' ('the flight of young people')

has also become a burning issue in the French press, including Le

Monde and, most notably, the daily Le Parisien, which for months has

regaled its readers with the tales of young Parisians finding the good

life at the other end of the Eurostar. Indeed, the real issue in this

election - at least for young voters - is not la securite (crime and

delinquency), but unemployment.

The politicians who are arguing that they will clean up the streets

are still fighting the last election; meanwhile, young people in

France look at the latest statistics - one in eight unemployed in some

parts of Paris - and begin to despair of ever making a living in

France.

The simple fact is that, in the past few years, young people have been

leaving France in unprecedented numbers. More worrying still is that

although depopulation was a worry in the French countryside in the

Sixties, it now has become a specifically urban phenomenon. Nor is it

confined to Paris: Lyon, Lille, Bordeaux and Marseille can all report

an exodus of young people towards les pays Anglo-Saxons (the United

States and the UK). This fact was acknowledged by politician Nicolas

Sarkozy when he made his flying visit to London last month to visit

the French community there - at 400,000 people this is (as the

newspaper Le Parisien helpfully pointed out) equivalent to one of the

largest French cities.

The echoes of the riots of November 2005 are never far away in

discussions of the new French emigrants. This was when, for more than

a month, the suburbs outside more than 20 French towns burned as

youths torched cars and fought the police, triggering the call for a

state of emergency. The riots were blamed on poor housing and

heavy-handed policing. No official recognition of racism has taken

place. And so resentment lingers among the mainly black and Arab kids

who feel excluded from the centre of Paris. The latest manifestation

of this ever-present anger surged to the surface in a riot at the Gare

du Nord a week ago last Wednesday, when kids just off the RER train

that links the suburbs to central Paris rushed to the aid of an

illegal immigrant who was being battered by police for not having a

metro ticket. The ruck lasted seven hours and cost several hundred

thousand pounds.

Sarkozy, former Minister of the Interior and now presidential

candidate for the ruling right-wing UMP, visiting the scene hours

after the riot, amid the burnt-out shops and wrecked bars, declared

the battle a victory for common sense. Such incidents all help account

for the success stories quoted in Le Parisien, which have notably

highlighted the examples of young beurs (Arabs from North Africa) who

have escaped racism in France to find good jobs in London, in the City

of London. According to Algerian singer Rachid Taha, based in Paris,

this racism is a legacy of the Algerian war of independence from 1954

to 1962. 'An Algerian in France still frightens the French,' he says.

'They think he's still a terrorist who'll cut your throat for

nothing.' In London, Algerians talk about their absorption into a

friendly Anglo-Asian, Muslim community.

'Fucking hell! Who are we going to vote for now?' asked the headline

on the cover of last week's Technikart, the hippest and most

influential youth-oriented magazine in Paris. Inside, journalists

analysed the 'disarray' of the young generation of voters when

confronted with the 'non-choices' of Sarkozy, Segolene Royal, the

later starter Francois Bayrou and the sulphurous Jean-Marie Le Pen,

leader of the National Front. Candidates were assessed according to

their views on a range of allegedly 'youth' issues, ranging from the

legalisation of cannabis to gay marriage: all were found nul or

catastrophique.

In the same issue novelist Virginie Despentes, the voice of youthful

feminist dissent in France, states that she won't vote for any of the

'fakers and frauds on offer. Better to leave France for good.' In the

same cynical vein, Marc Weitzmann - one of the most influential

figures on French youth in the past decade, a novelist and former

editor of rock magazine Les Inrockuptibles - has claimed Sarkozy as

the only choice. In a recent interview, Weitzmann declared that the

intellectual left was dead in France, strangled by middle-class and

middle-aged functionaries who despised youth and sought only to

enhance their pension plans. 'There is no other choice,' says

Weitzmann, a former avant-gardist and supporter of such radicals as

philosopher Guy Debord and novelist Michel Houellebecq, 'Sarkozy does

what all politicians do, only he does it better than most of them.'

Following Weitzmann, Mehdi Belhaj Kacem, probably the most fashionable

and dashingly youthful philosopher (he's in his early thirties) on the

Left Bank, writes of 'democratic nihilism' and describes France as a

'failed state'. Didier Lestrade, founder of the Aids campaign group

Act-Up, puts the angry voice of the French clearly: 'We're sick of

voting against things. When are we going to have someone that we can

vote for?'

The politicians themselves are watching the arguments among young

people with a degree of caution. More to the point, after the fiasco

in 2002, when Le Pen terrified the French nation (and the rest of the

world) by making it to the second round of the elections, largely

because of voter apathy in the first, the big political parties are

eager to court young first-time voters as insurance against such

variables.

The emigration of so many young people is seen most threateningly in

the press as the victory of Anglo-American capitalism (most French

youngsters dream of London or New York) over the French socialist

model. But there is more at stake than money and jobs. Racism, poor

housing and the stagnant nature of French society are also, damagingly

for the present government, all cited by the present generation of

young people as reasons to get away.

This is why the main political parties in France, as the presidential

election finally gathers real pace, are eager to capture the youth

vote as the potentially most volatile and decisive factor in a

campaign that has been far from an easy ride for any of the

candidates.

'It's not that I dislike Paris or France,' I was told by J

On 8 Apr., 18:47, Captain Compassion <dar...@NOSPAMcharter.net> wrote:

> The boulevard of broken dreams

Why are you sending that here?

What's your point exactly? It's not as if your country was at his

pinnacle either!

"Parsifal" <jeanpascalvachon@gmail.com> wrote in

news:1176052664.926231.95860@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:

> On 8 Apr., 18:47, Captain Compassion <dar...@NOSPAMcharter.net> wrote:

>> The boulevard of broken dreams

>

> Why are you sending that here?

> What's your point exactly? It's not as if your country was at his

> pinnacle either!

>

>

>

Yeah. Exactly why we DON'T NEED NO IMMIGRANTS IN THIS COUNTRY. Fuck 'em.

My ancestors and me, fought for this country..built it up, with our lives,

our sweat, and our toil. Now the government wants to GIVE IT AWAY..heh..

not because they "love the immigrants so much'.. it's 'cos they will work

cheap.

I wish our immigrants would flee.. and BON VOYAGE!

On 8 Apr., 19:54, Itchy <i...@anon.com> wrote:

> "Parsifal" <jeanpascalvac...@gmail.com> wrote innews:1176052664.926231.95860@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:

>

> > On 8 Apr., 18:47, Captain Compassion <dar...@NOSPAMcharter.net> wrote:

> >> The boulevard of broken dreams

>

> > Why are you sending that here?

> > What's your point exactly? It's not as if your country was at his

> > pinnacle either!

>

> Yeah. Exactly why we DON'T NEED NO IMMIGRANTS IN THIS COUNTRY. Fuck 'em.

> My ancestors and me, fought for this country..built it up, with our lives,

> our sweat, and our toil. Now the government wants to GIVE IT AWAY..heh..

> not because they "love the immigrants so much'.. it's 'cos they will work

> cheap.

>

> I wish our immigrants would flee.. and BON VOYAGE!

Who would you exploit instead?

Your country's economy -what's left of it actually- is based on

exploitation, especially of minorities... What do you complaint about

exactly?

In which way did you "fight for your country" exactly? Please, explain

that to us...

On 8 Apr 2007 10:17:44 -0700, "Parsifal" <jeanpascalvachon@gmail.com>

wrote:

>On 8 Apr., 18:47, Captain Compassion <dar...@NOSPAMcharter.net> wrote:

>> The boulevard of broken dreams

>

>Why are you sending that here?

> What's your point exactly? It's not as if your country was at his

>pinnacle either!

>

I see you choose to censor it. Old Europe. Gotta love it.

--

There may come a time when the CO2 police will wander the earth telling

the poor and the dispossed how many dung chips they can put on their

cook fires. -- Captain Compassion.

Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not

on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away

with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone

are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices

me wherever I am or whatever I do. -- EPICTETUS

"Civilization is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.

"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.

--Will Durant

Joseph R. Darancette

daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net

"Itchy" <itchy@anon.com> wrote in message

news:Xns990C835565966itchy@66.250.146.128...

> "Parsifal" <jeanpascalvachon@gmail.com> wrote in

> news:1176052664.926231.95860@y80g2000hsf.googlegroups.com:

>

>> On 8 Apr., 18:47, Captain Compassion <dar...@NOSPAMcharter.net> wrote:

>>> The boulevard of broken dreams

>>

>> Why are you sending that here?

>> What's your point exactly? It's not as if your country was at his

>> pinnacle either!

>>

>>

>>

>

> Yeah. Exactly why we DON'T NEED NO IMMIGRANTS IN THIS COUNTRY. Fuck 'em.

> My ancestors and me, fought for this country..built it up, with our lives,

> our sweat, and our toil. Now the government wants to GIVE IT AWAY..heh..

> not because they "love the immigrants so much'.. it's 'cos they will work

> cheap.

Unfettered free-market capitalism is just great - isn't it?

"Captain Compassion" <daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net> wrote in message

news:rf6i13tehleuivjglhkt60h5u97jfgi6fv@4ax.com...

> The boulevard of broken dreams

>

> It is the epitome of romance and style.

Geez - is he ever out of date.

Paris has been a shithole since the 70's at least.

And London usurped it a decade before that.