Les Nouvelles de Grenoble

In the latest post in his blog The Franco-American Daily Deconstructionist; History and Culture in Everyday Life,  John Hess leafs through the City of Grenoble Magazine Les Nouvelles de Grenoble. Here’s what he has to say about it.

Many of you who have the good fortune to live in Grenoble, wait breathlessly for the end of each month, because that means a small portion of your tax payments will be returned to you a hundred-fold, in the form of Les Nouvelles de Grenoble, “the city informational magazine.”

For those of you who do not have this good fortune : the magazine is a glossy, super-sized A4 format affair, arriving free in residents’ mailboxes each month. It is published by the municipal government, at taxpayer expense, and purports to provide helpful information about happenings in Grenoble, especially of a political, social, or cultural nature.

Perhaps you enjoy reading Les Nouvelles: it’s professionally produced, there are lots of color pictures, the articles are short and easy to digest, and it’s all so refreshingly upbeat. When I read Les Nouvelles de Grenoble, I realize that I am living in the world’s most wonderful city. Perhaps I have even died and gone to the urbanists’ paradise. Well, then I go out my door, and harsh reality sets in; but o the illusion, however fleeting, is delightful!

But have you ever wondered about the content of the magazine? For it clearly is not just the neutral statement of city-related current facts and goings-on that you would expect from a publicly-funded publication. There is, of course, the natural phenomenon of editorial selection: the magazine is strangely silent about the crimes, mishaps, and dysfunctionalities that weigh on city life; we hear only about the good stuff. The temptation to intellectual dishonesty seems to be too great, however, for the editors to stop there. What they do report on has to be qualified with glowingly positive adjectives.

So does issue n° 131, October 2009, tell us on the front page that in matters of sustainable development, “Grenoble is keeping its promises”, even though this is a self-evidently worthless statement. If one wants to know if promises are being kept, one generally has the sense not to ask the promise-maker, which is sort of like asking the accused if he’s guilty or not–and basing the verdict on the answer.

On page six of the same issue, we find out that the city-engineered renovation of St Bruno Square has “restored its soul as the lively and convivial heart of the neighborhood.” Well, I hadn’t noticed, but if the city engineers say so, then that’s good enough for me!

On page seven, we find out that there is not just a new crèche in that same neighborhood, but a “spanking brand-new” crèche, which is somehow different from a new crèche, though I suppose appropriate for child-rearing disciplinary purposes.

On page eight, we find out that the Philippeville Square crèche is “new, beautiful and environmentally-friendly”, which will certainly be a relief to parents concerned that their children’s day care was aggravating global climate change, though they may regret that the newness is not spanking in this case; and while some local residents find the crèche “butt-ugly”, they were apparently not interviewed for this article.

On page fourteen, we have another “spanking brand new” building, this time a library in the Teisseire quarter, also qualified as “magnificent.” (If the Teisseire library is already “magnificent”, then what adjective remains to us to describe, say, The New York Public Library, or the Great Library of Alexandria ?) It goes on and on, upbeat snippets about all the wonderful and progressive developments in Grenoble, directly or indirectly thanks to the actions of the city government, culminating in the municipal self-love-fest about sustainable development from page 18 onwards.

How can this sort of thing be possible ? Well, in a country where the press is expected to be partisan and indeed captive of a particular interest group or ideology, and where the state likes to pose as the benefactor to all (and never mind where the money comes from), it is not just possible, but considered quite normal. And this is the problem !

But why do I complain ? You know, in fact, the business model of Les Nouvelles de Grenoble magazine has inspired me. Watch this space, as Grenoble Life becomes John Hess Life, full of interesting articles about how wonderful, nay, ineffably divine, John Hess is, all written in breathless prose by John Hess. You will, of course, pay a monthly subscription fee for the privilege.

Sarkozy & Chirac

In the second post in his blog The Franco-American Daily Deconstructionist; History and Culture in Everyday Life, John Hess asks ”Are you all as bored by the Clearstream affair as I am? If so, then excellent, this blog is just for you!”

Clearstream: Clients, Patrons, and French Political Parricide

by John Hess

For those of you who prefer reading Hello! and Closer, here’s a one–sentence summary: in 2004, in the course of an investigation into a kickback scandal involving the sale of French-built warships to Taiwan, a forged document linking Nicolas Sarkozy (among other prominent politicians) to the malversations was leaked to the prosecutor, allegedly at the behest of Dominique de Villepin, then the Interior Minister and a protégé of President Jacques Chirac.

(Whew! I did it!)

The details are all over the more serious sort of newspaper, and as promised, I shall not bore you with them. Buy Le Monde if you’re interested (it’s cheaper than Hello!, and you get to find out what Left Bank intellectuals did during their holidays in the sun).

What’s really great about this whole affair is the element of pure political assassination, which is unusual in the contemporary Western world, and is more reminiscent of the later Roman Republic than of a modern democracy. Sarkozy and de Villepin are, after all, from the same political party.

Clearstream really began in 1995, when Nicolas Sarkozy, originally a protégé of Chirac, betrayed his erstwhile patron by supporting Edouard Balladur’s rival bid for the presidency. Balladur lost, and both Balladur and most of his key supporters were exiled to the political equivalent of Siberia by the victorious Chirac; the satirical TV show Guignols de l’info portrayed him as John Travolta’s hit man from Pulp Fiction, knocking off Balladur’s entourage one by one, including Sarkozy.

Most of the balladuriens never managed to slip out of their concrete boots and stayed put at the bottom of the Seine, but the buoyant Sarkozy, with his ability to handle the media and generate popular support, proved indispensable, and muscled his way back into the heart of right wing French politics, gaining a ministerial post in 2002 at the start of Chirac’s second presidential term. But for the chiraquiens, Sarkozy was only suffered, not forgiven. During the course of 2004, Sarkozy’s relations with Chirac degraded to new lows, as Sarkozy managed to get himself elected as leader of the political party that Chirac had himself created; and Chirac began grooming de Villepin as his successor, naming him to replace Sarkozy as Minister of the Interior. And, coincidentally or not, 2004 was the year that the Clearstream forgeries were produced. Much of the energy of the three year remainder of Chirac’s presidency was wasted on other fruitless efforts to stymie Sarkozy’s inexorable rise, so as to clear the way for the president’s adoptive “political son”, de Villepin, a brilliant but otherwise politically ungifted man.

This storyline would have been quite familiar to the readers of Cularolife.com, had the internet existed in the first century AD, because it’s a Roman, Latin story: the story of patrons and clients, and the personal favors, betrayals, and vengeances that pass between them; of adoptive heirs and lethal political manoeuvrings.

Anglo–Saxons are used to tribal politics: liberals against conservatives, socialists against free-marketers, etc. Personal rivalries exist (e.g., Brown/Blair), but they are subsidiary to the considerations of the interests or ideologies of the political tribe. In France, it is the opposite, for the Roman tradition of patronage politics is still dominant. Political parties are more like “a loose coalition of personalised alliances, in which everyone belongs to someone.” Ideology is much talked-about, but it’s the networks that really count, which determine who gets access to the governmental goodies. Thus the importance of respecting the patronal hierarchies – and the depth of the anger of the patron when betrayed by the client.

When one considers that Chirac catapulted himself to the top of the French political right by betraying and subsequently destroying his political patron, Valéry Giscard-D’Estaing, it seems fair enough that he should be deprived of the right to name his political heir by the betrayal of one of his own clients.

Now, stay tuned for the inevitable coming drama: who will betray Sarkozy in the eternal quest for the fruits of power?

Nero (left) poisoned his way into the cushy job of his adoptive father, Claudius

Michel Has Another Serving of Pasta

In his new blog The Franco-American Daily Deconstructionist; History and Culture in Everyday Life, John Hess’s attention is caught by a recent French road safety  advertisement. 

Michel Has Another Serving of Pasta

 by John Hess

Yes, this is the title of a public interest advertisement. And in most countries, you’d guess that it had something to do with good nutrition, perhaps to counter the carbohydraphobic excesses of the South Beach diet. But no, this is France, and it’s about road safety.

The advertisement appeared on hoardings in the summer of 2009, and may be viewed in full here. The very incongruity of its purpose and content caught my attention as few adverts do, which I suppose is to its credit: an original idea. Sort of like if an advert for Porsche featured a smiling old lady: “since Roger bought his 911T, Dora is finally proud of her son-in-law.”

But I’m afraid it may have given life-saving a bad reputation. In America for example, to be effective the ad would have had to point out the moral significance of Michael’s survival; “Michel Gets to See His Grandchild graduate from College”, or “Michel Calls his Daughter to Say ‘I Love You.’” But here in France, we get the equivalent of “Michel Mechanically Consumes Yet Another Ordinary Meal.” Yes, thanks to better driving habits, Michel is one of the statistics that has been saved, permitting him to mindlessly continue his meaningless, unproductive existence. Almost makes one want to run Michel over, then back up over the corpse just to be sure.

Of course, this is a stereotypically American point of view, and there is something to be said for simply enjoying life as it comes, from day to day, and that this enjoyment should be protected and cherished. But I do think that this is advert is an interesting expression of what I would describe as the dominant French mode of life today: social existentialism – living for the pleasures of everyday life, with as much beach time and tasty food as possible, and as little work, risk, stress, disease, etc. as possible, with a huge assist from socialism. Thanks to the welfare state, Michel has retired relatively young (the advert subtly indicates that he’s a pensioner), and thanks to the nanny state, Michel is alive.

The irony of course is that, in spite of this insistence of the importance of simply enjoying everyday life, the French are not really the most cheerful lot one could meet. While the advert claims that 12,000 lives have been saved over the last six years due to [ahem] our more careful driving, this is the number of depressives who manage to commit suicide every year. Perhaps the advert really should be called “Michel Has Another Serving of Pasta, and He’s Dissatisfied and Grumpy Because it’s not Lobster and Champagne on the Beach – But at Least He’s Alive, For What That’s Worth.”

Not very catchy, I admit. But I do wish that the government would get serious, and sponsor a much needed, and succinct, dual ad campaign: “Stop Driving Like a Bunch of Wackoes”, and “Either Enjoy Your Beautiful Country, or Give it to the English.”