coronavirus

A quelle sauce on sera mangé

Posted on by MELewis

With which sauce will we be eaten? This is the question the French have been asking themselves ever since Macron announced that the coronavirus lockdown in France would be lifted starting from May 11. If we all behave ourselves and stay home until then, that is.

The political system in France is based on a President, who makes high-level decisions, and a Prime Minister, who puts them in motion with the ministers in his/her cabinet. The hierarchical nature of such relationships was first made clear to me in an interview with the late French President Jacques Chirac, who, when asked to describe his relationship with his then-Finance Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, was famously quoted as saying: “Je décide, il exécute.” (Basically: he does what I tell him).

No one was really surprised when PM Edouard Philippe began presenting his detailed plans for deconfinement with a warning that May 11 could easily be pushed back if there is a spike in new cases before then. Meaning: stay home now or forget about going out again any time soon.

The plan is based on three pillars: protect, test, isolate. It is a phased approach in which schools, stores and most everything else will reopen and get back to business over May and June. As of May 11, people will no longer require a document stating their business when outside home. But we will have to stay within a 100-km radius for now, unless for work or family emergencies. This is to prevent the entire country from racing to the coasts for the May-June long weekends and causing a new wave of COVID-19 to spread.

In the meantime the goal is to step up testing to 700K tests per week. Tracking and tracing through an app is also planned so that any new outbreaks can be contained. Masks will be available, and required in some public places like the trains and métro, although people will have to buy them, a concept that many of my state-reliant fellow citizens find abhorrent.

Restaurants and beaches will remain closed until further notice, probably reopening sometime in July for a later-than-usual holiday period.

All in all, people in France will still have to be patient but there is hope that things will return to a ‘new normal’ by summer.

As sauces go, it could be worse.

There is a consensus among many of the media that France has fucked up in its management of the pandemic. The dearth of masks and hand sanitizer, the earlier confusing messages about whether or not to wear a mask, to go out and vote in municipal elections or stay safely at home — all of these critical points and failures are true. It’s their interpretation that is somewhat open to debate. Yes, our leaders could have handled many things better. But when I look around at what has happened everywhere else in the world, it could also have been a lot worse. It seems this healthcare crisis has exposed the worst cracks in our society at every level, like fault lines in an earthquake. I only hope we will learn from it and that these mistakes will be lessons on how to do things better in the future.

In the end I suppose I’d rather be eaten in a French sauce, even mediocre, than a Chinese or an American one.

Et toi?

Guet-apens

Posted on by MELewis

There is something particularly horrifying in the idea of setting a trap or organizing an ambush against those whose job it is to protect us. Yet that is what is happening in our second month of lockdown here in France.

I was horrified to learn in the news yesterday that police are being targeted by groups bored by confinement in the Paris suburbs. The media call such acts ‘guets-apens’ (pronounced the same in plural or singular: get app-on), which means n ambush or trap.

Years ago French urban planning in all its wisdom created many ‘banlieues’ (suburbs) or ‘cités’ (projects or housing estates) around major cities like Paris and Lyon. In what was once thought of as modern, these high-density living areas of apartment towers were built, some not so long ago, around roads and hypermarkets rather than parks and communities. The model was presumably American but it doesn’t translate well. In France these low-income areas are a socio-economic disaster. Chronic unemployment, immigration, gangs: basically it’s the whole gamut of urban decay.

Now, with people stuck indoors, and many out of work, these areas are like a powder keg. And it seems a match has been struck.

I get it. I do. It’s starting to feel like forever since we were allowed to go about our business freely in France. For those crammed in apartments, with little or no access to the outdoors, May 11th is just too far away. There’s some relief in sight: kids will go back to school in waves next month, starting with the youngest classes and finally the lycéens. But it’s not enough to defuse the time bomb of pent-up frustration.

This video pulled from YouTube tells a story of what the police are facing. Here they are the target of mortar fireworks. It follows an earlier incident in which a driver refused to stop for a police check and sped away before abandoning the vehicle and running off, leaving four children alone in the car; thankfully they were not injured but it set off a series of riots.

And it’s not the only incident. In the cités especially north of Paris, bored kids go out on scooters and race around in ‘rodeos’ that drive the neighbours to distraction. This escalates to setting bins and cars on fire. The police are called and voilà…un guet-apens. They are shot at, or get bricks or Molotov cocktails thrown at them. Reinforcements are called in, rubber bullets and tear gas are used. It’s a potentially explosive set of circumstances that could easily escalate into full blown riots at a time when police and hospitals are already stretched to breaking point.

The above incident happened in Grigny last week, a suburb south of Paris. Many years ago when we first moved to France I worked in nearby Evry, a local hub for business, teaching English at Berlitz. It is a pretty area, with a lovely forest (Forêt de Sénart) and convenient access to Paris. We briefly considered settling there before deciding to move south to Lyon, which aside from its obvious charms has its own problems but on a smaller scale.

As we enter our final weeks of this confinement (and who knows if there will be others?), and as the weather gets warmer and temperatures soar, I hope that these incidents will remain unfortunate exceptions and not the beginning of deeper discontent.

It feels like we are all trapped in a guet-apens by this coronavirus. Now more than ever, we need solidarity for those who are suffering from this terrible disease, and especially all those in the police and medical professions who are working so hard to keep us healthy and safe.

How are you feeling?

Calme ta joie

Posted on by MELewis

It is an odd feeling to walk outdoors at the moment. Strangely calm, with no planes and few cars. Yet while human activity seems to have ground to a resounding halt, life goes on.

All around us, nature is blissfully oblivious to the human drama unfolding on its doorstep. Springing, bursting, burgeoning forth in joyful profusion, it doesn’t care about coronavirus.

“Calme ta joie,” I tell the tree, heavy with blossoms a-buzzing. Don’t you know people are dying?

In the field by the road two crows squabble over carrion. Atop the highest tree branch sits a kite, one of the magnificent birds of prey that populate our region, calmly surveying the proceedings. They are a reminder that death is so much a part of life. Survival, each day, depends on it.

I go outside and walk now more than ever, within the restricted perimeter of my authorized one-kilometre radius. As if to say, here I am, alive and well. Good morning world. Fuck you, coronavirus.

Unable to plan beyond the boundaries of personal space and essential commodities, we are no longer sure what day it is. But I am aware, perhaps more than ever, of the season.

The unstoppable chorus of birdsong is a joyful reminder that spring is here, in full swing, morning and night. It was always there in the background, behind the roar of our day-to- day rush. But now we wake to its twittering soundtrack and go to sleep with its last, mournful notes echoing in our dreams.

‘Calme ta joie’ is an expression I first heard when the kids were small. It is often said to children, and the French in general: calm down, stay cool, chill out. Perhaps we envy our more staid British neighbours their ‘keep calm and carry on’ mentality.

Yet It seems oddly appropriate for this strange period of human captivity. You cannot stop the force of nature, of life itself, for long. You can calm it down for a little while but ultimately nature will out.

And for that, I am profoundly joyful.

I leave you with this track, discovered via the googling of the title of this post. The artist, previously unknown to me, is called Clémentine.

Are you feeling joy in the calm?

Au bout du rouleau

Posted on by MELewis

At the end of our rope? Not yet. But you’d think the French version of the expression, ‘at the end of the roll’, would be apt with the recent run on toilet paper and other necessities.

Thankfully we still have a supply of toilet paper to keep us going. No thanks to the hoarders who seem to be as worried about running out here in France as they are elsewhere. Toilet paper and pasta, it appears, are the lusted-for items. A major pasta company, a news report has told us, is running extra shifts to ensure that we have enough spaghetti, penne and lasagne noodles to nourish us through the coronavirus crisis.

I’ve been avoiding the stores since Macron announced the additional measures this week. Partly because I’m by nature someone who hates to run out of things, so I keep a decent supply of stuff at home. Also because I hate to wait and avoid line-ups like the plague (pun intended). And let’s face it: the less we expose ourselves to others, the less chance we have to spread or catch whatever’s out there

But yesterday I needed a few things and besides, I was curious. So I downloaded the form we are now required to have with us at all times, attesting on our honour that we are doing one of five officially authorized activities:

  1. Going to work, if remote working is not possible
  2. Shopping for food or other essential items
  3. Going to a health-related appointment
  4. Taking care of children, helping a family member or infirm person who requires assistance
  5. Walking the dog or briefly going outside for exercise close to home

I ticked box number 2, dated and signed it, drove to the village and parked. The convenience store (8 à 8) in our village looked empty until I noticed half a dozen people standing outside. Several were wearing masks. As I got closer I realized that two of them were employees. They were letting people in, one at a time, so that there were never more than two customers inside.

We stood there, spaced out by the regulatory distance on the pavement, not looking at each other and in complete silence except for a couple of small children asking their mother endless questions. We don’t talk to each other much in France.

A man passing by popped his head into the group and asked the shopkeeper if there was any bread left, just in case, so he wouldn’t wait for nothing. The fellow nodded vigorously, bringing out a baguette from just inside and taking a coin there on the street. They seemed to know each other, although I could hardly tell as anything he said was muffled behind the mask. “Merci!” the man called as he left.

“Is the bakery closed?” I asked the person standing next to me. She shrugged, but the other employee, overhearing my question, replied: “Yes, they had to close because they had no staff. Their employee had to stay home and look after her kids.” Ah, I nodded. I’m sure that many of the people in our village are grateful that the little store does ‘dépôt de pain’ in emergency cases like this. Daily bread is truly the traditional staff of life in France.

Then it was my turn. In I went, along with an older woman who seemed to be intensely studying a wall of canned goods. I skirted around her as quickly as I could (the aisles being too narrow to pass while respecting social distancing rules) and got my fruit and veg, along with a pack of sparkling water. Then I went to the cash desk and waited while the other shopkeeper finished whatever she was stocking on one of the aisles. In the meantime, the other lone shopper decided to join me at the checkout, immediately stepping up close behind me.

I turned and, as politely as I could, suggested she kindly respect the one-metre rule. She backed off in a flurry of French that I didn’t understand. I paid for my groceries with a card (contactless) and left.

Today the window cleaner is coming and I will have to go and get cash to pay him as it’s mostly a side gig. The very high windows on our house are simply too much for us, so he comes twice a year and does them all, inside and out. Hugely efficient and well worth it. It’s not clear as to whether this is technically allowed or not. I’ve heard conflicting reports about the confinement law. Seem it’s okay to have childcare and cleaners in your home on one hand; on the other the fellow who maintains our water heater told me they’re only supposed to do emergency work.

But the thing is: people need to eat. The economy needs to keep going. So for now I’m taking a common sense approach. Distance and hand-washing, yes. Total isolation and plague-like behaviour, non.

How are you approaching confinement? Are you running scared or remaining calm, even nonchalant?