Living Archives - Much Ado About Paris

“The Third Man” needed help from Peoria

April 13, 2020 by Hugh Nelson 8 Comments

The Third Man a 1949 film directed by Carol Reed and starring Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, and Trevor Howard. The screenplay was by Graham Greene.

With current restrictions in Paris on how and why we can leave our apartment, we’ve had to make adjustments in shopping routines, exercise routines, and certainly social routines. For instance, a couple times each week, my wife and I watch a movie together, sort of a date night for people in lockdown. Rather than choosing some trendy TV series to binge-watch, I’ve looked for older, good movies that have passed me by. Recently we watched The Third Man, which was filmed in 1949 in post-war Vienna. Though it was a very popular and successful film, I realized that the plot of The Third Man needed help from Peoria, Illinois, my hometown, or it couldn’t have worked.

First, here is some background. Carol Reed directed the film starring Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, and Trevor Howard. The screenplay was by Graham Greene. In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Third Man the greatest British film of all time. An unknown café musician created the award winning musical score using only a zither.

Josefsplatz, Vienna, Austria. They dragged the body to the base of the statue. (Click images to see larger version)

Since we had visited Vienna last fall, I was curious whether we had been to some of the locations filmed in the movie. The answer is yes, but I didn’t know then to take all the right pictures. There are actually Third Man walking tours in Vienna.

The film opens with an American writer named Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) arriving in town to visit his friend Harry Lime. When Holly goes to his apartment, Harry isn’t there. Turns out that a passing car struck and killed Harry just the day before.

The entrance to Harry’s apartment is just across from Josefsplatz near the Hofburg Palace. Witnesses describe how they dragged Harry over by the base of the statue of Josef II. An American Army Major (Trevor Howard) offers to put Holly up at the Hotel Sacher, which is just across the square from the Albertina Museum. The Café Mozart near the Hotel Sacher is part of the script, but they used another location for the café scenes. During our visit, we passed through a number of the other shooting locations in the old city and along the Ringstrasse. We didn’t go to the cemetery or to the amusement park in the Prater neighborhood across the Danube Canal, both also used for scenes.

Hotel Sacher, which is behind the status across the square from the Albertina Museum

Now for the curious circumstance. Part of the movie’s plot revolved around the black-market sales of diluted penicillin. That there was any post-war penicillin at all in Europe was in large part due to the work of people from Peoria, Illinois.

Between 1837 and 1919, Peoria was the Whiskey Capital of the World. It had everything necessary for the production of whiskey: a plentiful supply of grains, clean and abundant spring water, dependable transportation, and fuel resources (wood and coal). The Great Western Distillery built in the 1880s was then the largest in the world. In 1919, the whiskey business in Peoria stopped because of Prohibition.

After the repeal, a large brewing and distilling industry returned when Hiram Walker and Pabst Brewing resumed operations. They continued in business for many years. In 1940, the Department of Agriculture built Peoria’s Northern Regional Research Laboratory. Being whiskey capital was an important factor in choosing Peoria for this laboratory because distilling and brewing provided natural benefactors and partners for research using corn and wheat in fermentation technology. Beyond its having just the whiskey business, Peoria was chosen “…because of the industry that was here and because of the agriculture commodities that were here and because of its close proximity to the Great Lakes. This was in the heart of agriculture territory.” Nowadays the Laboratory is called the Ag Lab. The broader function of the laboratory is the study and development of new and improved industrial uses for farm products.

In 1928 British bacteriologist Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in London. 11 years passed before a group of scientists at Oxford started research to use penicillin to kill bacteria. With the onset of World War II, England turned to the US for help in producing the quantities of penicillin needed for human clinical trials. The US Department of Agriculture chose the new regional lab in Peoria to lead the effort to produce higher penicillin yields because of its expertise in fermentation technologies.

The original penicillin strain could not be cultured in large quantities. To find a more productive strain, the Peoria lab first sent out a world-wide call for penicillin cultures. In response, Army pilots started sending dirt samples from wherever they landed. “Ironically, a strain of penicillium on a moldy cantaloupe from a Peoria market was found to produce the largest amount of penicillin.” Eventually Ag Lab found they could culture penicillin rapidly by submerging the strain in a deep vat using corn steep liquor, a by-product from a process to soften seeds and separate them into various components.

Working with Ag Lab, the USDA completed clinical trials of penicillin in 1943. The production methods and samples developed at Ag Lab were transferred to industry so that manufacturers could produce large quantities of penicillin in time for D-Day. The rapid upscaling of penicillin production was a huge success. It was also a huge step forward in the production of antibiotics and fostering of today’s pharmaceutical industry. Over the years, Ag Lab has touched the world in other ways. For example they created the super absorbent material used in disposable diapers and operating rooms everywhere. Also, they still maintain one of the world’s largest collections of microbes (yeasts, bacteria, fungi, etc.).

Thus, without help from Peoria, The Third Man might not have had any penicillin at all. As for the film, I don’t want to spoil it. You’ll have to watch it yourself.

That was supposed to be the end of this article, but there was another curious twist.

In searching for more information about industry, natural resources, and agriculture in Peoria, I found an old Industrial Resource Survey of Metropolitan Peoria from about 1955. It seemed promising so I started to read it. The author was Francis C. Mergen of Bradley University. Published by the Peoria Association of Commerce, it was the type of pre-internet data that could attract businesses and employees. For those of my readers who are from Peoria, it is a rich history of the city’s companies and manufacturing.

The shock for me was that I knew Dr. Mergen and his family. The Mergens lived a block down the street from us in Peoria. Their son Jerry was my good friend all through grade school and high school. Furthermore, my mother worked with Dr. Mergen in the Industrial Engineering Department at Bradley University. My parents and the Mergens socialized together frequently with other Bradley employees. Unfortunately, Dr. Mergen passed away in 1972. Bradley University offers an annual award in his name for the faculty member whose community service has best extended the impact of the university beyond the reach of the classroom.

I stopped working on this article to search for the Mergen kids and send them their father’s work. I reached Carole, the oldest, in Arizona and sent her the 400 page study. She replied that reading her father’s acknowledgement brought tears to her eyes, such sweet memories. She will forward the study to her brothers and her mom. What an amazing encounter it was for me, for remembering Dr. Mergen and his family brought back my family, our home, our neighborhood, our town, and the experience of growing up.

Filed Under: History, Living, Travel Outside Paris

Love in the Time of Coronavirus

March 23, 2020 by Hugh Nelson 22 Comments

Plaza Fernandez de Madrid, Cartagena, Colombia

Photo from Plaza Fernandez de Madrid, where parts of the movie _Love in the Time of Cholera_ were filmed. This square also contained the cisterns for Cartagene’s water supply, fitting since cholera spreads through contaminated water.

Much of the news each day is devoted to describing problems with a new coronavirus, COVID-19, which has been spreading over the world since the beginning of 2020. Typically people try to ignore it, hoping it will go away. Then suddenly it sweeps through in a terrifying manner, and there is panic. Governments are left with an impossible situation, trying to protect their population while at the same time keeping an economy running so that businesses and people don’t go bankrupt. It’s a kind of a love story, where the girl must choose between two suitors she loves, hoping to choose one without hurting the other.

There were six world cholera pandemics in the 19th century. The third pandemic brought the disease to South America in the mid-1800s. In February, when COVID-19 was just starting to spread in China, we were on vacation in Cartagena, Colombia (South America), home of Gabriel García Márquez, the famous Colombian author. He wrote Love in the Time of Cholera, a story spanning the period from about 1880 to 1930 that follows the lives of two main characters, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza. Florentino, a passionate, artistic man, is struck by love at his first sight of Fermina. She is swept up by the same longing for him. Fermina’s father won’t allow her to see Florentino, and the family moves away to keep her at a distance from him. Still the couple exchange love letters.

The family eventually returns home. There, a third character, Dr. Juvenal Urbino, meets Fermina when he is called to examine whether she has cholera. The doctor verifies her good health and starts to court her, much to the liking of her father. The doctor has become rich and famous after ridding the town of cholera. He is a logical thinker who is driven to find fame and success.

Dr Urbino proposes to Fermina, and she rationalizes that, as much as she loves Florentino, she really hasn’t spent much time with him. She makes the logical choice is to marry the Doctor. Thus they are wed.

Florentino is disconsolate and swears his undying love for Fermina, despite being rejected as her suitor. In French en colère means angry; Florentino is choleric. He realizes he can somewhat ease his emotional pain by having trysts, so he starts to keep count of the number of his affairs. Sometimes he has fun. Sometimes there are terrible consequences. He never marries.

Meanwhile Fermina and Dr Urbino raise a family, have a comfortable life, and are widely respected in the community. Yet they have disputes, and the doctor is unfaithful. Like in any marriage, life is less than perfect. Years pass by, everyone grows old. One day Dr. Urbino falls off a ladder and dies. As soon as the funeral is over, Florentino appears before Fermina to again court her. She repulses him, but he is persistent. He has become head of a river transport company and is himself successful. She eventually gives in, and they settle together in old age.

This love story is a kind of dance between the three characters, and likewise, treating a pandemic is also a kind of dance until there is a vaccine to protect people from it. The city of Paris has a long history with vaccines, starting with cholera.

Large monument to Louis Pasteur at Place de Breteuil, Paris (click on photos to see larger version)

A cholera vaccine for chickens was first discovered almost by accident in 1879 by Louis Pasteur, a microbiologist here in Paris. He was the first to understand the concept of a vaccine. He also made important discoveries in wine fermentation, inventing the process known today as pasteurization, widely used to preserve milk, wine, and other foods. Pasteur invented the vaccines for rabies and anthrax. I got my last cholera shot at the Pasteur Institute, which he founded and where he is buried. The search for a new vaccine is important to our story.

Love in the time of Coronavirus is perhaps just as intriguing as Love in the Time of Cholera. The government of every country on earth is faced with an impossible situation involving two things it loves. One, the economy, provides the means to live for everyone in the country (as well as for the government), but the economy requires a great deal of interaction between people. The other love, the people themselves, is threatened by a disease that will infect and kill many of them should they work to make the economy successful. Governments faced with this dilemma have chosen so far to protect the people, but it is killing their economies, perhaps promising financial and employment losses greater than any we have seen in our lifetimes.

Paris Marché Saxe with police patrols and places marked to indicate where to stand in line.

Here in Paris we are under a pretty strict protocol. We can’t meet with anyone. There is no getting together with other family or friends. This is central to limiting the spread of the disease. No one knows who is infected. We can only go out to the grocery store or the pharmacy or the doctor or for exercise by ourselves (which still allows walking the dog should you have one). Access to stores is controlled to limit the number of people inside. There is a line at the door. At the outdoor markets, there are marks on the ground by the vendor stalls to keep people waiting in line at least one meter apart.

The French have issued a form that you must carry to show the police that you are outside for an authorized purpose. Your actions need to conform to your stated purpose. Parks and monument areas are off limits, even for those who want to exercise. People have been instructed to limit outdoor trips to a 2km radius from home. I was checked for my form and activities by a police patrol on Saturday. They forbid me to cross the Champ de Mars on my way to the grocery store. We wash our hands every time we come back in the apartment. We disinfect reusable bags after getting groceries.

I run alone regularly and go to the store for necessities. Otherwise I am here in the apartment. It’s not really a problem since I have plenty to do, study French, listen to audio books or read (in French and English), work on the Poulsbo Rotary web site, on home office projects I’ve been neglecting, and on keeping up with friends and family via FaceBook, e-mail, etc. Brenda does much the same. She goes to the outdoor markets. She also has a video workout session each week via FaceTime with her fitness trainer, as well as other fitness workouts from the internet. We’ve been scheduling movie rentals to have a date night that we can look forward to. The food in France is still excellent, and Brenda is a fantastic cook. We are not suffering.

I attended a Poulsbo Rotary Club online meeting using Zoom, a teleconferencing Web site and app. The meeting was really quite effective. Applications like Zoom could meet many needs as group congregations continue to be banned in the coming months.

Every night at 8pm, Parisians open their windows and applaud our healthcare workers for their efforts in combatting the virus. In my mind we extend these thanks to the police, rescue workers, sanitation workers, delivery personnel, and everyone else who still goes to work each day to supply the public with life’s essentials.

You can think of COVID-19 as an iceberg – what you see is only a fraction of what there is. When you try to calculate how fast the virus is spreading, you must make assumptions about the huge number of the already infected that you don’t officially know about. Many infected don’t ever have symptoms but can still spread the disease. I made an estimate of the growth of known active cases using assumptions from an article by Thomas Pueyo. Based on what is known now, the true number of active cases must be much greater than the number of known cases. Social distancing is necessary to slow the real (unknown) number of new active cases so that the known active cases, accounting for recoveries and deaths, can remain within the capacity of the medical establishment. If you can make the number of known active cases go down, you can be sure that the number of unknown cases is reducing by an even greater number.

Known active COVID-19 cases in France and the US vs theoretical exponential rise as of 22 March

I have been plotting the number of known active cases in France and in the US versus the predicted exponential growth of known cases using Pueyo’s original assumptions. As you can see, the curve of active cases in both countries appears to be diverging from the predicted exponential rise if there were no controls. However, the rise in the US is still troubling.

A more recent article from Thomas Pueyo exhorts the US to do more now and outlines some ways to proceed once the initial surge of cases has flattened. Though the time to flatten the initial peak can be as short as a month with strict social distancing, the course of the recovery may be much longer, perhaps 18 months with some lesser social distancing measures still in place. Brace for big changes in how we interact socially.

Social distancing is a temporary strategy to buy time, not a fix, and will be financially devastating if it continues for a long time. Strict social distancing now will shorten the time of economic devastation. How can the government give some attention to her other love, the economy? We need to figure out how to test everyone rapidly and easily. Who has COVID-19, who doesn’t, and who has recovered and is now immune? Once we know this, we can figure out how to get people back to work.

Besides universal testing, we should consider other strategies:

Use of drugs already approved for another purpose, such as hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, in combination with azithromycin, to lessen the effects and shorten the recovery time. French doctors are having success when starting treatment before severe effects take hold.
Use of a cell phone app or other means that identifies everyone with the virus and is able to track with whom they have had recent interactions. This method has been used successfully in South Korea and China. There may be privacy concerns with doing this in the west.
Isolating everyone over age 65 and sending everyone else back to work. This could still expose millions of younger people to deadly consequences, and isolating the elderly will be difficult to control.
Development of a vaccine – they say it will take 18 months.

Our leaders should insist that the bureaucracy act urgently to evaluate treatments that mitigate the disease or to evaluate for approval any proposed vaccine. These are tricky processes that require care so as not to do further harm, but stopping the spread and protecting those most vulnerable is urgent. We need a revolution in reviewing and approving solutions or many many will die.

As is apparent, the plot of Love in the time of Coronavirus is still under development. I’m confident that a world working furiously to solve these problems will be able to produce unexpected solutions. I ask you to practice strict social distancing, even if not yet mandated by your local or federal government. Keep your distance from others outside of your home. A lot is at stake here.

Filed Under: History, Living

Bonne année 2020!

January 1, 2020 by Hugh Nelson 28 Comments

: On the Champs Élysées after the holiday tree lighting ceremony

: Celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary at Le Cinq restaurant.

2019 was our seventh year in France, the last year of the decade, our 30th wedding anniversary, each of our 50th high school reunions, the 50th anniversary of my swearing in at the Naval Academy, the 30th anniversary of my taking command of USS Buffalo (SSN-715), the 50th anniversary of Woodstock and the moon landing, 30th Anniversary of the pyramid at the Louvre, and so many other things. Our 30th Anniversary lunch at Paris Le Cinq served to celebrate this confluence of epochs and events.

Brenda and Beth head towards the finish line in the 2019 Bloomsday

My grand nephew Caedan hoping that I'll be able to hang on.

Filed Under: Living, Sight Seeing, Travel Outside Paris

Bonne Année 2019

January 1, 2019 by Hugh Nelson 16 Comments

Happy New Year! 2018 ended for Brenda and me at an all-French party with friends and friends of friends in their home south of Paris. We returned to our apartment at about 4am this morning. Cafés and bars in our neighborhood were still going strong and there was lots of traffic. Über was charging surge prices. It’s sad to think that another Christmas season has passed so quickly.

Without trying to add too much detail, I can say that our 2018 was another year of traveling abroad and back to the US, meeting friends here in Paris, and taking advantage of some of the cultural opportunities that come our way in this part of the world.

Cami and Brenda enjoying the beautiful weather by the Seine

Just to name of few of the people who visited (I know I’ll miss some), Barb Maxey from Poulsbo stayed with us over Christmas and New Years 2018. Martha Pendergast (also from Washington) stayed with us in March. Patti and Bill Wilson (Washington) visited us in April. Cami Gurney (Washington) stayed with us in May. Dianne Rodway and John Becker (Portland) visited us in September. Kelly and Linda Lunn from Portugal stayed with us in October. Plus we’ve had a host of others whom we’ve met for dinner or at our apartment: MaryLou and Paul Vibrans, Brian Dunhill, PK McLean, Rick Anderson and Louise Rosenbaum, Pam Perry and Jane, Nancy Whitaker, Chad Zinda and partner Felix, Ward Fuentes, Hermie and Virgil Valdez.

Brenda and her mom at the end of Bloomsday

Presenting Gary Carlson with $50.

We traveled quite a bit. Brenda went back to Spokane to see her mom in February, May, and September, and I was able to join her in May, when we all competed in the Bloomsday 12km road race. Though Brenda and I finished out of the money, her mom placed 3rd in her age group for the second year in a row. On the same visit to Spokane I was able to pay off my outstanding debt for the 2017 Army-Navy Game to Army veteran Gary Carlson. We had been haggling over payment terms, but I was finally able to satisfy him by personally presenting a $50 bill. Unfortunately, Gary passed away in June, which was a very sad occasion. Though I would have lost the bet again this year, I very much miss the banter we had regarding the Army versus the Navy.

The beach at Ko Phi Phi

Patong Beach incoming fire from squirt guns on Songkran

We spent nearly three weeks in Thailand with our French friends Cat and Jacques. We visited the beach areas of Ao Nang, Ko Lanta, Ko Phi Phi (with its breathtaking beach), and Phuket, with the unbelievable Songkran celebration of the Thai New Year at Patong Beach. Thousands celebrate the New Year by shooting each other with giant squirt guns or dousing each other with buckets of water. We returned from dinner soaked to the skin. We also spent several days in Bangkok, which was spectacular.

Our bed and breakfast in Normandy

Brenda with Alison Fankhauser – they were school teachers together in Australia 40 years ago.

In July we went to Brussels, where our financial advisor Brian Dunhill invited us to celebrate Ommegang with the American Club of Brussels. The evening featured a wonderful dinner followed by a traditional pageant that ends with guys on stilts fighting to topple each other in the town square. Also in July we were in Normandy with Cat and Jacques, and later a week in Nice at the apartment of friend and Paris real estate expert Adrian Leeds. In September we spent a few days in Amsterdam with Poulsbo friends Wally and Wendy Hampton, and then later in September met our Australian friends Dean and Alison Fankhauser in Split, Croatia, prior to their big bike trip along the Dalmatian Coast.

Some street artists have made it big – this by the artist INTI

With Kelly and Linda Lunn atop the Eiffel Tower

In our spare time there were concerts, art galleries, and local events here in Paris. I went to the top of the Eiffel Tower for the first time. Just to mention a couple of the less-well-known events we attended, there was a stunning multi media presentation of the artwork of Gustav Klimt (and others) at Atelier des Lumières, projecting an hour of ever changing artwork on all walls and the floor choreographed to beautiful music. Attendees were immersed and wandering around in the art. We also went on a street art tour in the 13th Arrondissement, where our passionate presenter spent more than 2 hours enlightening us about the fundamentals and the motivations of the artists, and new involvement of the Paris government in promoting this form of artistic expression.

Early February Snow storm

January flooding by the Seine

There were the usual ups and downs in daily life. In late January there was historic flooding and high water on the river Seine that closed my running route by the river for two months. In early February there was a historic snow storm. There were the Giles Jaunes (yellow jackets) riots on the streets of Paris over the past month. These were very disruptive but also occurred at specific well advertised locations, so the overall effect was much less dangerous than it appeared from the TV coverage.

Hugh with lump on head above eye

Brenda’s broken hand (little finger)

I fell while running one time and hit my head on the pavement, causing a nice bruise. Brenda broke her hand in a fall while running, but she didn’t know it for a month. Now we tell each other « pick up your feet » before each run. I finished reading Les Misérables in French. I joined a monthly poker game. We went to two wine tasting events, where we learned there is a wide variation in how people taste wine, and that there is no reason to believe the point score of experts or the high prices of big name wineries as indicators of what wine would be best for you. Often in a blind taste test, a lower priced wine may be very competitive. So trust yourself.

mannequin Christmas tree

Bonne Année!

The year ended with another wonderful Christmas Eve with Cat and Jacques and family. I spent a long time looking over with Cat’s father his cruise book from his time in the French Navy in the late 1940’s. My French is improving (but still has a long way to go). We also hosted our friend Barbara Hoehfeld (from Frankfurt) and her daughters Pascale (from Paris) and Ingrid (from Israel) and other family members on December 26th for a buffet lunch. Brenda created a beautiful mannequin Christmas tree, and we strung lights on the fireplace mantels and windows.

So…Bonne Année! We’re thankful for another great year here. All the lights are on for a final celebration. Go Huskies in tonight’s Rose Bowl. We wish you all a happy and healthy New Year. Bisous, Hugh Nelson and Brenda Prowse

Filed Under: Living

August in Paris

August 7, 2018 by Hugh Nelson 7 Comments

Brenda at 3pm on a practically deserted rue Cler – August in Paris (click to enlarge)

Today it’s about 97°F, which has been typical this August in Paris. We have bright sun and not much wind. Since most apartments don’t have air conditioning, it’s pretty miserable in most places. The French call this weather une canicule, which comes from the latin canicula for small dog. In English we call days like these dog days. The English word canine is also related. Many French have left Paris during the traditional August summer vacation period, so it’s quiet in the capital.

A French friend tells us that all the beautiful people have left, but in truth many of us common folks depart also for the seashore, the mountains, camping, or just to visit family outside the hot confines of the city. News media cover the Grands Départs en Vacances in July, including reports on the heavy traffic conditions and breathless interviews on the steps of the Palais de l’Élysée with the departing cabinet members. French President Macron and his wife have gone to Le Fort de Brégançon, the traditional summer vacation spot for French Presidents near Toulon on the Mediterranean.

Giant inflatable movie screen at Parc de la Villette. Cinema under the stars.

For those left behind

Ourselves, we’re back from a week’s vacation on the French Rivera in Nice. The seaside was lovely and our room had air conditioning. Now we’re back dealing with the canicule. The plumber came in the heat yesterday to fix the toilet. Thursday the man comes to read the utility meters. Still, it’s fun to be in Paris when everyone has gone on vacation. You don’t have to wait to cross the street, and there are some amusements for those of us left behind.

Paris Plages is a beach scene that attracts thousands down by the Seine and along the canals in the North of Paris. It simulates the beach with swimming, sports, dancing, eating and drinking (but no longer is there sand since there is a world-wide shortage). The other night we joined thousands more at the outdoor cinema set up at Parc de la Villette. They have a giant inflatable screen that allows a big crowd on folding canvas chairs or on blankets on the grass to sit back and enjoy a movie under the stars.

Our group met for a picnic and champagne ahead of the film, which was a classic 1965 Jean Paul Belmondo film entitled, «Pierrot le Fou». It was from the era when artists were trying to find deep meaning in Campbells Soup cans; the storyline was a bit hard to follow. They gave us each a blanket with our chairs, and I was thinking what possible need would I have when, sure enough, I needed it in the suddenly cool night air. Back home later it was still the same old hot apartment, but guess what – maybe there’ll be a big storm tonight. Temperatures are supposed to fall into the 50’s by Thursday.

In a couple weeks all this heat will dissipate, and we’ll be wishing that August in Paris wouldn’t end. In the meantime we’ll be here, in the heat, sipping cool cucumber infused ice water and eating chilled watermelon. Happy August!

Filed Under: Living, Sight Seeing

US Passport Renewal in Paris

June 2, 2018 by Hugh Nelson 14 Comments

Where to do passport renewal in France - US Embassy Paris

The US Embassy, where Americans in France complete passport renewal, stands demurely behind tall trees and iron gates at the corner of the largest square in Paris.

A small insight into life for Americans in France. We are in the process of passport renewal for our 10 year US passports. In the US you would fill out a form, send it with a check in the amount of the renewal fee to the State Department, along with a new passport photo and your old passport. They mail you back your new passport. In France you fill out this same form and mail it with your passport to the US Embassy. However, the Embassy neither accepts US money in the form of a personal US bank check nor a personal check from a European bank (nor a credit card of course). You need a French bank cashier’s check (chèque de banque).

When I went to the nearest branch of my bank, HSBC, presented my bank ID card, and requested a chèck de banque in the amount of 94 €, they told me they couldn’t do that. I would need to contact my bank counselor to make arrangements. So I went home and called my counselor. The counselor never answers the phone, so you talk to the person who answers. He asked me for my name and ID number, then had me input a secret code that verifies I’m really me, and then asked what I wanted. I told him I needed a chèck de banque for 94€ to renew my passport. We discussed that it must be made out to the US Embassy. He told me that it would be ready at the branch near us on the following Saturday morning (2 business days).

On Saturday morning Brenda and I went to the bank branch and asked for our cashier’s checks. They had no record of our order. We presented our bank ID cards and personal identification in the form of passports and residence cards. We filled out forms indicating our names and checking account number, the payee and amount. The bank teller told us the checks would be ready on Wednesday (2 business days), but to call first since our order might not be ready in that amount of time.

The US, like France, is very particular about passport and ID photos. However, the rules for background, size, etc., are different. Though there are photo booths all over France for ID photos, they aren’t correct for US passports. Thus we had our photos taken at Walgreens in Spokane when we last visited the US. Dodged that bullet.

Should we ever get the cashiers checks, I think we will be ready to make application. Since we have to send in our current passports, we need to make sure we don’t need them for at least 2 weeks in the future. That means we can’t travel to other countries or even within France. We will want to send in our forms by traceable mail just in case they get lost.

Unlike in the US, where the State Department sends back your passport for free, in France we must send a self addressed prepaid envelope of a certain type with our forms so that the new passport can be returned to us. It must be a Chronopost for France, or Collissimo, or a Lettre suivie 500g size A4 only. Chronopost is the French mail system’s package delivery. Collissimo is a private delivery service affiliated with the postal system. Lettre suivie is a prepaid, trackable envelope that you can purchase at the post office. I chose lettre suivie because I found the right envelope in the post office rack, but I don’t know if it’s the best choice. Each prepaid envelope cost about $8.

The destination, the US Embassy, is within easy walking distance of our apartment, but it’s guarded like Fort Knox, and you need an appointment to enter. Only plan a visit if you need emergency passport renewal. Don’t try to take a photo either; the French guards will start blowing their whistles and all hell will break loose.

Filed Under: Living Tagged With: passport renewal

Snow in Paris

February 9, 2018 by Hugh Nelson 14 Comments

Snow painting the entrance to the Musée de l’Armée

It doesn’t snow in Paris very often, and when it does, we see the flakes falling but nothing accumulates on the ground. Paris, although it is at the same latitude as the northern-most parts of the US, has a mild, temperate climate similar to Seattle. The relatively mild winter weather is both because of its position in the European land mass and due to the influence of the Gulf Stream on the weather of northern Europe. The Paris urban area is always a couple degrees centigrade warmer than the surrounding areas. This often spares the city from effects of cold weather even when it produces snow in the suburbs. Typically, the temperature here in winter is in the 40-45 °F range. Freezing weather is rare.

Thus it was significant when 12-15 cm (5 or 6 inches) of snow fell in Paris Tuesday night, turning the streets, the parks, and the building tops white. It was the biggest snowfall in Paris since 1987. No one from a snowy winter climate would be impressed with the magnitude of the storm, yet for Paris, the snow creates two effects: it renders the city quiet and magical and it turns city services into chaos.

No shoveling on rue Cler

Not much doing at Le Malabar

About a year ago I purchased an Apple Watch, which has a couple of fitness programs I use, Nike Run Club and the Activity App. These drive me nuts because I have goals every day to stand up often enough, burn enough calories through movement, and to get enough minutes of exercise. It’s relatively easy every day to stand up enough and to get 30 minutes of walking or running, but on days when I don’t run it’s difficult to get the 550 calories of activity. It usually takes about 90 minutes of walking to get there. Oh – and the watch can’t detect when you are doing pushups or squat thrusts, so you can’t achieve the goal by going to the gym. It bugs me not to reach my goals, so every day there is this reckoning.

Eerie quiet in the snow on the Champs de Mars

All is quiet along rue de Belgrade

Tuesday night at 10 pm I still needed about 125 calories, so out I went into the snow storm. I stuffed my 35mm camera into my coat, put up my hood, and walked around. Every once in awhile I stopped to take a photo in the swirling snow. Hopefully I’ve captured some of the calm, the quiet, and the mess. If you click on the pictures you can see a larger version.

Underfoot in the snow, Paris becomes magical. The snow gives a different look to every familiar scene, and the weather keeps most people away, so especially at night the streets and public spaces are lightly trafficked and sometimes deserted. The normal noise and bustle becomes quiet and serene. No one moves quickly. Traffic slows down. Everyone proceeds carefully, looking for solid footing, except the kids who revel in the sudden chance to have a snowball fight.

Not much activity on slushy rue Saint Dominique

Garden out our apartment window after the snow

All this calm belies the inability of the city to cope with even a minor snowstorm. No one has even a shovel. In walking extensively through the city streets, I saw one small green city truck with a snow blade, pushing a narrow path up a busy street. Most streets were eventually cleared by the grinding of the slushy snow under wheel and gradual melting. Curbside there were slush and deep puddles everywhere. Merchants and the City spread salt and sand to improve traction along the sidewalks of the main streets, but other than a narrow path near the doors to the storefronts, the slush and snow remained as a hazard out to the curb. Flights were cancelled. Metro trains and the bus service stopped running. The Eiffel Tower was closed. The city forbid large trucks from using the highways and encouraged people to stay home. Hundreds spent the night in the airport or in a train station. I stopped short of trying to achieve my calorie goal.

By Thursday there was sun but still freezing temperatures. I could sense the extra strain on our apartment’s heating system in the colder weather. Some sidewalks became passable, some almost clear. Others remained slushy and slippery.

The flood waters are subsiding

Snow and ice on Voie sur Berge Rive Gauche

Voie sur Berge Rive Gauche still packed with snow and ice

Snow capped Le Zouave wears his life jacket

Down by the river the walkways were thick with ice and treacherous. At Place Saint André des Arts I nearly fell several times walking across the slippery brick surface. The flooding that surged into Paris a couple weeks ago seemed to be subsiding, though the roads and walkways beside the Seine are still covered in water. The Crimean War statue called Le Zouave, the city’s unofficial flood gauge under Pont de l’Alma, was outfitted with a life vest. Though the water level looks about 2 feet lower than it was at its peak, perhaps the citizenry still fears for Le Zoave’s safety as this new storm moves through.

Champs de Mars shows no willingness to give up the snow after 3 days.

The days are getting longer. Soon all this will pass and spring will be here.

Filed Under: Living

Happy New Year 2018!

January 1, 2018 by Hugh Nelson 2 Comments

Hugh Nelson and Brenda Prowse at Vaux le Vicomte

Apologies to our readers. We have fixed the security device that was blocking comments to our post.

We did a lot in 2017, but one thing we didn’t do was post to this blog. Our experiment of living in France is now almost five years old, and 2017 was no less active than any of the other years. To start the new year out right, here is a small effort, neither too long nor too inclusive, to convey something about the past year.

We traveled a number of places, the most impressive being a trip to Cuba in May. In sum, Cuba is both a country with a totalitarian government and beautiful place with ingenious people who manage as best they can, have happiness where they can find it, and hope for a better outcome in the future. Around every corner of Cuba there was surprise and fascination. It was our privilege to visit with and learn from some of its citizens. We also vacationed on the Greek island of Corfu, which was beautiful, historic, educational, and fun. We went to Barcelona, one of the greatest tourist attractions in Europe, to meet friends from Australia for the second year in a row. We flew back to the US to visit family. The natural beauty of Washington is as good as any other place on earth. We spent time last August in Nice, France, our first experience on the wonderful Mediterranean beaches and towns of France.

We finally moved our furniture from Washington into a Paris apartment. It was a saga and an ordeal, but at least it is done. Apartment hunting, financial contract arrangements, and moving our furniture all took much longer and were much more difficult than we could have imagined, but we’re happy with the result. One conclusion, despite getting rid of as much as we possibly could before leaving Washington, we still shipped too many things that we didn’t need – our bed for instance, which the movers thought was a piano.

We were robbed a couple times. Once I was pickpocketed on the Metro. And one of the movers made off with a few thousand in gold jewelry. None of this was recoverable (except for my French ID card), but it impressed upon us that though France is relatively safe, there isn’t much trust between people.

We stopped taking French lessons. We are still not very fluent, yet our French is many times better than when we arrived. I liken it to failing 3rd grade. Try as hard as you can and come up short every time with no hope that proficiency will ever be attained – yet things seem to be getting better. There is no switch that flips so that suddenly you know French, yet every effort to learn and speak in French makes the experience here better. French self study is still a daily activity.

We have lost some dear friends this year, people who have influenced our lives in the past and continue to do so today. I keep in mind that this life does not go on forever and that every new day presents opportunities to honor the past and to make something of the gifts we have received. On the other hand, we love hearing about the new members of our families, and we’re proud of the efforts of the next generation and want for them every success in raising a new group of children.

The good fortune of our time in France is that we have been befriended by a French family and have been invited into their world. We see them every week and often go on vacation together. This has been a cultural exchange that has enriched our lives immeasurably and has made every inconvenience of living here worth the pain.

So another year begins. We wish you and your family a safe, prosperous, and happy new year!

Filed Under: Living

What did you do in 2016?

December 29, 2016 by Hugh Nelson Leave a Comment

Hugh and Brenda on Pont Alexandre III with la Tour Eiffel in background

Joyeux fête de fin d’année! (Happy new year’s eve celebration!)

With Greg and Lauren Meyer on New Year’s Eve 2016

Friends in the US and people we meet here ask us what we do in France. When we tell them we are retired, the French always wonder how we could possibly have chosen France, since our dream is not necessarily their dream. The Americans ask, “What do you do with your time?”, and often we stumble telling about the mundane day-to-day and probably don’t give a very compelling answer. We haven’t posted to this blog very often recently, so consider this an attempt to catch up about what we did with our time in France in 2016.

We spent New Year’s Eve 2015 with our dearest French friends Cat and Jacques and also with our friends Greg and Lauren Meyer, who were visiting Paris from Poulsbo. It was fun to share our friend’s French family celebration with American friends who love the culture here.

Atlantic Ocean from beach on east side of Cozumel Island

On February 3rd we successfully renewed our residence permits for a 4th year in France. From February 14-29 we got away from the Paris winter with our friends Cat and Jacques by going to an all inclusive resort at Playa del Carmen, just south of Cancun, Mexico. While there we visited Chichen-Itza, Tulum (about the same time the Pope visited), Cozumel, Cancun and one of many cenotes called the Grand Cenote. All in all we had a wonderful time and great weather.

Celebrating our 27th Anniversary at Les Papilles in Paris

On March 5 we celebrated our 27th anniversary by dining out at Les Papilles, a reasonably priced but very good restaurant in Paris 5th arrondissement. On March 24th I took the train to Brussels to renew my retired military ID card. This was just 2 days after the terrorist attacks at Brussels airport, so the city was locked down. However our financial advisor Brian Dunhill ferried me around to get the ID card renewal completed (and for Mexican food and beer), so everything went smoothly.

Tasha Moretto and new baby Emma

From April 20 to May 5th we were in the United States, Brenda starting by visiting friends in Poulsbo, Washington and me starting in Pekin, Illinois visiting my brother Chris and wife Michele, and niece Tasha and her husband Dustin and their new baby daughter Emma. I spent much of my time scanning old family slides and photos, since Chris and Michele were in the process of moving to Florida.

Brenda and Beth resting after Bloomsday

Then Brenda and I met in Seattle to travel to Spokane to see her mom, Beth Shaw, and to run the annual Bloomsday road race, where each year we check if we can still make it around the 12k course. On our way back to Paris, we returned to Gig Harbor and stayed with Patty and Bill Wilson (Jr), allowing Beth to see her good friends Edie and Bill Wilson (Sr), who live in a retirement community there now.

Brenda at the dome at The Reichstag building, which looks down on the German Parliament.

In May we received a visit from our Poulsbo friend Don Merry, who stayed a few days with us in Paris before he and Brenda headed out on a Rick Steves tour of Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. This was magnificent whirlwind tour that exposed Brenda and Don to a wide swath of European cities and cultures. Brenda loved Prague and Vienna. Upon Brenda and Don’s return for a few days in Paris, we took a day trip to see the King’s herb garden (and other attractions) at Versailles on a guided tour with our favorite cooking school, La Cuisine.

At the outskirts of Tataouine, Tunesia, heading towards the Sahara – the end of the world.

In June, almost as soon as Don departed, we were off on another all inclusive resort vacation with Cat and Jacques, this time to Tunisia, on the Isle of Djerba. It was very hot when we arrived (50°C one day with no air-conditioning yet in the rooms), but for the most part the weather was wonderful. In addition to visiting some of the local towns on the island, we spent one day going to the end of the world (south into the desert) and visiting the village of Tatouine, as well as a troglodyte city started by the Bedouins in about 1100 AD. Brenda fulfilled her dream to ride a camel. This was our first time in Africa and the Magreb, and it was a wonderful experience.

Brenda, Allison, and Dean with Saint Peter’s Basilica in the background

In early July we traveled to Rome to meet Brenda’s friend Allison Fankhouser and her husband Dean. Brenda and Allison had taught school together in Australia in the ’70s, and just found each other again a few years ago via LinkedIn. It was our first time back in Rome since the early 2000s, and was it fun! We did some sightseeing, toured the Coliseum and ruins, hung out at the Trevi Fountain, visited the Pantheon, shopped, and dined out. We watched Euro Cup soccer matches in the evening at the hotel. The last day we visited Saint Peter’s Basilica and saw the weekly address by the Pope.

Later in July, we were off with Cat and Jacques to the Brittany region of France, first stopping at the fabulous Mont Saint Michel, then along the coast to Saint Malo, then Dinar, and then inland to the town of Dinan and the Port of Dinan running along the river of the same name.

Just before the start of the Bastille Day fireworks in Paris

We went to the Bastille Day fireworks at the Eiffel Tower on July 14th. Brenda set down blankets and kept a space in the field from early afternoon until the show started at 11pm. Hugh came at about 6pm with Poulsbo friends Chuck and Cheri Gerstenberger and brought a picnic dinner so we could enjoy the live concert that precedes the fireworks. It was a typically stunning event, and the weather was perfect. You may remember that at the same time some 500,000 people were watching the show on the Champs de Mars in Paris, a madman was driving a truck through the crowd after the festivities in Nice, killing 86 and injuring 435 people. So the evening ended as a somber occasion.

Brenda, Barbara, Terry and Martha at a cafe in Frankfurt.

At the end of July we traveled to Frankfurt, Germany to visit our friend Barbara Hoehfeld. Friends Martha Pendergast and Terry Campbell from Hansville, Washington, met us there. We stayed at the Hotel Senator near Barbara’s apartment in the heart of town. We spent some time walking along the River Main and admiring the European Central Bank. The wait list for tours there was months long. We spent half a day or so traveling to Darmstadt to see the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, where Martha continued her quest to see all the Pieter I Bruegel (the elder) paintings in the world. There we saw the Magpie on the Gallows. We also toured the Städel Museum and attended a concert by a multinational group from Morocco, toured the Palmengarten and rowed in the pond, and had several unique and wonderful dinners. One day Brenda and I went over to the US Army Base at Wiesbaden, where we were able to update her military ID card. This was an important step in making sure that we continue to have medical coverage here in Europe.

At Berck Plage in Nord Pas de Calais, France

Late in August we went with Cat and Jacques to Le Touquet Paris Plage, a beach community in the French Department (somewhat like a state or county for administering the affairs of a region in France) of Nord Pas de Calais, a region north of Normandy lying along the English Channel. The first night we came to a nearby beach town and joined a parade in progress where the crowd was marching behind the band. Periodically the band would stop, turn around and play a song. We ended up at the beach, where we saw a skit by two women playing employees at a bank. It was a very professional act, cutting and very humorous. Then we slipped next door to the casino, found a table by the window to see the sunset and have dinner, and then watched France lose the European Cup (soccer) to Portugal. Another day we visited the beach at Berck, where we had a very nice lunch and then spent the afternoon laying on the enormous beach in the warm sun. Berck is a fun word to pronounce.

Carl Swanstrom and Linda Gagnier at our apartment in Paris.

Early in September our Seattle friends Carl Swanstrom and Linda Gagnier visited Paris. We spent a couple days touring the town on foot, plus making the trip to Montmartre, where I tried to do the professional tour route in reverse as we came back down the hill from Sacre Coeur. We really enjoyed meeting Linda. Carl used to terrify us taking us down the steep slopes on ski trips so it’s good to see that there is someone who can slow him down.

Chantilly

In mid September we traveled with Cat and Jacques to Chantilly, one of France’s most beautiful and iconic Châteaux. We spent the day touring the castle and wandering the gardens in beautiful late summer weather.

Joanie, Brenda, and Beth in Idaho celebrating Beth’s 90th.

Later in the month Brenda headed back to the US. She and her sister Joanie, who made the trip up from California, both came home to Spokane to celebrate their mother Beth’s 90th birthday. They got to go mom’s exercise club to swim and work out, spent a day visiting friends in Idaho, and saw some beautiful gardens in Spokane. Brenda attended a luncheon where an old boyfriend (from 1st grade), Bill Moos, now Athletic Director at Washington State, was the guest speaker. Brenda also visited Poulsbo and stayed with her friend Randi Strong-Petersen (up in Hansville). While there she was able to meet with as many of our close friends as possible and find out how things were going.

Pianist Emil Reinert with two friends at the Romanian Cultural Institute, Paris

While Brenda was gone, Hugh had an invitation from Pascale Velleine to hear her son, Emil Reinert, perform a piano concert at Romanian Cultural Center in Paris. Emil is the grandson of Barbara Hoehfeld, whom we had visited in Frankfurt earlier in the year. He is also a terrific classical pianist, one of a handful young performers invited to play in a series of 1 hour concerts that ran throughout Paris Journées du Patrimoine this year. Barbara came from Frankfurt, and we all, along with a number of other friends of Emil and Pascale, went to lunch afterwards at a Romanian Café just down from the concert hall.

French Prime Minister’s desk, Hôtel Matignon, Paris

The Journées du Patrimoine are cultural heritage days where in cities throughout Europe, the government and other buildings and gardens not normally open to the public are opened for public viewing. It’s a way to educate the population about the history and functioning of their government and associated facilites. After the concert Hugh was able to get into the Hôtel Matignon, the residence of the French Prime Minister, then Manual Valls, who is now running for President. The expansive garden behind the hôtel was a wonder to behold – one would never imagine it exists when regarding the hôtel from the street.

Patty Wilson and Brenda at the Eiffel Tower

In early October, about a week after Brenda’s return, Patty Wilson visited us from the US. We had stayed with her and husband Bill Jr. at their Gig Harbor home in May. Patty had been to Paris a number of times before so she was capable of getting around. Brenda took her shopping at our local market and then cooked at our place. We visited some of Paris’s covered passageways and walked and took photos along the Seine and down by the Eiffel Tower at night. The girls went shopping and sightseeing in the Marais and at the Jardin du Luxembourg. Patty took us out to for an excellent dinner at Le Bistro Paul Bert, a fine restaurant where we had not dined before.

View from breakfast at The Mansion Resort in Ubud, Bali

As Patty’s stay in Paris was ending, we took off for vacation in Bali with Cat and Jacques. First we took a flight to Doha, Qatar on the Persian Gulf and then caught a connecting flight to Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. In case you don’t know much about Indonesia and Bali, Indonesia is the 4th largest country in the world (250 million) and the largest Muslim country. It consists of a long chain of islands south of the equator. Bali, a smaller island in the middle of the chain, is still more than 80% Hindu with a population of over 4 million, mostly concentrated in the south part of the island. Except for rising problems with over population and development in the south part of the island, Bali has preserved much of its Hindu character and life style despite the modernization that has occurred elsewhere in the country. Indonesia was a dutch colony (Dutch East Indies) from the early 1600s until World War II, when the Netherlands gave up possession to the Japanese. After the war it became an independent country and, after a long period of authoritarian rule, held its first direct presidential election in 2004.

By the Bali Sea on Lembongan Island, Indonesia

We stayed at two different hotels, 5 days at The Mansion Resort in Ubud, towards the quieter north central part of the island and 9 days at the Artotel in Samur, on the east coast of the heavily populated south part of the island. Both hotels were beautiful, the Mansion old and traditional, the Artotel brand new, open, and modern. We interspersed days at the beach with days of sight seeing and hired a guide named Willy to manage the tours. He spoke both French and English and was constantly enlightening us on small facets of Balinese life and Hindu traditions. We saw two traditional dance shows, several artisan shops, and several important and beautiful Hindu temples. One tour provided lunch at a windy restaurant atop one of Bali’s volcanos, and another a beach fish fry where the surf kept chasing us from our seats to farther ashore all night long. On our own we toured Sacred Monkey Park at Ubud. Brenda volunteered to feed the monkeys, which was as easy as buying bananas from the lady and holding them high over your head. The Balinese monkeys take care of the rest – they climb you with their sharp little nails. We heard that the best way to see how Bali used to be was to take a fast boat off shore to one of the nearby islands (30 minute ride), so one day we went to Lembongan Island and hired a driver to take us around the bumpy island roads. Along the way we visited a mangrove and a spectacular beach with giant surf pounding against the rocks, then sunned ourselves and had a great lunch at a restaurant and pool near the beach before beating our way back across the waves to Bali. Some days we just went to the beach and ate at local restaurants. One negative was that Hugh contracted some kind of dysentery towards the end that made him very ill for 10 days or so (7 of these back in Paris). He got to meet the hotel doctor and go to the hospital to get the blood test for Dengue fever. Fortunately no Dengue. All in all, the Bali trip was a grand adventure that went very smoothly.

Brian Dunhill with Brenda at the American Club of Brussels for Thanksgiving

It was nearly November when we returned from Bali, and with Hugh’s continuing illness, the US Presidential Election, and the Washington Huskies trying to win the Pac 12 football championship, there was lots to keep us busy. We intensified our search for an unfurnished apartment, trying to narrow down the neighborhood, price, and essential features. We’ve been pretty slow with this step and our stuff from Washington remains in storage here in Paris. At the end of November, we took the train to Brussels for several days and stayed in a fancy hotel near Place Louise (Wilcher’s Steigenberger). The highlight of our trip was Thanksgiving Dinner at the American Club of Brussels held at the downtown Sheraton Hotel. We were guests of our financial adviser, Brian Dunhill, and his company Cross Border Planning. Brian is also President of the American Club, so he is a busy guy. Like last year, the dinner was superb, with a turkey for each table prepared by the kitchen staff according to the special recipe of one of the club members. Everything else was very good. It was a traditional meal for this very traditional holiday. We also walked around city center to see the Christmas decorations and the beautiful light show at night in the town square. Another night Brian suggested for us a local Belgian restaurant near our hotel, Le Chou de Bruxelles, that served excellent mussels and fries, a Belgian specialty, and fine, fine everything else. We also spent a wonderful afternoon visiting the European Union Parliament’s Visitor Center called the Parlamentarium. It provided numerous educational exhibits describing the history and operation of the European Union.

French friends Cat and Jacques at our apartment

It’s December now and the year is slipping away. When we haven’t been traveling, we’ve been doing what we usually do with our time in France, French lessons twice a week, usually by Skype, twice a week to the local market for food, running workouts every other day, with long walks on the off-days, Hugh keeping up the Poulsbo Rotary web site, keeping up with life in the US by listening to KPLU (now KNKX) in Tacoma, calling Brenda’s mom twice a week, spending time on Facebook, doing the laundry without having a dryer, spending every Sunday at the movies with Cat and Jacques and then staying for dinner and playing scrabble (in French) until 2am, and other stuff like that. Study for the French lessons consumes lots of time since we learn about France as well as the French language. And we have to cook and clean house. Hugh has run about 700km over the past year, and Brenda has run a bunch too, plus she works out with her personal trainer Margaux once a week. We have a little home gym with a yoga mat, several stretch bands of varying intensity, and a core bag. Margaux has taught Brenda plenty of ways to get a good workout without need for a weight set or exercise machines. Hugh just copies.

Brenda on Rue Cler at Christmas

So that’s what we’ve been doing to stay busy. We want to thank everyone who has visited or allowed us to visit all through the year. I know I haven’ t mentioned all the guests we saw here in Paris, but thanks for your visit. Our lives have been the richer for it. We wish you and your family a Happy New Year and hope you will have a fun, healthy, and productive 2017. Bonne Année!

Filed Under: Living, Sight Seeing, Travel Outside Paris

French Labor Protests

May 28, 2016 by Hugh Nelson Leave a Comment

French Labor protest being organized at École Militaire near our apartment

In our neighborhood of Paris, we’ve already seen two large, well organized French labor protests. There are now violent protests throughout France against proposed changes to the labor laws. The government is trying to improve the economy – why is there such strong opposition?

Economic Problems

France has a number of economic problems. The rate of economic growth (% change in gross domestic product (GDP) – a measure of how the economy is doing overall), has been very slow, 1.2% or less for 4 years. Unemployment has been at about 10% for 4 years, worse than unemployment has been in the US since the Great Depression. Youth unemployment has been about 25%, and about 80% of those youth who have jobs are working under temporary employment contracts, where the employer is under no obligation to keep them after a certain date. Government spending is 56% of GDP, 2nd highest in the EU, compared to about 45% in Germany and 40% in the US. The budget deficit has been more than 3.5% of GDP for the last 4 years. The public debt is more than 95% of GDP. The original rules for EU membership required countries to keep public debt less than 60% and deficits less than 3%, or pay fines. Since then there have been numerous accommodations, but the French are under pressure from the EU to reduce their deficits to below 3%.

At first the Socialist government of President François Hollande tried to raise tax rates to increase tax revenues from the rich, which was expected to lower the deficit. However, at the same time they lowered the retirement age back to 60 years and cancelled previously approved reductions in employment, thus restoring 60,000 jobs recently cut from public education. These measures added back government spending that had been previously reduced. After the government missed their goals for deficit reduction and after continued weak economic growth, France promised the European Union in 2014 that they would reevaluate their budget to find reductions of 50 billion euros over the next 3 years. Therefore the government of France must increase tax revenues by growing their economy or increasing taxes, or they must reduce spending to limit the deficit.

To deal with this, François Hollande shuffled his cabinet and named Manuel Valls his Prime Minister. Valls made other changes, including naming an economist, Emmanuel Macron, as his Minister of the Economy.

France is ranked 141 out of 144 countries on “hiring and firing practices” according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report. Companies face high taxes to hire each new employee, and when they want to lay off employees for economic reasons, the decision on compensation goes before a judge who may award the employee pay for an unlimited period of time. Therefore it is an onerous task for a company to hire a new employee.

Another view of the labor protest forming up to march

Regulations also permit unions to negotiate agreements with employer federations who represent sectors of industry. Thus a union representing only a fraction of all employees can negotiate an agreement that applies to all the employees and employers in a given sector. For instance, labor unions for technology and consultancy employers negotiated an agreement to limit work time through cell phone communications during the leisure time of all employees in these industries, these communications being considered to be an unwarranted extension of work time. This agreement affected some 250,000 workers. Each day some 80,000 French commute to better paying jobs in Luxembourg. This is the largest cross border workforce in the EU.

Government Proposed Reforms

To reduce the burdens of current regulations, the French government has proposed that companies be able to negotiate with unions on working conditions and salaries, where current law ties their hands. They propose that management be able to sign deals only with organizations where at least 50% of the workers participated in union elections, up from the current 30%. This would bring such negotiations closer to the individual company level. The government wants more flexibility for employers in setting employee working hours, allowing increases above the 35 hour limit under certain conditions with certain restrictions. The government also wants to make the rules for layoffs for economic reasons more flexible. They also want to limit the total possible cost to an employer for an employee layoff. The government contends that these changes would bring France into line with the rules in other European countries.

The measure has divided France’s ruling Socialist Party. After the government was unable to reach a compromise to ensure passage of the bill, it invoked a special measure of the French Constitution, article 49.3, to allow passage in the lower house (Assemblée Nationale). The bill must still pass in the French Senat.

French Labor Protests

Police barricade the streets along all routes to the protest

Trade unions have declared that all these changes are unacceptable, and have been organizing widespread protests, some of which have been violent, trying to force the government to give up the cause. Dozens of police as well as participants have been injured in protests involving hundreds of thousands of workers. Fuel shortages have been created by fuel blockades and a transport strike. 16 of 19 nuclear power plants have voted to go on strike, which could potentially create power outages. Unions have further plans for rolling strikes on the Paris Metro system starting June 10th to potentially disrupt the Euro 2016 soccer matches that are to take place throughout the country over the course of the following month.

Marchers arriving to participate in the protest

Polls show that a majority of the public is opposed to these reforms. It’s obvious why unions would be opposed, but why French youth are vigorously opposing these reforms is not obvious, since it appears that youth employment opportunities would be improved. Some critics say that the government’s bill doesn’t address the changes that are needed for the 21st Century. No doubt this is true, but it’s not obvious that these changes would be embraced any more than the current proposals.

While the government is standing firm and international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund have been calling on France to enact these types of reforms, it’s anybody’s guess how this struggle will turn out.

Filed Under: Economy, Living Tagged With: economic conditions, labor protests, protest marches

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