FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7
Chloe was so sick she stayed in bed and I was alone for the first time in three months. It felt strange and disorienting.
SICK IN BED, SICK IN HEAD
I wrote that day, “No journey forward will be like a journey from the past. This trip has shown me that I cannot have the adventures of youth, feel the same rush of excitement, see the world afresh. Life has aged and dulled me. I understand my insignificance, that I am just part of an endless cycling of birth to death.”
THINKING ABOUT PROTEST
I walked to the old port, then up a central street by the University. The day before, these streets had been a battlefield. Yesterday 89,000 French troops and police deployed across the country to contain protests that now include students, ambulance workers and many more workers. Nine thousand police controlled nearly 100,000 protesters in Paris. Shops were boarded up along the Champs Elysée. Paris shut down under economic martial law, a state of emergency declared.
I watched videos and looked at photos of the violence across the country from Toulouse to Marseille to Paris. Cars overturned, fires set, stores looted, and tear gas fired by armies of heavily armed police from armored tanks into streets of fleeing protesters. One person died. Nearly 1,000 were arrested in Paris.
PRESS REPORTS
The press has reported that thugs infiltrated the peaceful protests. And on Twitter people are asking who is supplying the weapons. But I am leery of reports of infiltrators. Sometimes this is simply a way to deflect from the truth, to justify using unnecessary force. The protesters’ concerns seem valid, from what we can tell. We have seen the poverty.
The protests are spreading to other countries…to Bulgaria and Hungary, Belgium and Spain. Like Occupy Wall Street, the calls for equality are coming from the 90%, those left with too little.
Micah White, one of those responsible for Occupy, believes that Occupy’s success won’t be measured by the Occupy movement but rather by future movements that carry on the momentum it created. Wishful thinking, I’m afraid. The rich and powerful aren’t going to give up their claims to power and wealth, never.
A woman on the train from Monaco to Nice told us France is facing a civil war.
WALK THROUGH A BUSY CITY
The main street through Marseille teemed with people. If I’d been dropped on this street in a blindfold, then it was taken off, I would have guessed I was in North Africa. Most of the people are North or West African. It’s said that people who live in Marseilles identify themselves first as from Marseilles, second from France and last from their country of origin. There is pride in the people who live here.
I walked northward, up the hill. So many buildings were in disrepair, and covered with graffiti. No one wore nice clothes or carried shopping bags from expensive stores. Children played on filthy sidewalks. Old women, mostly wearing scarves and in long dresses, had swollen ankles and walked slowly up hills. Tattered clothes hung from clotheslines. Gangs of boys or boys in pairs, hung out smoking. One group of boys stood outside a fast-food taco restaurant. Two boys asked me for money. They may have been after my wallet and I was tense. People are hustling.
THE SHOPPING DISTRICT
I decided to return to the port, and turned onto a pedestrian, shopping street with only a few people. Again, I noticed people weren’t carrying bags with recent purchases. More white people walked these streets, but most were people of colour. Turning toward the port, I found a small section of high-end shops, a strip of jewellery and fine clothing stores. It was quiet, the streets empty, a few store clerks stood in their doorways, men suited, women in high heels. All White. The rich, visiting from Paris and elsewhere, must come here in the summer.
A policeman on a motorcycle passed, and I thought if the protesters are angry, they will come here. I headed back to the busy port side and to Chloe. We went out for lunch.
BACK TO OUR NEIGHBORHOOD
I left again, walking in the other direction where the cruise ships dock and there are wide sidewalks lined with big restaurants with outdoor sidewalk seating and shops that cater to tourists. Benches, public terraces and plazas all make sun gathering easy in this city. If it weren’t for the corruption and the high number of unemployed, this would be a lovely city.
