Space and Culture

Recent unrest in France over a labour law known as the CPE has everyone a twitter. “The French are backward!” say the capitalists; “The French are an inspiration,” say the socialist-types; “The French are screwed,” say the free-market believers with an eye on China and India; “The French are lazy,” say those who don’t know the French have amongst the most productive workforces per-hour-worked of any country around. Apparently, the French “stay competitive through lower salaries that help compensate for higher corporate taxes and employee-related social charges. And French productivity-per-hour rates surpass those of both the U.S. and the U.K. ” (Time)

France has high unemployment and a simmering pot of ethnic tension. The people of the Republic are losing faith in their leaders while, at the same time, resisting change.

Living in France is interesting. They love Canada, apparently, but sometimes assume, like Americans, we live alongside caribous or commute in canoes. At the very least the assumption is that Canadians all live in Quebec. The French are familiar with French things, much like Americans are familiar and comfortable with American things. The bookstores and magazine shops are telling. There are scores of travel books to Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria — places where French is spoken because they were colonized by the French. And they love to exotify places North Americans would, with politically-correct platitudes dancing in their heads, just as soon not objectify. For instance, just today in the Printemps department store there was a promotion called “Africa Instinct,” featured boldly on their website at the moment, featuring supermodel Alec Wek and expounding upon the “New Africa” full of “photography, style and dance”:

“Source d’inspiration de la création occidentale depuis de nombreux siècles grâce à sa richesse naturelle inépuisable, l’Afrique accède aujourd’hui au statut d’acteur à part entière. Photographie, stylisme, danse… sont autant de disciplines où s’exprime la nouvelle Afrique et lui offre un rayonnement international. Toujours au cœur du monde contemporain, le Printemps a souhaité se faire le porte parole de cette création multiforme à travers l’événement « Africa Instinct » du 6 avril au 13 mai prochain.” (Printemps)

The Africa the Printemps campaign so unabashedly trumpets is the same Africa being touted by the travel books and agencies in France — the exotic Africa, the colonized Africa, the civilized Africa, the French Africa, the Africa from France’s past. France is keen on its past. This is often a terrifically marvelous thing — their support for artisinal producers of cheese, wine, produce; their train heritage; their village life; their baguettes and cafes — are all marvelous.

They are also visionaries for supporting 35 hour work weeks (who wouldn’t want that?), 5 week holidays, and (if you’ve got one) relative job security. These features of France, however, also produce unemployment and a generalized economic stagnation. To cope the French seem to be responding with a “Say it ain’t so” attitude, before ignoring it, returning to being productive for 35 hours/week and, if really pushed, putting feet to pavement in order to uphold the status quo so they can get back to ignoring the problem.

The French orbit in a world that is French. As evidenced by their vacation destinations of choice, their naivete and nose-thumbing at American and British economic models, and their being seemingly content to dare China and India to steal their manufacturing jobs, they would prefer that all this bother would just go away.

Living here, I wish that too. The French (at least the fortunate French with jobs) have it pretty good. Just today I was sitting in Place Carnot, reading a book. It dawned on me that Place Carnot was a sort of New Urbanism fantasy (for what it’s worth). The square, like much of France, is a combo of ultra old stuff and ultra new stuff.

The bench on which I was reading was one of a few dozen new benches that replaced perfectly serviceable older benches this winter. I remember seeing the new benches for the first time and feeling all warm and fuzzy about how these neighbourhood benches were meant for me–the neighbourhood dweller–to sit on. Benches are amazing things. Unfortunately, those who don’t enjoy a plethora of urban benches often don’t know the range of social and cultural benefits they bring to a given space or street. Communities either have the vision to install benches or they don’t, too often relegating “the bench” to the dustbin of pie-in-the-sky frivolities that negatively impact bottom lines.

Benches, however, are the least interesting aspect of Place Carnot. The northern edge of the square is home to a bi-weekly farmers market. On Wednesdays the market goes from 15h00-19h00 and on Sundays from early to about 13h00. The produce is all fresh, seasonal, local. The cheeses are amazing. The roasted chickens (bird-flu notwithstanding) is the best chicken I’ve ever tasted — pick them up for lunch and don’t forget the roasted potatoes. The Sunday market also includes a flea market and sometimes they sell puppies along the square’s Western edge.

Frequently Place Carnot plays host to festivals and “spectacles” of one kind or another. Real highlights include the Christmas Market, the Marche des Producteurs (market of specialty products), and the Bacchanalian wine launches. Most recently Place Carnot was turned into a fun fair for kids (who have no school, I understand, on Wednesdays). There were bands, blow-up playgrounds, cotton candy, high-ropes courses, etc. The whole thing was hosted by the Mairie of the arrondissement (the neighbourhood’s city hall).

Place Carnot is also a transportation hub. Along the southern edge sits Gare Perrache, the train station where the Lumiere Brothers, developers of the movie camera, made some of their first films featuring the infamous train arrival that scared the neophyte audience out of its seats. The station has doubled in size since its earliest days, serving today not only as a rail hub linking Lyon to Paris, Marseille, Nice, etc., but also as a bus station, a metro station, a tram station (all run by the TCL), a link to the airport (Saint Exupery) and a bike rental station (one of many around Lyon).

Lyon’s bike rental system, called Velo(V), consists of over 200 stations distrubuting over 2000 around much of Lyon. Pick up a bike at one station and drop it off at another. The program, sponsored by a local advertising company (JC Decaux, one of the biggest in Europe), is such a success that they get interested visitor-researches from all over Europe, including from the bike-capital that is Amsterdam.

The square is flanked on one side by a university, and features flower gardens, a playing field, a playground, fancy statues, a merry-go-round, and fountains. On all sides are ornate low rise apartment blocks, shops, and cafes that spill out onto the sidewalks. Place Carnot is capped, literally, at the north by the beginning of one of Europe’s longest pedestrian zones. The pedestrian area begins with Rue Victor Hugo, leads to Place Bellecour, and continues north along Rue de la Republique.

In sum, though France is having some trouble, and though they can seem a bit insular, the programs and projects they’re so keen to protect are ones that, from the vantage point of this bench-sitting Canadian, are supportive and very much worth supporting.