Martial Law Keeps France right where it likes to be – Stuck in the Past.
It has been said in the media that France during the last year feels a little like going back to times of war. The streets are yet again traversed by tanks and military personnel, and people have been killed by fascists. This is not a situation anyone thought they would ever see again in modern Europe and it is certainly unwelcome, but making this nation the battleground for yet another conflict seems unfairly on the cards. When we moved here twelve years ago, we never anticipated that history could well repeat itself.
So, should I be scared?
Out here in the countryside – the very same place that was granted more freedom from the Nazis than most other places in France, and ergo was better able to support the resistance – it doesn’t feel much different.
Yes, there are subtle signs, particularly around the school routine, but other than that, I haven’t really noticed it. Living in the countryside can be a little like living in a bubble – the nearest towns or cities are far enough away that it’s a trek, and requires the planning of a military operation in making sure you get as much done ‘while you’re there’. When you live in a foreign country, it can sometimes feel like living on Mars. Even with the best panning, Rule No.1 – never assume anything.
Unlike the UK, everyday life in this area isn’t encroached by technology. We can still recognise people by their full face, as oppose to their foreheads, hair, and what kind of ring tone they have. Maybe it’s just the area where I live, but even when I travel about France, there doesn’t seem the same obsession with mobile devices as there does when I go to the UK. The two places couldn’t be in any further extreme from one another, in that sense.
There are also no English newspapers with eye-catching headlines grabbing us off the street. It takes me days (an improvement from weeks) to read a French newspaper front to back, and the headlines are just blur in the shop background. So yes, it’s easy to feel somewhat insulated from the rest of the world.
But then France became a target for violence and it seems as if the world has suddenly arrived here without warning and without welcome. So, you’d think, we must all be living on tenterhooks.
No.
Country life still goes on. Free living still goes on. Aside from extra security measures at the schools, things haven’t much changed, and it certainly still feels that the liberté part of the French motto is still to be respected. This is good.
Or is it? Are we, in fact, living in denial?
I have to ask this question because it makes me look at where I live, at my experience of being an expat here, and it makes me wonder, living in the very heart of France: are we too insulated to be realistic?
Let me explain how martial law has felt the last couple of months: I’d almost forgotten.
Periodically, there is a reminder. I recall being at our local lakeside beach in the summer, relaxed, no worries. Then I suddenly sat up in my deckchair. I remembered that the day before a priest had been attacked in a church, and I began to scan the beach and all those strangers who surrounded me (the tourists) for unusual activity. I clocked where my children were playing and began to work out what I’d do if someone opened fire on us, or if there was a bomb scare. Who was closest, how would I get to the one further away, and what would I do with them to protect them?
Of course, I thankfully didn’t have to deal with any of that. And let’s hope I never do.
So I forgot again, enjoyed the summer. But then, I noticed the vide greniers this year had the roads blocked off end-to-end. A reaction against a repeat of July 14th,
The holidays ended, the kids went back to school, and there it was again, that subtle reminder. Things are organised differently to accommodate the new security measures.
And yet, martial law still doesn’t feel quite real, quite ‘there’.
That is, until I went to Les Nuits de Nacre in Tulle. It’s an annual accordion festival, but do not be deceived. It’s not just old folk waltzing about to traditional accordion music (though there’s some of that too), it’s also modern, ranging from punk to ska to salsa to cabaret, depending which year you go. There’s a real mish-mash of people – hippies, crusties, young beefcakes in puffers and sportswear, girls in high heels and handbags, and yes, old folk too, because in France, all generations socialise with one another.
Only this year, mingled in with all of that, there was a heavy state presence. At first, walking into town, we thought it was just extra gendarmarie. There was a whole block of meat wagons parked up along the road. That in itself seems exotic to me these days; the French are a well-behaved bunch generally. It is not the normal expectation of law enforcement to cart drunkards off because of fighting. By the time I left the Magic Mirrors marquee, I only spotted one plastic beer cup on the floor! I didn’t dare thrown my own beer over the crowd (a practise deemed normal and acceptable at many a-gig), even though tempted when the Cubano group La Zikabilo kicked into their most stupendous finale, lest I be labelled ‘heathen scum’. So it was even stranger to see further in, right in the middle of all the festivities, soldiers with guns. Big guns.
Did I feel safer?
No.
But then, I didn’t feel unsafe before. People who live in cities and towns may see it differently. All I can say, from my rather anaesthetized position buffered by all its wide open spaces, is that it seems like a token gesture made by a government who have no finger on the pulse of the raging beast. It’s a plaster on a gaping wound. It’s applying old rules to a modern game, of which the French government have no idea how to play.
Not only should they be leading the way rather than being pony led, some attention to making all walks of society feel included in France’s culture – in Europe’s culture! – and not excluded, not alienated, not against us needs to take place. You know, that égalité part of the motto? (and while we’re at it, let’s be rid of fraternité and find a more gender neutral word to convey the same sentiment). No winning hearts and minds around these parts, it seems. Instead, France battles with the dichotomy of fighting fascism without becoming fascist itself.
Do we want the military waiting around in the wings of every public event to shoot someone if and when they are sure it’s an act of terrorism? (Case in point: 14th July. Part of the reason that lorry was able to drive for so far was because it took some time before anyone realised it was a deliberate act of violence and not an accident.) What confidence is there that French intelligence services can now position themselves to be one step ahead? The French like to do things by the rules, and with such a reliance on them, they don’t tend to think outside of the box so much. When I heard a British intelligence expert on the television stating that dealing with this new threat required thinking outside of the box I almost spat out my tea. For those of you thinking that as I’m not a French national I have no right to pass criticism on the way they do things, I very much disagree. I live here; I have a right to feel safe.
It’s important to point out that part of the attraction to many ex-pats who come to reside here is the old-fashioned nature of the place. Unlike the fast moving, overcrowded UK that seems more and more geared towards young people and the race of technological advancement, rural France is like a throwback to the old days when children ‘respected’ their elders just for being older, and not because they earned it, and life seemed less complicated, less pressured. People can retire in peace and quiet here without having to either spend a fortune on a country residence or live in whatever hovel they can afford. It’s one huge retirement home. It believes in keeping to the old fashioned ideal of working for your (decent) retirement at 60/65 and living out your days in blissful pleasure, whereas the rest of us have woken up to the displeasing fact that we won’t benefit from that in our later years. Politician after politician declare they will bring France into the 21st century and reform, reform, reform, but it seems the people wish to keep the high days and holidays of previous decades and so the country remains stuck in a support system it can no longer afford.
This intent to keep France for the old is reflected everywhere and in everything. They put the kybosh on outdoor rave parties years ago, before they even had a chance to get started, by following suit of the UK with something akin to the criminal justice act. The difference between the two is that in France, rave culture never migrated into the clubs and the mainstream. So, in one sense, you could say it was a triumph for young people in Britain back then (despite the nay-sayers who complain of it becoming ‘all about the money’). We asserted our right to shape what we wanted our leisure time to be, and in doing so, we gained a voice. In France it all feels very much dictated by what the older generations deem fit. Controlled. You can have fun, just not too much of it.
The punk rock festival we used to have in our village crumbled because of the harassment by the gendarmes stopping and searching people for drugs. Nowadays, we have an accordion festival in its place, but it’s not like Nuits de Nacre; it is unashamedly for the blue rinses. I’m almost tempted to call up the gendarmes and tell them some eccentric old folk are drinking mushroom tea in their camper van and acting crazy outside the gig, just to get my own back.
My mate said to me at Nuit de Nacre she’d never seen so many old people out in one place to party. It’s great that the older generations have a healthy interest in music – and I totally plan to be a raving granny when it comes time – but why does it feel so much, from an outsider’s point of view, that it’s at the expense of the voice of French youth?
And just a few nights ago, with the authoritarian presence, it had an air of being a throwback to those days before the amendment of the CJA, when the police would wait on the fringes of a party, waiting for the revellers to leave. Only this time, I didn’t get the feeling I’d be swooped upon. Rather, they were just an unusual addition to the scenery. Nobody’s fun was diminished because of them. They didn’t come over as being heavy-handed, nor wanting to interfere with the party. But it was the biggest reminder I’ve had that normal law has not been resumed and that I’m living in what I always considered the worst of the worst: A police state.
Put as many armed men on the streets as you wish, but the rest of the world is over-taking. France’s cultural arthritis prevents it from moving quick enough to catch up, let alone envision what lays beyond and put them ahead of those who are constantly looking for ways to surprise and destroy. France has often been the battle ground in European and world politics, and the Second World War is understandably still a subject of much pain and distress. We don’t even understand by how much in the UK, where we had to send troops abroad mostly to engage in the fight and didn’t have the Nazis inhabiting our own front doorstep. But this entrenchment of an old-world view puts them on a back footing. They see the world from within the past, and what I fear for my children is that this mentality still considers the old-school rules of war can be applied in a conflict that is making up the rules as it goes along.
Liberté, Egalite, Fraternité. So far, Martial law seems to uphold this motto. I just hope it stays that way. Otherwise, what’s the point?
On a lighter note, here’s some video footage of La Zikabilo’s gig at Nuit de Nacre. Enjoy!
***The festival has many free gigs on stages in the street and in the local bars too. The gigs held in the theatre or at Des Lendemain Qui Chant charge. If you are looking for something worth visiting outside of the madness of the school holidays, bookmark this event for next year!
