We first met in the Luxembourg Garden where I was sitting by the small Statue of Liberty after my morning class at the Alliance Française of Paris. It was the fall after graduating from Ohio State and I was now ready to make something of myself though I didn’t yet know what. My parents were pleased that I was continuing my education. I was studying French at the Alliance and pastry-making at the Ferrandi Paris cooking school.

I’d bought myself an exquisite chocolate éclair on the way to the park. After creating an Instagram post of a selfie in which I’m holding up the éclair like the statue her torch (Statue of Delicious #paris #thelife #frenchpastry), I sat down nearby to enjoy the pastry with the intent of then studying the passé composé of irregular verbs.

“Bonjour Mademoiselle,” he said. I looked up. He had lovely little brown eyes and smoothed-down brown hair, greying at the temples.

“Bonjour Monsieur,” I answered.

He lifted his palm toward the chair beside me and asked if it was occupied. Understanding his request more from his gesture than from his words, I removed my notebook and purse from the seat so that he could take the chair. Instead of moving it further away, he sat down beside me. He excused himself for remarking but said that he detected un petit accent.

“Je suis américaine,” I said.

“Amay-we-can,” he echoed with a scrunched smile without parting his thin pink lips, then, immediately switching to English, he added, “your accent is very char-ming. Do you know why we have a Statue of Liberty here?” he asked.

I did not.

He said, “But you should because you are Amay-we-can, so I will explain to you.” And so he did, as he would teach me much else, with intense, informative, endearing condescension, before concluding, “You have so much to learn.”

On our first date, the following evening, he took me to a wonderful little bistro, where a surly waiter served us a nice house red. When he told me again that I was charming, I felt myself blush. He called me his Mona Lisa because my name is Liz. I called him Bruno because that is his so adorably French name. When I told him that I would like to try the French onion soup, he said that was for tourists and he recommended instead the bone marrow, telling me that there was a sincerity to the presentation and sensuality to the texture. I marveled at the way used adjectives to describe food and accepted his suggestion. He ordered the pâté for himself, which he ate with thick chunks of sourdough bread. Then chicken supreme for me and andouillette for himself. We shared profiteroles for dessert. He wiped the chocolate from my lips with his napkin.

Afterwards, we walked along the Seine, where he lit a cigarette, and when it was finished, he flicked the butt into the river then turned and kissed me as the Eiffel Tower sparkled as though on cue. His breath tasted of a mix of cigarettes, coffee, wine, intestinal sausage, and a breath mint. It was a beautiful spring evening in Paris. I remembered the old song. He took my hand and we walked on, eventually reaching my chambre de bonne in the Latin Quarter.

I had only had sex with boys my age before, so this was different. He was 20 years older than me and knew not only what he wanted, as did the boys, but how to please. I was glad that I’d shaved that morning. After making passionate love, he opened the French window to smoke as I lay naked and mostly satisfied beneath the sheet. Leaning against the wrought iron railing, he blew rings out toward the zinc rooftop across the courtyard.

If you crane your neck to the right, I said, you can see the top of Sacré Coeur.

“Socray Core,” he repeated, mocking the way I pronounced it, then he stepped toward me and brushed his hand against my cheek and said that his Mona Lisa had a charming accent. He said that he would help me with my French, when it improved, but for now it was best to continue in English. He told me that since I was new in Paris it was natural to admire “Socray Core” from the window but that a real Parisian looks discreetly into the windows across the courtyard to watch people undress, and he pointed to a woman across the courtyard and one floor below who was removing her blouse.

He then told me that his wife and children were returning from vacation the following day, but he would be available on Wednesday afternoon.

“You’re married?” I ask, redundantly.

He waved away both the smoke and my question. He said that he and his wife were now old friends and stayed together only for the three children, so I shouldn’t worry my pretty little head about it. I ignored my mother’s voice in my head and thought, When in Paris…

Every Wednesday afternoon at about 5 o’clock (known here as 17 hour), he came up the stairs to my 7th-floor garret bearing gifts, either a pastry to die for or chocolates from what he said was the best chocolatier in Paris or a bottle of wine that he knew all about. Occasionally he would show up late, saying that he was stuck in court, and tell me that though he’d had a long, tiring day he couldn’t let a week go by without seeing his Mona Lisa. His Dior cologne arrived even more exhausted than he did, so several weeks into our relationship I asked him to shower on arrival. He said that despite man’s intelligence and ability to build great cities such as Paris, we are animals and should not fear our natural odors. I handed him a towel and reminded him that I was not born in the same den as he. He laughed and said that he would do anything to please this pretty lady.

He taught me many things. He taught me how to wear my hair and how to tilt my beret just so. He told me which exhibitions to see and how to appreciate movies without happy endings. He always left by 7:30—I should say 19:30. He called that a “reasonable hour for a lawyer.”

We rarely went out to dinner after that first time. He said that we had all we needed right here. The pastries and chocolates weren’t good for my diet but they were great for my Instagram.

We had plans to go to Deauville one weekend while his wife and children were visiting his mother-in-law in La Baule, but he texted me to say that his daughter was sick so we would do it another weekend. When I texted back to tell him that I was already waiting for him at the Gare Saint Lazare, adding an angry emoji, he texted back a reminder that he’d told me about his family responsibilities from the day we met and that he was the one with sick child, so I shouldn’t be a selfish about it.

The following Wednesday he brought me a gift as an apology. In a box bearing the name of a fancy shop on the rue Bonaparte in the Saint Germain Quarter there was a beautiful lavender scarf with a Galeries Lafayette label. He showed me different ways of wearing it, before lightly tying my wrists together with it while we made passionate love. He continued to teach me things, such as how to read the label of a bottle of wine and where I must go one day in Provence and when cherries are in season and why the Americans did not like the General de Gaulle.

In July, he told me that his wife and daughters had gone to Bormes les Mimosas for the summer and that he wouldn’t be joining them there until the end of the month, so we would have more time together over the next few weeks. “More time” ended up being two Mondays as well as the usual Wednesday. I suggested a weekend in Deauville but he said that there were too many lawyers in Deauville in summer. Instead, he said, it would be his pleasure to take me someplace nice for dinner on Wednesday. I’d been living in Paris for nine months by then so I knew right away that the bistro he’d selected in the Latin Quarter was unexceptional; it had only a 4.3 rating on Tripadvisor. But I was intent on enjoying myself. I’d checked out the menu online and asked AI what wine would go best with foie gras and pike quenelles, which I intended to order, and with whatever offal he might, and was told Pouilly Fuissé. So I proudly suggested that as we ordered. Instead, he asked the cute and efficient waiter for a bottle of a Sancerre red, telling me that I would understand the subtleties better with time. The young waiter nodded as he said, “Oui monsieur.” It took little time to discover that the Sancerre fell flat with my order. When I asked if he wanted to split an order of profiteroles for dessert, he said that I should profit from them (that was his profiterole joke) myself while he went outside for a smoke and to call his children. In his absence I chatted with the cute, young, efficient waiter, whose chestnut brown hair that fell adorably over his espresso eyes. He complimented me on my French and agreed that Pouilly Fuissé would have been the better choice. When he delivered the profiteroles, I asked him to take my picture with them. He sensed that Bruno and I were not married. He said that a man should not leave a charming young lady like me alone at the table. I agreed, and when he efficiently asked for my Instagram, I agreed to that and asked for his as well. His name is Pascal.

Pascal tells me that he adores me, and I feel the same. We’ve been together for three months now. He’s got me listening to rock from Brittany and using French slang, like kiffe for like and ouf for great, though we mostly speak in English. I’ve got him listening to Taylor Swift and wearing deodorant. We’re looking for a two-room flat to move into together. He supports my ambition of giving pastry tours to tourists while writing a book about how a girl from Ohio became a true Parisienne, illustrated with some of my Instagram photos, which he never fails to kiffe. When I tell him my dream of opening a donut, cupcake, cruffin and cake coffee shop that I would call Morning Liza, he says that would be ouf. I haven’t told him that my father runs the largest car dealership in Ohio, nor that I’ve been seeing my old lover on Wednesdays.

But I don’t have to think about the latter anymore because I told Bruno yesterday, after we made unimaginative love and while he was smoking by the window, that I wouldn’t be able to see him anymore because I was moving in with someone.

“A boy?” he asked, blowing smoke from the side of his mouth.

“A man,” I said.

He stubbed his cigarette in the flower box. He said that this—the two of us—hadn’t been working out for a while anyway because I was too much of a child and that I shouldn’t call him anymore, and anyway, he’d met someone more beautiful and mature, a real Parisienne. He then turned to look out the window, first to the right for brief glimpse at the top of Sacré Coeur then to the windows down below. It crossed my mind that I could push him over the railing then tell the police in perfect French, using the passé composé, that he jumped out when I told him it was over. But he’s taught me so much over the past year that I’m actually grateful to him. Anyway, I’d rather have the pleasure of watching him leave my apartment angry and forlorn, the way he likes movies to end. For myself, I still prefer a happy ending.

© 2026.

Cliché, a Paris Love Story by Lainey Harper. Lainey Harper is the pen name of a writer who’s leaving the dream.

The post Cliché, A Paris Love Story appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

He’s the man of two worlds, of two revolutions and of two languages.
He’s a fellow who understands the politics of a republic, an empire and a kingdom.
He’s a citizen of France and an honorary citizen of the United States.
He’s Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette—call him Lafayette—and he’s returning to America for the first time in two hundred years.

Yes, Lafayette is back – in the new series Lafayette in America on Instagram, launched on September 23, beginning with Episode 1: The Awakening in Paris. New episodes will be posted weekly. Follow now as Lafayette prepares to embark on yet another American adventure.

Absurd, intriguing, irreverent, timely and occasionally historical, Lafayette takes to the streets of Paris before returning to the United States, where he reconnects with old comrades, meets Americans, does food reviews, and tries to understand how the country of his dear friend General George Washington has changed over the centuries.

Follow Lafayette in America @lafayetteinamerica now!

Why now?

At the invitation of the United States government, Lafayette made a grand tour of the United States in 1824 and 1825, visiting the then 24 states of the union, where he was celebrated as the oldest surviving major general of the American Revolution and a reminder of the promise of the Declaration of Independence of 1776 and the creation of the democratic republic of the United States of America. Two hundred years later, in 2025, told that he’s needed, he returns on a quieter but no less significant journey, on a secret mission at the behest of unknown figures, accompanied at times by the charmante Mademoiselle Lilly.

Yes, Lafayette is back!

Here are a few images from the upcoming series, filmed and photographed in France and in the United States.

Left: Lafayette tries to go incognito in Paris, yet, once recognized, he gladly poses with fans by the Eiffel Tower.
Right: Lafayette stands by the equestrian statue of his dear friend the General George Washington, a work by the American sculptor Daniel Chester French, on Place d’Iéna in Paris.

Left: Lafayette takes a seat at Les Parisiennes, 17 avenue de la Motte Picquet, 7th arr.
Right: Lafayette reflects on the evolution of the American project as he walks on Omaha Beach, Normandy.

Left: Lafayette with Axel Robb and fellow patriots at Washington Crossing Historic Park in Pennsylvania, with the charmante Mademoiselle Lilly by his side.
Right: Lafeyette and Will Krakower toast the memory of fallen soldiers of the Continental Army at Princeton Battlefield State Park in New Jersey.

Yes, Lafayette is back! Follow his adventures on Instagram @lafayetteinamerica.

© 2025

Learn about Lafayette’s tomb in Paris.
Learn about Lafayette’s relationship with George Washington.

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… and texts you again the following morning at 10
Him: Bad news, there’s a strike today.
You: I know, I thought that was the good news.
Him: Not anymore. The teachers are on strike. I have to stay home with the kids.
You: Isn’t your wife there?
Him: She works in the private sector.

Version française

… t’envoie un sms à 23h
Lui : Bonne nouvelle, je suis gréviste demain.
Toi : Bonne nouvelle pour qui ?
Lui : Nous. Je pourrai passer dans l’après-midi.
Toi : Suis pas gréviste moi.
Lui : Tu travailles à ton compte chez toi. Tu fais comme tu veux.
Toi : Je bosse quand-même.
Lui : 14h, ça te va ?
Toi : Bon, d’accord.
Lui : Je dois partir à 15h30 pour chercher les enfants à l’école car les chauffeur du transport scolaire sont en grève.
Toi : Parfait.

… et t’envoie un sms le lendemain matin à 10h
Lui : Mauvaise nouvelle, il y a grève aujourd’hui.
Toi : Je sais, c’est la bonne nouvelle, non ?
Lui : Plus maintenant. Les profs sont en grève. Je dois garder les enfants à la maison.
Toi : Ta femme n’est pas là ?
Lui : Elle travaille dans le privé.

© Gary Lee Kraut

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By Gerald Vinestock

Everyone knows that French drivers are the best in the world. Every French driver knows that English drivers in France travel rather more slowly than French escargots.

It is the duty, therefore, of every French driver to encourage the rosbifs by tailgating any English car so that the English driver, glancing in his mirror, is able to see the Frenchman throwing both arms in the air in Gallic exasperation. Eventual overtaking can be accompanied by suitable digital indication of friendliness.

The English driver can sympathize to some extent with his French counterpart, for there are clearly two major defects in French cars—both likely to detract from the desire to establish the driver’s role as the best in the world. The first of these is that it appears the roofs of many French cars are likely to blow off at speed. For this reason drivers have to open the car window and hold the roof in place. They let go only to point out interesting landmarks—or, of course incompetent English drivers—to their passengers. These gestures should not be confused with old-fashioned hand signals, indicating a desire to turn left, for instance.

Such gestures would be useful, for the second defect is that clearly the indicators on French cars stop working as the car leaves the showroom, so that cars swoop left or right apparently at will, leaving bewildered English drivers in their wake. And that’s to say nothing about priorité à droite that curious French system which allows vehicles to leave tiny lanes and driveways by hurtling onto major roads without warning, just so long as they are coming from the right. It may be French drivers’ confusion about this business of who has priority that enables them to drive with such confidence on twisting roads and hairpin curves.

The English driver usually arrives in France at Calais where he is greeted by a huge sign: Tenez la Droite, that is, Drive on the Right. Of course, the English driver knows that all properly organized nations drive on the left, but he concentrates and keeps repeating to himself, ‘Keep right!’ and after a couple of hours on the French freeway he is feeling quite confident about this strange habit. Then he arrives on minor roads in the mountains and finds that he must have misunderstood the instruction, for now French drivers drive round bends on the left. And the bigger the car the further to the left it goes. The English driver faced with imminent collision keeps further right, eyes closed, and tries not to think about the precipitous drop only inches away.

Not only are the French the best drivers, they are the best parkers. They are helped in this by use of the sidewalk. English people know that a sidewalk—though they prefer to call it a pavement—is for the use of pedestrians. French people assume that the sidewalk is separated from the road in order to provide parking places for cars. Pedestrians, mothers with strollers, children, the elderly are expected to struggle past in the road.

The best parkers can place their cars so close to the boulangerie door that French customers wanting to buy bread know the only way into the shop is through the back of the car. English people form a polite queue until the man emerges unapologetically and drives off.

Since French drivers are the best in the world, the failure to spot my car in the supermarket car park was obviously just a temporary blip. The subsequent collision was at such speed that the door could not be opened and had to be replaced. The French driver knew there was no point in discussing the matter, since the English don’t speak French and would not understand. So he drove off speedily, without signaling, round a bend on the wrong side of a road, clinging to his roof with one hand and pointing out the damage to my car with the other.

© 2018, Gerald Vinestock

Gerald Vinestock recently published a children’s novel, Crib and the Labours of Hercules.

The post Right of Way: An Englishman Takes to the Road in France appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I’m looking for a new suit in a shop on rue de Turenne. I explain to the saleswoman that there’s a certain medium blue that I’m looking for, in a size 50.

She asks me where my accent is from.

“I’m American,” I say. “How about your accent?” I can hear it.

She glances to a man in the open back office who looks up from his desk.

“Not important,” she says.

I try on a jacket. She tells me that it’s a beautiful fit and that I’m very handsome in it. This is the fifth jacket I’d tried on today and that’s the fifth time that I’ve heard that. It does fit, but I’m not sure that it’s the blue I had in mind. I ask her the price.

“349,” she says.

“That’s more than I want to spend,” I say.

“I’ll throw in the tailoring,” she says. That’s also the fifth time that I’ve heard that today. She gives a reason: “I like Americans.”

“Where are you from?” I ask.

“It’s important for you?” she asks.

“If you’re offering me a price because you like Americans I might buy the suit if you like I like where you’re from.”

“Where do you think?”

“I’m guessing Greece.”

“Do you like Greeks?”

“Well enough.”

“I’m Greek.”

I wasn’t buying it.

***

Blue T-Shirts

I’m having a friend’s name printed on a t-shirt that I’d bought as a retirement gift. I planned on being in the area of the shop in the afternoon I’ve paid 3€ extra to have it printed by 2PM rather than the usual 6PM delivery time. The shop manager, who spent a half-hour with me the day before, doesn’t recognize me when I enter to pick up the shirt.

She says, “What’s your first name?”

“Gary.”

“Your first name.”

“Gary.”

“No, your FIRST name.”

“Gary.”

She looks through the packets of printed t-shirts and other objects on the shelves behind the counter.

“I don’t see anything, but the delivery man doesn’t come before 6.”

“I paid 3€ extra to have it here by 2.”

“Can’t be. Are you sure that’s your first name?”

“Gary. It’s a blue t-shirt with a cycling motif.”

“Oh, now I remember. But it was for 6 o’clock, right?”

“No. 2 o’clock… Gary.”

She calls the place where the printing is done to say that she’s missing something from the 2PM delivery. The person on the other end asks her a question that she then repeats to me: “What’s your first name?”

“Gary.”

“C’est bien votre prénom.”

“Oui. Gary.”

“He says ‘Gary,’” she tells the man on the phone.

A minute later she hangs up. She tells me that my t-shirt didn’t go into the rush pile so it’ll be here after 6. She says that they printed my t-shirt and mistakenly also put in a second order for a plain blue t-shirt and printed it as well.

She says, “The good news is that you’ll have two t-shirts after 6 rather than one t-shirt now – and for the same price.”

“That’s not good news to me,” I tell her. “I’d rather have the correct one now. And if it isn’t ready then you can reimburse me the 3€ for the rush order and keep the second t-shirt for yourself.”

“What would I do with a t-shirt with Schulman written on it?” she says.

“What would I do with it?” I say.

“We’ll it’s your last name,” she says, “not mine.”

***

Some Change

I’m on a bike, stopped at a light, my right foot on the curb, waiting for people to cross the street. A man teeters up to me, drunk.

He says, “I won’t ask you for a little change to buy something to drink.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re North African and you don’t drink.”

“And if I told you that I do drink?”

“Can you give me some change?”

© 2017, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Three Paris Vignettes: A Suit, Blue T-Shirts and Some Change appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Those are all things that you, the visitor and the return traveler, look forward to when you imagine (re)visiting Paris.

So you naturally pause when thinking of coming to Paris today.

You naturally wonder: Will I feel safe? Will I be safe? Do I want to walk around in fear? Is it worth the risk?

Just five days after the attacks, it would be a lie to say that those of us who live in Paris don’t also asked ourselves the same questions. We are not defiant or brave, and you will not be if you come.

Yes, we want to feel “normal” again. Yes, we want to—we need to—go about our lives without fear. We have personal and work obligations, we have children to take care of, friends we want to see, activities we enjoy, shopping to do, errands to run. We want to feel the normalcy of our lives as we felt on it early Friday evening as the weekend arrived.

In a way, we already have it. We are out and about. Paris is open for business.

But normalcy does not mean that we are nonchalant about the death and destruction that has struck and that wishes to strike again. We continue to pause in front of memorials, to think about those who were kills, to comfort those who were wounded or more directly affected than us, to tell each other first-, second- and third-hand stories.

The question of safety is one we all ask ourselves. Yet our lives are rooted here. Whether those roots are one year or 20 years or generations old, roots of family or work or friends or of unwillingness to move, few of us will flee today, as few fled after the attacks 10 months ago.

But you, the visitor and the return traveler, don’t have those roots. You may be contemplating your first visit to Paris. Or you may profess a love for Paris; you may consider yourself a Parisian at heart; you may consider Paris your second home. Yet Paris is not your home. And for those of us who live here to say, “Yes, everything’s fine, you should come,” would be to confuse our roots with your travels, our daily lives with your vacation.

You are right to question a visit so soon after the events of Nov. 13. You are right to reconsider your plans. You are right to be concerned about the threat of more violence. Don’t let anyone lead you to believe otherwise. Go right ahead and imagine your fear.

And then remember that what you feel about Paris from afar is not what you will feel about Paris when you are here.

Because once here you will join with those of us who have roots, whether shallow or deep, in life in Paris. You may then be afraid sometimes as we are. You might then tear up sometimes as we do. You may then wonder if you would feel safer in this seat or that, in this restaurant or that, walking down this street or that. You will wonder if you should be here at all.

But here you will be. And in being here you will know the pleasure and beauty of discovering and rediscovering Paris. Beyond the landmarks, beyond the treasure-trove of museums, you will know all those things that the enemies of life in Paris abhor: the pleasure of sharing a drink or a meal with friends, of listening to music, of strolling down the street, of kissing on the sidewalk, of men and women mingling freely, of gathering comfortably with strangers, of being young in years or young at heart, of openly celebrating life. You will know pleasure and discovery and perhaps love. You will allow them, as we do, to brighten the darkness that is fear. You will wish you could stay long. You will want to return.

.
Gary Lee Kraut
Editor, France Revisited
November 18, 2015

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I might have bought a copy myself, but the first batch was out by the time I left the apartment, and a friend soon sent me the complete pdf.

One couldn’t avoid seeing the cover of the issue in France, whether at the newsstand or on TV or, without any particular search, on the internet. How strange, how revealing of cultural differences it was then to be an American in Paris surrounded by images of the cover of Charlie Hebdo, and then to see that American news sources, while reporting heavily on the subject, were self-censoring or actively avoiding showing the cover, while in some countries mobs were called to violence to denounce the image.

The prominence and the significance of the news of the publication of the first survivor issue of Charlie Hebdo made January 14 feel like the winter, newspaper version of May 1, when it’s customary for French to give each other a sprig of lily of the valley as a sign of friendship, love, good luck or social justice or in the name of tradition or obligation. (On the news we saw that for those who opposed the right to publish a caricature of the prophet it was a day of rage.)

The attack at Hyper Cacher may have come after the attack on Charlie Hebdo had already brought us out onto the street, but it was part and parcel of the events of January 7-9. So within all the earnestness and giddiness surrounding the sale of Charlie Hebdo, the day’s lily of the valley, news outlets in France and abroad were also showing long lines of people buying kosher food. “After all,” a young blond woman said as her 4-year-old held up a can of kosher pastrami, “just as few people buying the post-assassination Charlie Hebdo issue bought it for the contents, one needn’t buy kosher food for the blessing.” There was a great sense that, beyond the rally of January 11, on an otherwise typical work day, millions of people would continue to affirm the values of the republic by honoring both the rights and security of those who would mock religious dogma and institutions and their perverse effects, on the one hand, and the rights and security of those who wish to eat or otherwise pray in the private sphere according to religious dogma, on the other.

Well, no, actually. I made that up. No one spoke of buying kosher food to also show their support for the freedoms that the terrorists wished to eradicate.

Was it so difficult to support both secularism and the peaceful practice or non-practice of religion? Or did one feel a need to choose sides among victims and what they represent or are thought to represent?

I would think not. As Charlie Hebdo’s own editorial of January 14 states: “No, in this massacre, there are no deaths less injust than others” (Non, dans ce massacre, il n’y a pas de morts moins injuste que d’autres).

Having read the survivor issue of Charlie Hebdo, I also wanted to buy some kosher food. I needed to go shopping anyway: a journalist friend (religious affiliation, if any, unknown) was coming for dinner.

There are no specific kosher shops in my neighborhood so I went looking at a local grocery store. I couldn’t find a kosher section there, and there was no kosher food in the store’s “World” section.

The “World” section did, however, have Sabbath candles (bottom shelf, blue box in the photo). I thought this odd given that there’s a candle section on the opposite side of the store. I then realized that it wasn’t so odd since they were next to Italian rice and pasta even though the store has large rice and pasta sections. The logic is that a customer would go to the “World” section to look not for rice or pasta but for Italian goods. The Sabbath candles, made in Israel, are therefore considered at this grocery store as national rather than religious items, as though one might want to serve Italian pasta, Spanish olives and Chinese tea light by Israeli candles.

The French have been debating whether Jews form a “nation apart” or not since at least the Revolution. In December 1789, the National Assembly inconclusively debated the issue of the rights of Jews in a post-despotic France, with two main arguments arising: one said that, given the chance, Jews can be assimilated with and citizens of the larger society, the other said that Jews are bound to be a nation apart and so cannot be citizens of the nation of France.

French Jews were given the full rights of citizenship (emancipated) in two blocks: in January 1790 by a law largely covering Sephardic Jews of southwest France and the area around Avignon, and in September 1791 by a law covering Ashkenazic Jews (mostly in Alsace and Lorraine) and others.

The debate of the place of Jews in French society nevertheless continued, mostly in attempts (at times successful) to reduce the rights of Jews. The debate can still be heard, and not just among gentiles. In fact, Israeli Prime Minister Natanyahu weighed in in favor of nationhood at his speech at the Great Synagogue of Paris on January 11, when he invited Jews to come “home” to the nation he leads. To which some congregants responded by singing their national anthem, La Marseillaise.

I bought the Sabbath candle. I was pleased with the symbolism of the Sabbath itself being a Jewish hebdo (hebdo means weekly) and with the thought that I would light the table with them that Wednesday evening.

When I mentioned to my guest that since I was unable to buy Charlie Hebdo I went looking for kosher food, he called my logic amalgame (amalgam). If there is one French word that a foreigner should retain from recent events it is amalgame. The term refers to the mixing of two distinct ideas, events or situations that are brought together in order to deliberately creating confusion, typically in order to discredit an individual or group and/or to exploit an event to demonstrate one’s point of view for political advantage or to rationalize broad condemnation or hatred. Saying C’est de l’amalgame (That’s an amalgam) is a way of crying intellectual foul against someone’s argument. It’s often heard in response to someone who says that all Muslims must respond for an assassination in the name of Islam or that the relationship between Israel and Palestinians is that of all Jews and all Arabs.

Though equating purchasing kosher food with purchasing the survivor edition of Charlie Hebdo required a shift in the reflex to want the publication (and freedom of the presss, etc.) to win the day, I thought my friend wrong to call their association an amalgam. I thought it misguided to insist that this day belonged to Charlie Hebdo alone, as though saying “Je suis Charlie” the other day meant that we had all agreed that we found Charlie Hebdo funny and pertinent and worth buying, that we had committed a republican sin by not subscribing earlier. The amalgam between the creators of satire and the consumers of kosher food, I countered, was thrust upon us by the terrorists.

But they aren’t wrong to lump together the targets of their distain. All of them—satirists, Jews, police and many others—are deserving of protection. To now remember only half of the split screen of the double assaults by security forces on January 9 would be to refuse the basic facts of what had occurred or to believe that in this massacre there were some deaths more unjust than others. Some amalgams must be made. And lucky us that we can enjoy the symbolic value of Charlie Hebdo and kosher food on the same day, even if we find them both tasteless.

My friend had had a rough week preparing his own weekly magazine for publication and neither of us was up for punditry that evening. We dropped the subject as I opened the bottle of wine that he’d brought, an easy-going Côtes du Roussillon whose meaning I didn’t question.

I realized that I didn’t have any candle holders for the Sabbath candles. Then I realized that I did: cadavers, as the French call empty bottles, from a recent craft beer tasting.

I lit several candles.

I served a salad (endives, feta, sundried tomatoes, grilled peppers), followed by fresh pasta with eggplant and ricotta, not from the “World” section but from an Italian shop. Greek yoghurt, chocolate and clementines for dessert. Calvados.

The meal was mostly Italian but with a nod to what I already had in my refrigerator, along with a domestic wine imported by my guest and brandy from a war tour in Normandy—an delicious well-accompanied amalgam of sorts, with candles and cadavers to spare.

© 2015, Gary Lee Kraut

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Tourists have been doing it for some time already, other than the self-censoring “Parisians don’t … so I don’t” crowd.

But this year another “don’t” bites the dust.

“Parisians don’t wear sneakers” fell by the wayside in the 90s.

“Parisians don’t eat hamburgers” got gobbled up in the 2000s.

The demise of “In Paris men don’t wear shorts” is now official.

The signs were already here in the dead of winter as men of all ages set about jogging in tights. Men’s running tights, like shorts, are nothing new on the market but rarely had Parisian men dared such public snugness off of the beach. I figured that if men can run around in tights then it’s no daring leap to wearing shorts as the weather warms, even though warmth has been a frustratingly relative term thus far this year.

And so it has come to pass, weather permitting, with men being spotted wearing knee-length cargo shorts, straight shorts showing a flash of knee, flappy shorts showing a glimpse of thigh and the occasional Bermuda, and I’ve even seen some 70s style jean cut-offs on the cobblestone catwalks of my quarter.

The arrival of shorts will now, one hopes, lead to the demise of that most unfortunate article of recent men’s fashion, the pedal pusher, the capris, le pantacourt, those sockless little-boy knickers that found their way into the closets of men and that for several years now have provided proof that les parisiens take their fashion clues not from other men but from les parisiennes. Adieu, then, as pedal pushers find their rightful place in the garbage bin of recent fashionography.

And a hearty and long overdue bienvenue to shorts on men in Paris.

As to that old favorite, “Why do they all smoke?” that’s still got wind in its sails.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

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I understand that only the pope is infallible and that his eyes can’t be everywhere, but the next time you’re printing up a poster to place in front of the most visited monument in the world’s most touristed city please consider sending it to me first to be proofread.

Though I am not one of your faithful, I have spent many precious moments with you and your sisters, each more lovely than the next, and so I will gladly provide my services free of charge in exchange for a few earnest prayers.

Rest assured: I am not mocking you—certainly not in the way that someone has recently ridiculed poor Corneille up on the hill near the scant relics of your beloved St. Geneviève, patron saint of this lovely city with the sad sky.

Forgive me then for drawing attention to your little mistake… but perhaps not too quickly, for as Corneille himself wrote:

Qui pardonne aisément invite à l’offenser.
He who forgives easily invites offense.

Respectfully yours,

Gary
May 19, 2013

P.S. Break at leg at the concert — or Merde, as the archbishop might say.

The post Dear Notre-Dame: A Letter for Pentecost Time appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I know that I’m back in Paris because:

1. Returning home from the airport on the metro during rush hour everyone looks so… French. And there’s a whole new set of posters on the wall announcing exceptional concerts and exhibitions that I’m unlikely to go to.

2. Before I can unlock the door to my apartment my neighbor greets me by saying, “Bonjour. You’re back! I’m glad because now you can turn on your heat to help warm my apartment.” Solidarity, we’re big on that in France, as long as someone else is footing the bill. But I feel the same way about her.

3. After unpacking I open my mail and find two notices from divisions of the national health system asking for information that I’ve already sent twice.

4. While the apartment warms up I go grocery shopping. Checking out, the cashier, whom I’ve greeted with a customary “Bonjour,” complains to me that the person in front of me line hadn’t been polite enough to say “Bonjour.” I respond, “Exceptionally, today I don’t give a damn,” to remind myself that I haven’t forgotten how to interact in French. The cashier then declares us all a “une bande d’impolis” (an impolite bunch) and punishes me by shoving my goods down the ramp. I’m already missing Thriftway.

5. It’s noon. I climb into bed, making sure to set the alarm for a 90-minute nap, only to wake up four hours later. There’s no better bed than one’s own.

6. At the mall in New Jersey two days before leaving I was happy to have found a sports jacket that I liked for $99. When I asked the salesman how he thought it fit, he said it fit fine, that it was normal for one of my arms to be longer than the other, and he reminded me that there was a two-for-one Presidents Day sale for that rack. Those are three things that I’m unlikely to find in France: a president being celebrated, a sale worthy of its name, and a salesperson responding kindly to serve me well even without a “bonjour.” But I rarely have a good occasion to wear a sports jacket (let alone two) in New Jersey, whereas I’ve just arrived in Paris and already I have a good occasion to get gussied up. I shower, shave, and get dressed to meet Corinne LaBalme, one of France’s top French-American travel writers and the newest contributor to France Revisited, for a drink at the Hotel Plaza-Athénée …

… after which we visit the Imperial Suite. We’re told it would cost 26 000 euros to have them turn down the beds (there are four in this suite). Breakfast, the general manager says a little too cheerfully, is extra.

7. The following day I give a tour of Pere Lachaise cemetery to some young Canadians. It’s freezing out, but we’re glad to be alive—and I’m personally happy to know that my neighbors are solidarily helping to heat my apartment for when I return.

8. I’ve been invited to serve on the jury of the Concours Général Agricole discerning prizes for French wines at the International Agricultural Show, and so on Saturday morning I find myself wearing a sports jacket and sitting at a table with four others assigned to the task of tasting, describing and judging 15 bottles of Chateauneuf-du-Pape (five 2012 white, 5 2011 red). The tired half-smile is the after-effect of a 2-hour tasting and a desire to not show my purple teeth.

9. That evening I attend the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards at the Carrousel du Louvre. Another sports jacket occasion (reminder to self: look for tux sale when next in New Jersey). The big winners are China and Scandinavia with some choice Mexican, Spanish and South American winners. The foremost prize for an American cookbook goes to Timothy Ferriss for “The Four-Hour Chef,” which wins for Best First Cookbook.

The Norwegian-American food photographer Nancy Bundt, sitting at my table, comes in second in her category. Marc Lagrange, a French doctor also sitting at the table, wins in the category “Drinks and Health” for his book “Vin et Médecine” (Wine and Medicine). We all feel healthier for it.

10. The following morning, Sunday, it’s market day in my neighborhood. Need I say more?

I love returning the U.S., but there’s no mistaking: I am now back in Paris.

© 2013, Gary Lee Kraut

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