December 10, 2018
Dear Friends, Readers and Travelers,

I write this in the wake of two major events in Paris over the past month that occurred by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe:

1/ On Nov. 11, the gathering of leaders of the belligerent nations of the First World War to commemorate the centennial of the armistice.

2/ On Dec. 1, the vandalization of the arch by some affiliated with the Yellow Vest movement.
It’s no coincidence that both events took place at the same highly symbolic site since each of those involved individuals holding different visions of the future of national and international institutions.

Close-up images of burning cars may be impressive, but planning violence by setting out early in the day with bocce balls in your backpack rather than an AK-47 and 50 rounds nearly seems quaint from an American point of view. Anyway, those Yellow Vests who arrived in the capital intent on destruction can’t be considered as defining the entire movement. The many who say that it’s time to “take our country back” and end the current presidency because they say so are likely more representative, with many earnest earning- and tax-related gripes, complaints and frustrations in the mix.

Parisians want to feel safe, of course. And we do—safe, secure, well-fed. Visitors should too; they may just need to turn to guidance (e.g. the hotel receptionist) to know where not to venture on a demonstration day. Personally, I’m looking forward to a visitor-filled holiday season. As to travel through the rest of France, slow traffic on a partially blocked route is the main risk—and yet another good reason to take to country roads.

Still, between the centennial commemorations and the vandalization of the Arc de Triomphe, not to mention Yemen, Saudi assassination teams, global warming and whatever the Russians are now up to, I’ve decided to make this a 5-part newsletter on the theme of war.

France Revisited is not, however, a place for pessimism. Travel means learning and wars are historical events that we can learn from. Rest assured, this newsletter also speaks of champagne for the holidays, bratwurst for Batignolles and some exceptional French cuisine for your Paris restaurant list.

Here’s the newsletter war strategy.

Part 1. Over There: WWI Sights of the American Meuse-Argonne Offensive
Part 2. Belleau Wood, the War on History and Peaceful Champagne with Gary on Dec. 14
Part 3. Paris’s New WWI Memorial
Part 4. The War on Slavery: The Abolition Route in eastern France
Part 5. Hanukkah and the War of the Maccabees (an Excuse)

Part 1. Over There: WWI Sights of the American Meuse-Argonne Offensive

The First World War left its mark throughout the department of Meuse in northeast France, from Saint Mihiel to Verdun to the Argonne Forest. This article, including three videos, examines several sights relative to the Meuse-Argonne Offensive of the U.S. First Army in the fall of 1918: the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, Romagne 14-18, the Romagne German Cemetery and the Montfaucon Monument. It also provides information about visiting other WWI sights in and on the edge of Meuse, along with hotel and B&B suggestions.

Part 2. Belleau Wood, the War on History and Peaceful Champagne with Gary on Dec. 14

No sitting U.S. president has ever visited Belleau Wood, the Aisne-Marne Cemetery and the American Monument at Chateau-Thierry, which are among the most significant American WWI sights in France. In planning for U.S. President Donald Trump to the visit Belleau Wood and the cemetery that it overlooks last month, the State Department and president-watchers of all tendencies were well aware that this was to be an exceptional occasion. Extreme precautions were made to ensure that, rain or shine, it all went off without a hitch: the photo op, the clear, simple speech, etc. The point, of course, was not for the president himself to get a tour of those sights, but for Americans at home and abroad to bear witness—and therefore participate—in his honoring of fallen countrymen and the connection between their deaths, our participation in the war, and our country today.

Cancelling the visit on a day of light rain robbed Americans of that opportunity. A president’s indifference became the indifference of American citizens. Consider it a battle won by those waging a war on our own history. But here’s the catch: you have to know what you’ve been robbed of in order to know what’s missing.

To understand the harm of the cancelled visit, try to imagine the WWII Normandy American Cemetery and Pointe du Hoc without a visiting U.S. president making a speech about how America is greater and the world better off for what happened there. You can’t. That’s because a major reason that millions of Americans feel connected enough with D-Day and U.S. involvement in the Second World War to travel to Normandy is because of Reagan’s presence in 1984, Clinton’s in 1994, Bush’s in 2004, and/or Obama’s in 2014—and Private Ryan’s in 1998.

Some of those presidents you despise, others you admire. But it’s neither that admiration or contempt that led you to Normandy; it’s the fact that their very presence focused attention on a time and a place and made it seem important, significant, moving, worthy of attention and of a 3-hour trek from Paris, rain or shine. You felt in one way or another that those sights belonged to you, no matter which president gave the speech, as long as it was given.

We have collectively now been robbed of an opportunity to feel that connection with these World War I sites. But individually you can still go. One possibility is to join me on December 14, when I’ll be leading a small group or groups from Paris to the area of the president’s cancelled visit, an hour away. In the morning we’ll visit the war sights, followed by a delicious lunch with champagne tasting. In the afternoon we’ll visit two champagne producers in the area. For those who live in Paris, you’ll be able to stock up inexpensively on champagne for the holidays.

Let me know as soon as possible if you’d like to join. The cost of the daytrip (including transportation, lunch, tastings and tours) is 270 euros per person, 520 euros for two. The first two people who can tell me the color of the cat with respect to this newsletter get 25 euros off for this week’s trip.
I’ll also be repeating this trip several times in the spring.

Part 3. Paris’s New WWI Memorial

Traveling through the countryside of France you’ve undoubtedly noticed some of the 30,000 monuments honoring those who “died for France” during the First World War, with the names of local citizens inscribe on them. Paris never had such an inscribed monument, perhaps because of the sheer number of those killed during or as a result of the war: 94,415 Parisians in all have been identified, based primarily on lists drawn up in each arrondissement in the years following the war.

The centennial was the occasion for the City of Paris to rectify that by erecting a 306-yard long memorial plaque on which is inscribed the names of each individual. Inaugurated on Nov. 11, it can be seen on the outer wall of Père Lachaise Cemetery along Boulevard de Ménilmontant.

The two major national monuments in Paris paying homage to soldier killed during the war are the above-mentioned Tomb of the Unknown Soldier beneath the Arc de Triomphe and the little-noticed monument To the Glory of the French Army 1914-1918 at Trocadero. One might add to that list the vast painting entitled Departure of the Hairy Ones [the nickname for French soldiers during WWI], August 1914, at the Gare de l’Est train station. It is the work of the American artist Albert Herter.

Part 4. The War on Slavery: The Abolition Route in Eastern France

Slavery is a crime against humanity. So decreed France in 2001, making it the first country to do so. What may seem to be a solely symbolic decree, akin to declaring the Jurassic era over, is actually a way of condemning the country’s own history with respect to slavery. Honoring the victims of slavery and the slave trade as well as major abolitionist figures of the 18th and 19th centuries, two dozen sites in eastern France and Switzerland form a constellation known as the Abolition of Slavery Route. This article concerns several of those sites in the Burgundy – Franche-Comté region in central eastern France.

Part 5. Hanukkah and the War of the Maccabees (an Excuse)

I’m sending this message at the end of Hanukkah, the Jewish wintertime festival of lights. The holiday celebrates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem by Maccabean Jews after its desecration by Syrian-Greeks. There’s nothing French about Hanukkah, but it’s the opportunity for me to recall what Jews enjoy saying that nearly all Jewish holiday are about: They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat.

And that, dear readers, is my timely excuse to end all this talk of war with recommendations for three Paris restaurants, recently tested.

Café Biergit. There’s been a little bit of Berlin in Batignolles (17th arr.) ever since the cheerful Café Biergit opened its doors last May. The bratwurst and currywurst are imported from Germany, as are the bar’s 60 Rhine-style beers. Potato salad and apfelstrudel as well… totally gemütlichkeit! All dishes under 14€. Open daily. (As recommended by Corinne LaBalme.)

Le Nom m’échappe translates as “The name escapes me” and I forgot it myself after first eating there a couple of years ago. But I returned last week and enjoyed the evening so much that I am certain not to forget it again. The tight seating at this welcoming restaurant by the Bourse (2nd arr.) makes it feel like a private club in which to partake in chef-owner Damien Moeuf’s elegant bistro cuisine. Forthcoming don’t-hesitate-to-ask-questions service is provided by his wife Catherine Moeuf and young waiter/natural wine adviser Fred (offered in fluent English, if necessary). Prices: 2 and 3 courses at lunch 19 or 23€, 2 or 3 courses at dinner about 38 and 50€, respectively, plus beverages. Closed weekends.

Kei. If Kei Kobayashi’s name sounded more French to our ears I suspect that his 2-star Michelin restaurant would have more English-speaking clients. As it is, he has lots of Japanese clients along with a faithful French clientele. While his restaurant is infused with the Japanese sense of precision and exquisite design, it also bears all of the hallmarks of the heights of French gastronomy. For whatever his passport, Kobayashi is an exceptional French chef. His cuisine is presented exclusively through a selection of fixed-price tasting menus, at lunch from 58 to 199€, at dinner from 110 to 220€, without beverages. Closed Sun. and Mon. An article about Kei Kobayashi and his restaurant near Les Halles (1st arr.) will be published on France Revisited this winter.

Please let me know as soon as possible if you’d like to join on the December 14 Belleau Wood, WWI and champagne daytrip from Paris.

You spotted the cat, didn’t you?

Happy travels always,

Gary

Gary Lee Kraut
Editor, France Revisited

The post Arcs of War and Triumph appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

In September 1939, when France declared war on Germany, the Camp des Milles interned so-called “enemy subjects,” largely meaning citizens of Germany and Austria living in France, in more than 240 camps around the country, including a former tile factory in the village of Les Milles. By the following June Les Milles was known as the camp of artist due to some 3500 artists and intellectuals being detained there. Among them was Lion Feuchtwanger, a Jewish German writer.

Born in Munich in 1884, the son of a Jewish factory owner, Feuchtwanger became a well-known writer who tried to warn the world about the dangers of Hitler and the Nazi party. As early as the 1920s he predicted many of the Nazis’ crimes in his book “Conversations with the Wandering Jew.” His book “Jud Süß” (Süss the Jew) would be distorted by the Nazis, who turned it into an anti-Semitic feature film. Heinrich Himmler had it shown to SS units and Einsatzgruppen paramilitary death squads about to be sent east on their murderous assignments.

When Hitler rose to power in 1933, Feuchtwanger was on a book tour in the United States. There he met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. While in the U.S. he learned of the confiscation of his properties in Germany and the burning of his books. The German Ambassador to the U.S. advised Feuchtwanger not to return to his homeland. He took his advice but returned to Europe. Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta settled down with other German exiles in the seaside town of Sanary-sur-Mer, between Bandol and Toulon in southern France.

“We were in paradise, against our will,” he wrote. Although his books were banned from publication in Germany, the high circulations of translations enabled Feuchtwanger to have a comparatively comfortable life in exile until the outbreak of the war.

It was then, in September 1939, that Feuchtwanger, like other Germans and Austrians living in exile in France, was first interned at the Camps des Milles. Remarking on the irony of the internment of what were essentially anti-Nazi refugees, he wrote: “the responsible authorities know perfectly well that the spies, the saboteurs, the Nazi sympathizers were to be sought quite elsewhere than among us.” Recognizing this, the authorities released Feuchtwanger after several weeks.

The Devil in France

But the war situation and the attitude of the French government changed in early 1940 Feuchtwanger was arrested and interned there a second time. In his memoir “The Devil in France” he speaks of the deplorable conditions of that internment.

Republished in English by USC (University of Southern California) Libraries in 2010, The Devil in France (subtitled “My Encounter with Him in the Summer of 1940”) provides an intimate account of Feuchtwanger’s thoughts, snippets of his conversations and details of his survival tactics. Although Les Milles was not a work camp, Feuchtwanger recalled how, “under the sharp command of a sergeant,” he and his fellow inmates were forced to make neatly stacked piles of bricks. The bricks would later be torn down and piled up in another place. It made him think of the verse from Exodus “in which,” he wrote, “the children of Israel are forced to bake bricks for Pharaoh of Egypt to build the treasure cities of Pithom and Raamses.” So he chanted “Pithom Raamses… Pithom–Raamses” as he mechanically tossed bricks to his neighbor.

In the memoir he tells about the tiles, the bricks, the cramped spaces, making his bed directly on the floor out of straw, setting it off with more bricks, breathing in dust until his lungs bled and dust even in their inadequate food, the boredom, the lack of privacy. When not lifting bricks, the inmates spent much of their days in the dimly lit dormitories.

In the morning, he wrote, there were long lines to go outside to a handful of filthy latrines that were controlled by Foreign Legion detainees, some of whom had fought for France for decades and were maimed. One could tip the Legionnaires to get moved up to the front of the line. The Legionnaires also ran much of the camp’s black market.

The inmates organized cultural activities in their fight against boredom and dehumanization. Feuchtwanger eloquently describes a cabaret club set up in the brick oven area of the camp, where they could mobilize their creativity and artistic talents. They called it the Catacomb, after a Berlin nightclub closed by Goebbels in the mid-1930s.

Feuchtwanger lived to write about his experiences because he managed to escape at the end of the summer of 1940, before the French began participating in the delivery of Jews to Nazi death camps. His wife Marta orchestrated his escape. At that time, he, along with other prisoners of Les Milles, had been moved to a makeshift tent camp near Nîmes. The prisoners were allowed to bathe every afternoon at a small river in the middle of the afternoon. This proved to be the perfect time of day to engineer an escape and smuggle him out disguised as an English woman and take him to Marseille.

There, Marta was assisted by the American vice consul in Marseille, Hiram Bingham IV, who was known for liberally issuing visas to help refugees, in defiance of State Department policy. Bingham arranged to have a picture of a grim and gaunt Feuchtwanger behind the barbed wires of the Milles Camp sent to America. Feuchtwanger’s publisher, Ben Huebsch of Viking Press, had friends show the picture to Eleanor Roosevelt, who made the president aware of the situation. An emergency visa was then issued, unofficially, in view of the American policy of neutrality during that period. Feuchtwanger was therefore added to a list of prominent artists and intellectuals, most wanted by Hitler and therefore in great jeopardy, to be rescued by the American Emergency Rescue Operations run by the American journalist Varian Fry.

From Marseille he undertook a dangerous journey through Spain and Portugal. Realizing that even in Portugal any delay to get on a boat to the United States could be fatal for a man wanted by the Nazis, Martha Sharp, a Unitarian minister’s wife, gave up her own berth on the Excalibur so that Feuchtwanger could sail immediately for New York City. His wife Marta obtained passage two weeks later.

Feuchtwanger was living in California and had published his memoir of his internment by the time Camp des Milles experienced its darkest days. In the summer of 1942, some 2,000 Jewish men, women and children rounded up in the southern France were interned at the Camp des Milles before deportation to Auschwitz, where they were exterminated. While the Germans never asked that children be deported, French minister Pierre Laval insisted that they be deported as well. At Les Milles this is given its full impact by the Serge Klarsfeld exhibition that commemorates the 11,400 Jewish children deported from the whole of France to Auschwitz between 1942 and 1944.

Feuchtwanger died in Los Angeles in 1958. After his death, his wife Marta willed their house Villa Aurora and his extensive personal library to the University of Southern California. Villa Aurora, a historic landmark, is now an artist residence.

Visiting the Camp des Milles

On September 10, 2012, exactly seventy years after the last train convoy left from Les Milles for the Auschwitz death camp, the Memorial-Site of the Camp des Milles was opened to the public. In 2015 UNESCO launched its new Chair for Education for Citizenship, Human Sciences and Shared Memories there. The Chair focuses on research and activism centered on the history of the Holocaust, citizenship and the prevention of genocide.

The historical section: A visit to the Memorial-Site of the Camp des Milles begins with a rich and compelling collection of displays, audiovisual pieces and illustrations in French and English dedicated to understanding the historical background to the threats that escalated across Europe between 1919 and 1939, to the individual destinies of those interned and to the history of France’s Vichy government. Displays document the general history of internment camps in France under the country’s Third Republic (i.e. prior to the summer of 1940) and under the Vichy regime. It recounts in detail the history of the Milles Camps where some 10,000 people of 38 nationalities were interned during the war. It also focuses on the perpetration of the Jewish genocide on a European scale and its implementation in Les Milles.

The remembrance section: The visit continues with the remembrance area, which includes the internment quarters of what had been a tile-making factory and the makeshift cabaret as described in Feuchtwanger’s memoir. Some of the artwork created by interned artists remains visible on the walls. In this section, the guide points out the windows from which women were willing to jump rather than suffer deportation and also indicates the places where some fortunate individuals managed to hide and survive.

The reflexive section: Based on a scientific analysis of the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide and the Tutsi genocide, this this third section provides an understanding of the mechanisms that can lead a democracy (both the system and the gathering of individuals within that system) towards a genocide and the capacity of individuals to resist. It also explores the human behavior mechanisms operating through racism, antisemitism and xenophobia.

The Wall of Righteous Acts concludes the visit to the Camp des Milles by showing the many different ways ordinary people can carry out acts of resistance in the context of genocide through examples of the past century.

Today young people remain an important target group for the memorial-site. Alain Chouraqui, president of The Milles Camp Foundation, has written that it is “not for the visitors, especially the young, to leave overwhelmed by the darkness of the persecutions, but rather that they become aware of vigilance and resistance.”

Practical information

Camp des Milles, 40 chemin de la Badesse, 13517 Aix-en-Provence. Tel. 04 42 39 17 11. Open 10am-7pm (no tickets sold after 6pm) daily except Jan. 1, May 1, Dec. 24, 25, 31. The memorial-site suggests counting on 2½ hours for a complete visit. Audio guides are available in English. For information about guided tours in English contact the camp directly. It can be cold in the internment quarters in winter – dress warmly.

The Devil in France: My Encounter with Him in the Summer of 1940 by Lion Feuchtwanger can be downloaded free of charge from the USC Libraries website. Further information about the writer and his life as an émigré in the United States can be found here.

Aix-en-Provence Tourist Office, 300 avenue Giuseppe Verdi, 13100 Aix-en-Provence.

Bus service (line 4) from the Rotonde near the Aix-en-Provence Tourist Office goes to the camp, whose station is called Gare des Milles.

© 2017

Wendy Dubreuil is a conference interpreter with a deep interest in human rights and discrimination issues.

The post Lion Feuchtwanger and the Milles Internment and Deportation Camp Near Aix-en-Provence appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

We gather here today to recognize and affirm our place in the world. In our halting quest for peace, freedom, happiness, prosperity and the well-being of our loved ones, we gather not to walk lock-step towards a single destination, but to wherever our interests, whims and desires may lead us, without willful harm to others. Where are we? Where are we going? Let us consider:

You know you’re in Paris when:

… you’re on a bike, one foot to the ground, waiting for people to cross the street and for the light to change, and a man teeters over to you, drunk.He says, “I won’t ask you for a little change to buy something to drink.”
“Why not?,” you ask.
“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?”

You know you’re in southeast France when:

… you understand that the association of food and drink with place is what most marks market-based gastronomy.
Read here for the theory: Market Day in France.
Read here for the bulls, lemons, olives, figs, cheese, honey and wine: Market Day in the Southeast: Provences-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.

You know you’re headed somewhere in the so-called middle of nowhere when:

… your friends say, “Why are you going there, to raise sheep?”
France Revisited takes pleasure in revealing the somewhere of such nowheres, and there is nowhere more somewhere in Creuse, in central France, than the small town of Aubusson, world famous for its 500 years of tapestry-making.

You know you’re in Paris’s 10th arrondissement when:

… you’re following these bar-hopping footsteps in a sliver of the tenth.

***

Having recognized our place in the world and in order to better it, let us herald this new era, you are cordially invited to two inaugural events in Paris:

1. An inaugural cocktail walk with I DRiNK PARiS, a daily sip of the City of Light. Wed. Jan. 25, 6-8pm.
What is I DRiNK PARiS? I DRiNK PARiS explores wine, cocktails, beer, spirits, coffee, tea, hot chocolate and more and the people, pleasures and places that go with them. By the way, if you can take photos and tell a good story at the same time I DRiNK PARIS is looking for contributors.

2. An inaugural public reading of Paris Vignettes entitled “7 Writers Walk into a Bar.” Mon. Jan. 30, 7-8:30pm.
What are vignettes? Short pieces of writing that examine transformative moments of love, loss, joy and personal insight.
What is Paris Vignettes? A vibrant weekly writing workshop in… Paris.
On Jan. 30 Elizabeth Neylon, Christine Hennebique, Niamh Tixier, Alice Evleth, Patricia Wilson, Natalie Fynn and I read (in English) from our recent works. The reading will be held at upstairs at Falstaff, a café at 10-12 place de la Bastille, near rue de la Roquette. While admission is free and open to the public, attendees are each expected to purchase a drink.

Welcome to a new era on France Revisited.

Happy travels always,

Gary

Gary Lee Kraut
Editor, France Revisited
www.francerevisited.com
gary [at] francerevisited.com

The post France Revisited Newsletter: The Inauguration Issue appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Will Paris Be Modernized or Disfigured?
by Patrice Maire

Ever since he was elected Mayor of Paris in 2001, Bertrand Delanoë has established his popularity though high profile communications with operations such as Vélib, the bike share system, Paris-Plages, the summertime “beach” along the Seine, and a call for the construction of skyscrapers—towers—along the edges of the city.

In 2004 he consulted Parisians on their view of the capital’s urban development: 120,000 people responded and 63% declared themselves to be opposed to the construction of towers. He dropped the idea, particularly since he couldn’t alienate his Green Party allies who were also opposed.

A modernity of thundering rupture with the past

In an opuscule published in 2009, Paris 21e siècle (21st Century Paris), the mayor bellowed that “Paris should know how to impose its modernity in order to maintain its rank.” Indeed, he’s given endless stabs at the Paris landscape. On multiple occasions he has pushed up the height limits in urban regulations: 15 meters (49 feet) higher for architectural signs, unlimited increase for wind turbines, etc. At the end of 2009, he chipped away at the regulated height zone protecting the view of the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Elysées and on Rue de Rivoli by accepting the raising of the Samaritaine [Editor’s note: Samaritaine is a former department store occupying choice real estate between Notre-Dame and the Louvre  and now owned by LVMH and under renovation/reconversion]. Worse still, he obliges developers with a modernity of thundering rupture, a 180° turn-around with respect to the principles of integration in the urban landscape that have always been written in the City Planning Code.

Delanoë and “old stones”

On November 21, 2011, at the Cévennes Gymnasium in the 15th arrondissement, he said that “the image of Paris is not simply to come to see old stones… we expect Paris to be a dynamic city of the 21st century, not of the 18th or the 19th… we ask it to be a city of heritage and in international competition, intellectually and creatively competitive… the city cannot live and breathe if we have this immobile, stiff, stuck vision…”

Architectural language during Haussmann’s time

Hearing these unpleasant words about the physiognomy of Haussmann’s Paris is a reminder that some Parisians repudiate it and even see in a “bourgeois culture.” Needless to say, we appreciate a masterpiece more when we understand the context in which it appeared. That was my goal in publishing in May 2012 Special Issue No. 4 of the journal Monts 14 entitled Le langage architectural au temps d’Haussmann, (Architectural Language During Haussmann’s Time), a document that dares to make the comparison with the Renaissance in Florence, Italy in the 15th century.

The fight against the Triangle Tower

Following the municipal elections of 2008, Mayor Delanoë’s Socialist Party had an absolute majority in the city legislature. He immediately began to push on Parisians plans for skyscrapers at six locations in Paris. On September 25 that year, the Triangle Tower project was presented at City Hall to an audience of dazzled journalists. [Editor’s note: the official website for the Triangle Tower as planned by the architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron can be found here.]

The tower is supposed to make more attractive the Parc des expositions exhibition complex at Porte de Versailles on the southeastern edge of the city (15th arrondissement) by creating hotel rooms, conference halls, a business incubator, etc. In reality, only one large company, of international scope, is interested in occupying space there. Offended at having been left in the dark, Philippe Goujon, mayor (UMP, conservative party) of the 15th arrondissement, declared, “The project disintegrated in my eyes: no hotel rooms, no conference halls, offices for whom?”

Revision of the PLU (Local Urban Plan) for Porte de Versailles

That was before the financial crisis weighed down on the real estate market for office space in 2009. Nevertheless, Anne Hidalgo, Mayor Delanoë’s right hand [Editor’s note: and presumed candidate to replace him in 2014], launched a communications campaign on the theme “Change the image of Paris.”

Two years later, an exhibition about the projected changes took place at the district hall of the 15th arrondissement from June 28 to September 2, 2011. District Mayor Goujon was again in favor of the project. A public inquiry was conducted that fall to gather the comments regarding the proposed development.

During that period, Mont 14 and other associations opposed to the project—Jeunes Parisiens de Paris, ADAHPE, APXV and SOS Paris (the most international and Anglophone of these groups)—formed the Collective Against the Triangle Tower.

Collective Against the Triangle Tower gains traction

These efforts began to bear fruit. Having gathered the observations 300 people as well as 1700 signatures on a petition by Monts 14, the commissioner of the inquiry noted in his official report of April 2012, along with remarks favorable to the tower, three reservations to the project: concerning traffic, the shadow caused by the tower and the partial amputation of the Parc des expositions. In particular, the report asked Mr. Delanoë to justify that the project would not weaken the role of the exhibition complex in terms of international competition.

Indeed, the tower as then planned would amputate from 6000 square meters (65000 square feet) of the exhibition complex’s Hall 1, a unique window to the world for the major French automobile manufacturers during the Automobile Show held here every two years in the fall. In support of the Automobile Show, the Collective Against the Triangle Tower demonstrated at the show’s opening on September 29, 2012. The demonstration made the front page of the newspaper Le Parisien. The newspaper Le Figaro followed suit. Another demonstration, on the occasion of the Boat Show, took place on December 8. This time the Collective was joined by representatives of the political parties MODEM, Jeunes democrats, EELV, Debout la république and Parti de Gauche.

A turning point in the fight

Their presence represents a turning point in the fight. Indeed, there are prejudices that are difficult to combat. Faced with the penury of reasonably priced housing, Parisians often see towers in a positive light. Mr. Delanoë finds it easy to toady to their anxiety by luring them with the promise of mixed-use towers with space for both business and lodging. We have repeatedly remarked that as far as lodging goes such high-rises are expensive to build per square meter and their maintenance costs are excessive (500€ per month for a 3-room apartment in the Olympiades complex on the southwest edge of Paris). Their primary purpose is apparently not to created affordable housing for inhabitants of the city.

Delanoë’s totem

The sole interest for constructing a building such as the Triangle Tower in Paris is its totemic value. A massive building overshadowing the city can have communications value for a large company or for the mayor of Paris. Mr. Delanoë would like to be identified with the totem of the Triangle Tower. However, there’s a far more emblematic vision to consider, that of the Great Boulevards, of stone buildings, of Haussmannian rooftops, of the Galeries Lafayette, of diversity and cultural richness.

It’s the attraction of that vision that explains why Paris is the most world’s most visited city. Such attractiveness is France’s good fortune, but it’s one that risks being wasted. Towers are now commonplace; worldwide, about 15000 towers rise over 100 meters (328 feet). Towers draw our attention like a lightning rod attracts lightning. Building towers would interfere with the Paris skyline and make it commonplace.

Mr. Delanoë has had to regroup following the reservations put forth last year by the commissioner of the inquiry. Still attached to the hotel rooms and convention halls that he had wanted housed in the tower, he’s now looking to build them elsewhere within the same sector. Mr. Delanoë has now launched another public inquiry in an attempt to “modernize” the Parc des Exposition with the creation of hotel rooms and meeting halls. That absolutely does not justify the construction of the Triangle Tower as an office tower!

Let’s refuse to let Paris be disfigured

The Triangle Tower will be voted on by the Council of Paris on the July 18, 2013. If approved, the association Monts 14 will bring the matter before the administrative tribunal on the grounds that this project is not in the public interest. We will then do our part in ensuring that the debate about the physiognomy of Paris is among the major issues of next year’s municipal elections.

Whether you live in France, in the United States or elsewhere around world, we invite all those who love Paris to support this fight by signing the petition found here, writing to the major or to your local representative in Paris, joining an association, attending our debates and demonstrations, and letting it be known that you refuse to let Paris be disfigured.

Patrice Maire
President of Monts 14

Patrice Maire is president of the association Monts 14 and editor of the journal produced by the association. For information about the association and its efforts to halt the construction of the Triangle Tower see www.monts14.com.

Mont 14 is one of the associations that grouped under the banner Collective Against the Triangle Tower. Another among them is SOS Paris, which has many foreign and English-speaking members.

Patrice Maire’s text in France was translated for France Revisited by Gary Lee Kraut, April 2013.

The opinion expressed above is presented to give a sense of the debate surrounding the Triangle Tower and does not necessarily reflect that of France Revisited.

For France Revisited’s introduction to the subject of the Triangle Tower and of other high-rises in Paris read: Paris on the Edge: Does the French Capital Need High-Rises and Towers to Stay Relevant.

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Not that we tune out completely, of course. Partisan chatter is for better or worse—mostly for worse—right at our fingertips. But in voting 30-45 days prior to the election, as Americans abroad are advised to do, we have taken ourselves off of the rolls of the undecided and don’t have to worry about car failure, heart failure or weather issues on Election Day. I imagine that only a tiny percentage of non-military overseas voters (and I’m speaking of civilians here) come from battleground states anyway (as American voters living overseas we vote in the state where we last resided), but I suppose that, sigh, is another matter.

Therefore, most election news, particularly once the party conventions are over, is of little use to expatriates in casting their vote. Even the debates are post-partum of the ballot. The main use of partisan gotchas, for those who wish to relay them, is to taunt our loved ones (possibly soon to be formerly loved ones), to explain to them why they or their spouses are raving idiots, and mostly to preach to the choir.

What passes for news in the final two months of recent American presidential election is comprised largely of sound bites and spin (“what he really meant was…”), over-analysis, horserace commentary, hoping that the opposition will make a major blunder or inventing one anyway, and arguments by people who want to let you know that a vote for one guy is a vote for America and a vote for the other guy is a vote for evil, or at least incompetence.

It’s easy to get caught up in this whether you’ve already voted or not. However, even prior to casting their ballot overseas voters are less subject to the sound bites and to the negative advertising; overall, we see and hear less of it (unless it’s our job or we take it upon ourselves to churn it out or to relay it) and so have an easier time tuning it out.

Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, President of the of the non-partisan Overseas Vote Foundation wrote to me this week in response to a question about American voters abroad, “My sense is that overseas voters benefit from a bit of distance when considering who they will vote for as it allows them make a thoughtful decision with less influence of propaganda and advertising from either side.”

Some might say that makes us more informed, but I don’t think of it as a question of more or less informed as much as less aggressively informed at in a partisan way. We don’t walk into a grocery store and hear a notoriously left-leaning or right-leaning radio station or cable channel berating the enemy. We don’t get automated calls kindly explaining the best way to vote. We don’t see signs in our neighbors’ yards promoting one candidate or another.

We can of course get a good dose of trash talk anytime we want through Facebook and Twitter, but we generally receive that in a private setting, meaning that we can turn it off. (As a side note, I saw from my small sampling on Facebook that when Romney’s “47% percent” became news my in-your-face Republicans “friends” were suddenly busy getting their kids ready for school, and when Obama failed to hit the mark after the first presidential debate the in-your-face Democrats “friends” became keenly aware of the beautiful fall weather. Both camps quickly regrouped of course.)

I don’t know of any large-scale polling about party preferences of overseas and neither did the president of the Overseas Vote Foundation (the reason for the e-mail correspondence noted above). (Please send any such poll if you know of one, keeping in mind that the annual poll at Harry’s Bar in Paris does not count.) It’s commonly heard that members of the military tend towards Republicans and non-military expats tend toward Democrats but I’m not aware of any reliable data showing that.

A BBC opinion poll recently revealed non-American nationals in 21 countries around the world would massively prefer Obama. That might be taken as an important indicator of how the world views or wishes to view the United States, but is clearly unimportant for individual voters at home. The United States, as all states, acts out of self-interests, so it’s only natural that American voters approach our own election from a different angle.

While it’s important, given America’s role in the world, to understand why the world has been so wary of Republican presidential candidates over the past decade, it’s a bit like asking Christians whether or not Muslim women should be required to cover their hair or asking the British whether or not Koreans should use chili peppers in their food or asking Americans whether or not Russians should celebrate Halloween—not so important when making a decision based in your own self-interest (i.e. your vote).

I therefore found it a bit shocking to learn that for this election an organization seeking to get out the American vote in Israel took as their slogan “Vote Israel.” Just imagine if dual nationals in other countries were to organize the get-out-the-vote campaigns with slogans such “Vote Venezuela” or “Vote India” or “Vote Ukraine.” Pity the American in Tehran going to the “Vote Iran” meeting; he’ll never get off the no-fly list. Living in Paris, I even imagine that going an American “Vote France” event would get me in trouble.

No, probably not, since Americans outside of France already assume that I “vote France” or that I vote like a Frenchman. For Americans living within the United States, overseas voters who disagree with them are unduly influenced by where they live. Allow me to modify that: people who live in another region or state or country from where you live will inevitably see you as unduly influenced by where you live. I modified that because I just remembered hearing an odd bar conversation in Paris in September in which an American living in London was telling an American living in Paris that the latter’s views on the election were skewed because he lived in Paris. “Well, you live in London!” said the American Parisian. “Yeah, and they speak English there!” said the American Londoner. Admittedly, there was drinking involved. (For a related vignette that I’ve written on the subject click here.)

Anyway, we already have polarized blue states and red states to tell us that we are influenced (unduly or not isn’t the question) by where we live. My sister told me that her stock broker said that voting for a certain candidate would be good for her portfolio—now that’s undue influence.

Americans have one national electoral event every four years whereby we can vote an individual and a party in or out of office. (Other democracies may hold national referenda, for example, or a parliament can cause a government to fall). Yet even then we have an electoral system whereby one New Yorker’s vote can cancel another New Yorker’s vote but cannot cancel a Texan’s vote. Were the New Yorker to say to the Texan, “You say that because you live in Texas,” the Texan could rightly say, “Hell yeah!”

As overseas voters we can all say “Hell yeah!” too as we hopefully vote—voted—America.

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While waiting I heard someone coming up the stairs. It was the woman with the baby in her arms. Rounding the curve of the spiral staircase the baby smiled when he saw me. I wiggled my fingers at him in a wave.

The woman made out the essential of the situation, as women with babies in their arms inevitably do, and asked if the doorbell wasn’t working.

I tried it again and since I neither of us heard a bell ring I knocked, now five minutes late.

The door promptly opened and there was the doctor at the door of his consultation room, just off the vestibule, having released the door with his personal button.

He waved us in as he approached.

“Are you together?” he asked.

“No,” we answered.

“When’s your appointment,” he asked.

“8:50,” she said.

“8:45,” I said, triumphantly.

“You, in here.” His left hand showed me his office. “You over there.” His right hand showed the woman the waiting area.

I shook his hand, put my coat over the chair, and was about to sit down when he looked at his watch, shook his head and said, “No. No. Change of plans. You, out. You’re late. Madame, we’re going to start with you.”

He sent me out into the waiting area and motioned the woman to come in. The baby smiled. Or was it a smirk?

The ophthalmologist’s receptionist-secretary, his sole employee, arrived at precisely 9 a.m. She looked at me as though whatever had brought me there might be contagious.

“Does the doctor know that you’re here?”

“He’s the one who put me in quarantine,” I said.

In Paris a professional’s secretary or receptionist is both the professional’s mini-me and his front tackle.

She looked at the appointment list and said that since I wasn’t Madame Furmane then I must be late.

I said nothing.

When I’d called to make this appointment a month ago we’d had the following conversation:

“I’d like to make an appointment.”
“Is it urgent?”
“No, but I’m on my last pair of contact lenses and it’s been a year since my last check-up.”
“So you’re calling at the last minute.”
“I can hold out until next month.”
“Next month is the last minute. You should plan two months in advance but I’ll see what I can do for you.”
“Can I get an appointment?”
She gave me the date and the time and asked my name. I spelled out my last name then told her the first.

“H-A-R-R-Y?” she asked for verification.

“Gary with a G, like George, G-A-R-Y,” I said.

“You said ‘Harry,’” she said. Not a self-effacing “I thought you said ‘Harry’” or a doubtful “It sounded like you said ‘Harry’” or even a mocking “I couldn’t understand with your accent,” but an actual, accusatory “You said ‘Harry,’” as though I sometimes mistook myself for an English prince.

The doctor now came out of his office and opened the main door for the woman to leave.  The baby ignored me.

The doctor waved me in. He said, “You understand?”

I ignored him.

He repeated, “You understand, right?” Then a third time, no longer as a question, “You understand now,” as I walked into his consultation room.

There was a time when I would suffer through such lessons, French lessons, considering it a cultural trait: live in France, accept that everyone wants to teach you etiquette and put you in your place. But that ended long ago with my first visa: it takes legal status to say Fuck you with the right accent.

I didn’t tell the doctor Fuck you, though, but rather “Why is everyone always looking for a fight around here?”

“Not a fight, you’re just late, throws off the whole schedule.”

A schedule that has one patient at 8:45 and another at 8:50 is begging to be thrown off. I didn’t say that either; I knew that 8:50 is not an appointment time so much as planning for no-shows by overbooking.

My doctor, like his secretary, may have the annoying cultural habit of always wanting to teach a lesson but he also has the pleasant cultural trait of knowing that the best way to diffuse tension is to show that one is vulnerable to beauty and good taste, so after closing the door he said, “Anyway, it’s only natural to want to see a beautiful woman first.”

“I thought you were a sucker for the baby,” I said.

“I don’t like babies,” he said, “but I can’t resist women.”

He then got down to the business of checking my vision, first one eye then the other.

As he honed in on a final prescription I couldn’t decide which was clearer, the first M C T H or the second M C T H.

“This one?” he repeated… “Or this one?”

“I can’t tell the difference. Try again.”

He tried once more but to no avail.

“I hope you don’t have to make important decisions for a living,” he said as he released my chin from the stirrup.

I said, “The decisions I make usually have vowels.”

He asked me what I do for a living.

I told him as best as I could in three words, meaning I lied.

“Do you write about politics?”

“No.”

“You must be a Democrat,” he said. “Every American I meet in Paris is a Democrat. Why is that?”

“Republicans go to London,” I said. “It’s the Americans in Berlin that we’re not so sure about.”

He liked that. We talked a while.

He said, “I used to say mean things about Bush and every American I met in Paris would agree. Now I say nice things about Obama and they all agree.”

“Maybe we aren’t Democrats so much as agreeable,” I said.

Oh, we were having a fine time. For a man with a tight schedule he was now in no rush. We even talked a bit about my vision. Rather, he told me about my vision because he wasn’t the type of doctor to be interested in what I had to say on the subject of my body.

We also talked about French politics. He asked me what Americans thought on the upcoming presidential election in France.

I said if it’s true that the majority of Americans in Paris are Democrats it’s also true that few if any would ever vote for French Socialists.

“That I can understand,” he said. “The only thing that would be good about a Socialist president is that we wouldn’t have Socialist mayor because a Socialist president in France always leads to a Conservative mayor in Paris, and vice versa.”

“Does that mean that you can’t win or that you can’t lose?”

“That’s politics,” he said.

We shook hands as I left, buddies of sorts, and he reminded me not to be late next time.

He’s got personality, that ophthalmologist. He’s cocky but he’s got a sense of humor. I’d get a kick out of sitting next to him on a train to Alsace or at a dinner party for some cross-cultural repartee.

But I’ll never go back to his office.

© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut

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They passed in front of me as I left my building. They were walking at the time. I walk just behind them to the end of the street. At the corner they stopped, smiled at each other, recited the final lines of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”—Well, shall we go? / Yes, let’s go—and set off on their jog.

I took this picture just as they pushed off, the man two steps ahead of the woman.

They appeared to be 25 to 30 years old and looked well enough together to be a couple enjoying the weekend together, or perhaps a brother and sister. But no matter the relationship, what’s most surprising, particularly viewed with American eyes, is that they were together at all in these t-shirts.

I only saw the t-shirts from the back, as you do here. The man’s reads le monde a besoin de philosophes (the world needs philosophers) and woman’s reads oui à la vie (yes to life).

Oui à la vie/Yes to life (not to be confused with the British cancer support association of the same name) promotes itself as a traditional pro-life pro-family organization, while professing the world’s need for philosophers would appear more at home in the affirmative pro-choice camp.

If these were Americans, I would imagine the man as member of the graduate softball team at Vassar, and the woman on her way to a Santorum rally in Oklahoma. If they ever came to Paris they may have enough of a chemical or cultural connection to start flirting in the line to go up the Eiffel Tower, but I doubt they’d caucus long enough to wake up and go jogging together.

I don’t read into this any particularly virtuous tolerance on the part of Parisians. I’m simply struck that these two, in their somewhat opposing t-shirts, should look so happy to push off together after reciting the final lines of “En Attendant Godot” (“Waiting for Godot”).

Vladamir: Alors on y va? (Well, shall we go?)
Estragon: Allons-y. (Yes, let’s go)

But something held Vladamir and Estragon together, too, didn’t it?

I am reminded of another line of that play:
Voilà l’homme tout entier, s’en prenant à sa chaussure alors que c’est son pied le coupable.
“There’s man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet.”

(c) 2012 Gary Lee Kraut

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What’s not to enjoy?

So why is it that male execs in Paris on business often leave on a Friday afternoon or arrive on a Monday morning rather than stay the weekend? Ask them and they’ll respond with a lie: no time, company won’t pay for the extra night, got to be home for my kid’s soccer game.

Women will stay the extra day to go shop for shoes, to hell with the soccer game.

Truth is, guys don’t like to stay the weekend alone because they know that if they have too much free time in a plush hotel they will either be incredibly lonely or will get themselves in trouble, or both. Because for all their comfort and service and accessories, a night in a fine hotel can seem like a waste when a guy’s not getting laid, pardon my French.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was arrested, on a Saturday. Duh!

Given the risks of self-flagellating loneliness, last-night-in-town desperation and the belief (his own and others’) that a sojourn in a plush hotel makes a man more attractive, it’s only natural to stumble upon a hot hotel employee fantasy when traveling alone.

(No one has receptionist fantasies in such hotels; receptionists are bill-pay people, not fantasy material, unlikely to be tipped or winked at or groped.)

Those of us who review luxury hotels know how important it is to test 2 a.m. room service by saying that your mini-bar doesn’t have the right kind of Champagne or that the TV doesn’t seem to be working, and then to open the door in a loosely tied bathrobe. Or is it just me?

Kidding!

Employees in luxury hotels are trained to be obligingly discrete and to let you know with an eloquent nod and a slight smile that you’ve come to the right place and that you belong there by virtue of your inner beauty. Hotel employees in return have their own rich client fantasies

A solitary traveler is therefore prone to believe that they like him, they really like him, and that each employee’s smile-and-nod is a secret message letting him know that he’s been recognized him for his true worth and that he can ask that employee for most personal and discreet attention.

They all start to look like geisha girls and call boys after a while.

It’s not always easy for a guy to distinguish between the lap of luxury and the lap-dance of luxury. But most of us manage.

© 2011, Gary Lee Kraut

Theatrical endnote: The DSK-inspired debate about macho Frenchmen or men of power often ignores the fact that high luxury hotels can be fertile ground for high-end prostitution.

I’ve little interest in the debate itself, to tell the truth, but imagining scenarious in the DSK-case has inspired me to outline a French farce of that kind that has a long run in Paris theaters:

A man alone in a luxury suite calls his familiar prostitution agency and asks for them to satisfy his fantasy of sex with a black chambermaid. (French farces tend not to be concerned about an appearance of racism so “black” would be an essential part of his request.) The agency says that they have just the girl for him, she’ll be over in 30 minutes, and they’ll have no problem getting her up to his room. Then, while the man is waiting (note to director: it’s funnier if he’s in his bathrobe) and the hired girl is still in a taxi putting on her chambermaid costume, a real black chambermaid with her own quirks and secrets enters the room. The man assumes that she’s the hired prostitute, playing her role by pretending to be shocked by his advances, and…

The post Sex and the Luxury Hotel appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

What’s not to enjoy?

So why is it that male execs in Paris on business often leave on a Friday afternoon or arrive on a Monday morning rather than stay the weekend? Ask them and they’ll respond with a lie: no time, company won’t pay for the extra night, got to be home for my kid’s soccer game.

Women will stay the extra day to go shop for shoes, to hell with the soccer game.

Truth is, guys don’t like to stay the weekend alone because they know that if they have too much free time in a plush hotel they will either be incredibly lonely or will get themselves in trouble, or both. Because for all their comfort and service and accessories, a night in a fine hotel can seem like a waste when a guy’s not getting laid, pardon my French.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was arrested, on a Saturday. Duh!

Given the risks of self-flagellating loneliness, last-night-in-town desperation and the belief (his own and others’) that a sojourn in a plush hotel makes a man more attractive, it’s only natural to stumble upon a hot hotel employee fantasy when traveling alone.

(No one has receptionist fantasies in such hotels; receptionists are bill-pay people, not fantasy material, unlikely to be tipped or winked at or groped.)

Those of us who review luxury hotels know how important it is to test 2 a.m. room service by saying that your mini-bar doesn’t have the right kind of Champagne or that the TV doesn’t seem to be working, and then to open the door in a loosely tied bathrobe. Or is it just me?

Kidding!

Employees in luxury hotels are trained to be obligingly discrete and to let you know with an eloquent nod and a slight smile that you’ve come to the right place and that you belong there by virtue of your inner beauty. Hotel employees in return have their own rich client fantasies

A solitary traveler is therefore prone to believe that they like him, they really like him, and that each employee’s smile-and-nod is a secret message letting him know that he’s been recognized him for his true worth and that he can ask that employee for most personal and discreet attention.

They all start to look like geisha girls and call boys after a while.

It’s not always easy for a guy to distinguish between the lap of luxury and the lap-dance of luxury. But most of us manage.

© 2011, Gary Lee Kraut

Theatrical endnote: The DSK-inspired debate about macho Frenchmen or men of power often ignores the fact that high luxury hotels can be fertile ground for high-end prostitution.

I’ve little interest in the debate itself, to tell the truth, but imagining scenarious in the DSK-case has inspired me to outline a French farce of that kind that has a long run in Paris theaters:

A man alone in a luxury suite calls his familiar prostitution agency and asks for them to satisfy his fantasy of sex with a black chambermaid. (French farces tend not to be concerned about an appearance of racism so “black” would be an essential part of his request.) The agency says that they have just the girl for him, she’ll be over in 30 minutes, and they’ll have no problem getting her up to his room. Then, while the man is waiting (note to director: it’s funnier if he’s in his bathrobe) and the hired girl is still in a taxi putting on her chambermaid costume, a real black chambermaid with her own quirks and secrets enters the room. The man assumes that she’s the hired prostitute, playing her role by pretending to be shocked by his advances, and…

The post Sex and the Luxury Hotel appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The honor of being selected by the highest levels of the state to enter the Pantheon is a rare event, occurring every few years at the most. The entrance of poet, writer and statesman Aimé Césaire to the Pantheon can be seen as a symbolic recognition of diversity in France.

Introduction into the Pantheon of great men (and recently women) of France typically involves the transferal of the honoree’s remains into the tomb of the building. Césaire’s remains, however, will stay in Fort-de-France in the Caribbean French island of Martinique, while it’s a plaque bearing his name, unveiled today by President Nicolas Sarkozy, that consecrates the importance of Césaire’s influence in French letters and, to a lesser degree, politics.

Though Césaire served as mayor for the town of Fort-de-France for 56 and as a national representative from Martinique for 48 years (it’s possible to hold both positions at once), his national reputation derives especially from his poetry and other writings, particularly concerning the literary (and political) movement called “negritude” of which he was a founder.

The movement developed after WWII at a time when the four old French colonies of Guadeloupe, Guyana, Martinique and Reunion were in the process of becoming full-fledged departments (something like counties) of France.

In preparing today’s event at the Pantheon, the French Culture Minister said that in addition to recognizing one of the great voices of French departments overseas, it also “pays homage to the vitality of cultures from overseas that have long influenced French culture overall.”

Among the “great men” who preceded Césaire in the Pantheon is Victor Schoelcher (1804-1893), who was instrumental in abolishing slavery in French colonies in 1848. Schoelcher’s remains were moved to the Pantheon on the centennial of his death. In the preface to a collection of Schoelcher’s works published that year, 1948, Césaire called him “a rare breath of fresh air that blows on a history of murder, of pillage, of atrocities.”

Translation of works by Aimé Césaire in English include “Discourse on Colonialism,” “Notebook of a Return to the Native Land” and “A Season in the Congo.”

– Photo and text by GLK.

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