C’est la Guerre…

So here I am on a flying visit to Paris.

Visits to Paris shouldn't really be flying though should they? Visits to Paris should be savoured, anticipated with relish, and taken slowly, at a respectable pace so as to take it the 'oh so very wonderful' richness of the city - like a long-cellared bottle of Bordeaux.

Not this time though. This time it’s a quick in and out, business trip of a ‘wham-bam-thankee-mam’ visit. All rush and glimpse.

Charles de Gaulle Airport still looks like a 70’s science fiction film set. As I wandered through its excruciatingly long and hilly tunnels and perspex tubed escalators I kept expecting to see Barbarella pass me by going in the opposite direction, crossbow clutched in her arms, carefully camouflaging her ample cleavage. It didn’t happen though – very disappointing.

The last time I was here I was on honeymoon. Gaynor and I spent five days in Paris before flying off for two weeks in Barbados – I was such a romantic nineteen years ago.

The weather was great, not as hot as today though (thirty-two degrees) and we took in all of the sites – The Louvre, Notre Dame, Sacré-Coeur, Le Moulin Rouge, The Seine, we even climbed the Eiffel Tower on foot! Our hotel was on the Champs Elysees overlooking L’Arc de Triomphe… We walked for miles, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed - happy days indeed.

This time though, it is business.

Even so and despite this, I still get to see some of the sites – the Eiffel Tower, the Opera House, The Louvre, Sacré-Coeur but from trains, in rushing, honking taxis, on foot as we hurry along the banks of the river, passing Notre Dame as we try to find the office where our meeting is to be held.

It is still Paris though, and Paris is full of Parisiennes.

Now who invented that silly fallacy that all English hate the French? I for one love the French. They are all so individual, so much a statement of themselves, so real. Each of them has a sense of personal style whether they are wearing jeans, a designer suit, a skirt, a pair of baggy old trousers and a worn, crumpled jacket, or a saxophone.

Young, old, black, white, male, female – it makes no difference. They are all as individual as individual can be, stylish, aware, inside a personal space - they seem to carry themselves with an air of authority and presence – a dignity that is all about being completely French, but cosmopolitan, both at the same time.

In France there are no eccentrics because eccentricity is seen as simply being individual. There is no group-think because everyone has their own point of view. They may come together as groups (often to riot) but within those groups no single person thinks exactly the same about any thing as another.

Most disagreement or difficult situations are commented on with a shrug and a lifting (not raising) of the eyebrows, and most meeting or agreement situations are met with real double (or triple) kissing and smiles.

So what if the French sometimes find it hard to reach collective agreement, so what if they appear aloof and arrogant, so what if they stick to their own individual beliefs regardless of the outcome? They may not have great automaton armies following orders blindly, but they do have the Foreign Legion and they are terrific freedom fighters.

Hate the French? I love them! They care, but they don’t. They are passionate, but realists. They are cultured, but down to earth.

I had a great time. Our hosts were great company, took us to a fantastic restaurant ‘La Maison Blache’ where we dined like kings high above the skyline of Paris, a fairy-lit Eiffel Tower reflected in the huge mirrored windows of the restaurant around us.

I am proud to be English, I dream of being Welsh, but I would love to be French – even a little bit. Perhaps we should all aspire to be a little more French – at least it would get rid of those grey, black, and pink jogging bottoms that the English love to collectively wear in airports.

Oh well, as Popeye says - ‘I’yam what I’yam’ - and in France that is exactly what you are allowed to be.