Rugby, The Police and A Soccer Mom's Minivan

Rugby, The Police and A Soccer Mom’s Minivan

The event of last night was the semifinal of the Rugby World Cup. France versus England. Just saying the two countries gives you an idea of how big it was; I half-expected Prince Hal and Joan of Arc to suit up for England and France, respectively. The populace responded to the matchup, more so than France-New Zealand last week. I wore a France rugby jersey yesterday, as a way of declaring my allegiances, and received strong reactions from both sides. I started hearing “Allez les bleus!” eight hours before the match; a few English people muttered insults at me, presuming my Frenchness. The streets were full of people parading their sports patriotism, whether with face paint or scarves (draping, but not wrapping, a scarf emblazoned with logos is a required element in any European sport fan’s wardrobe). It was as intense a pre-game atmosphere as any I’ve experienced.

We sat down in a restaurant in the Latin Quarter to watch the game. It delivered. The patrons, overwhelmingly French, sang La Marseillase clearly and enunciated the words. The Star-Spangled Banner is more beautiful when sung well, but La Marseillase is easier for the average person to sign. This plays into the general zeitgeist of each country: the US rewards the top disproportionately; France tries to evenly divide the rewards.

After that display of patriotism, the game began. It was a slugfest. It’s telling that the game’s only goal (?), was achieved by the English player (in one motion) tackling, seizing the ball, and bowling over a French player into the endzone. There were tons of hard hits and brutal takedowns.

Also, Sebastien appeared. Sebastien requires some explanation. He has been variously described as “a Neanderthal” “one of those dudes from the Geico cavemen ads” “ugly” and “ruggedly handsome.” He has been sitting on the bench for most of the World Cup, so far as I can tell, looking pensive and brooding. And yet he enjoys the confidence of many Frenchmen—whenever his scowling mug is shown on TV (at about the same frequency of Sarkozy, who has made a point of showing up), all the French in the vicinity always make a comment along the lines of “Oh, that Sebastien.” I had been wondering what was up with this Sebastien dude, and so I was glad to see him in action. Unfortunately, he did nothing of note in the first half. It wasn’t until the second that he made an effect. Meanwhile, without major contributions from him, the French achieved a 6-5 lead (a goal is worth 5 points, the after-goal attempt 2, and field goals anywhere between 2 and 4 depending on the distance, I think.)

Because we’d finished dinner, and it was halftime, we decided to move to the Hotel de Ville (City Hall), where they’d set up a big screen TV. Unfortunately, when we arrived, the big screen didn’t work and the game had already started. Every bar in the vicinity was full, and overflow crowds huddled by the windows. We joined them. The game was still close, 9-8, each side moving forward a bit and then having the crap beaten out of them for having the temerity to try.

The ball was often punted out of bounds, resulting in my favorite rugby play: each team lines up opposite one another, as one member from the team that didn’t go out of bounds throws the ball in. What happens next is a strange adaptation of the tip-off in basketball: a rugby player is boosted on another player’s shoulders. The boosted player must then catch or tip the ball towards his team. It’s a hilarious play to watch.

A breakthrough came when England got a penalty. This was shocking to me; I wasn’t even aware rugby had penalties. I kind of just assume a sport in which ears get ripped off is not one with many rules regarding improper conduct on the field. But apparently there are, and they screwed the French, resulting in an English field goal and the lead for England. The crowd reacted disapprovingly.

Sebastien then awakened. Every time he touched the ball, he rocketed towards the goal, an Earl Campbell of rugby. His runs were greeted with enthusiasm. One time, the team got so close that the entire crowd on the inside rose together and screamed and hollered, but this obliterated our view, so we strained up, on the tips of our feet, and so all we could see were our raised wondering faces reflected in the window’s glass and all we knew was that the crowd exulted. I felt for sure that France had scored. But they did not and everyone sat down slowly. From that point, trench warfare similar to the New Zealand game commenced, except this time France was on the wrong side of it. A few stirring runs by France were enveloped by English defenders. France lost.

Moping reigned afterwards. The French drifted through the streets, wearing an expression I know well: I wore it after the UCLA football game, after the Gonzaga collapse, after all that. The face generally is fixed as if by superglue, except the corners of the mouth, which droop. The overall impression is that you’d really want to punch someone. A few English people, dressed in their rugby jerseys, walked past, cheery and sipping beer. Two white limos streaked by, with people hanging out of the windows and standing tall through the sunroofs, all of them dressed in preppy whites, bottles of champagnes as accessories, shouting and hollering.

My RER line has a stop for Stade de France on it. When I got on, spectators from the game streamed off, their festive apparel—some people dressed as Asterix characters, others with scruffy Sebastien wigs—contrasting with their rigid expressions.

I had been rooting for France. I wondered who I would root for next, against England: South Africa or Argentina. I decided on Argentina: who can resist the passions aroused by the Falkland War? Although, of course, I’ll always back France first, after the US.

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I believe I saw Francois Fillon, the Prime Minister of France today.

I was at the Hotel des Invalides (built during Louis XIV’s reign for invalid soldiers) and wanted to go to the Latin Quarter. The most direct and simple route was through the Rue de Varenne. It quickly became apparent that the Rue de Varennes was a governmental street, although curiously so: the Musee Rodin is located at one corner, and restaurants are interspersed throughout. Furthermore, because of the narrowness of the street and its location near a major monument, it has the character of a typical residential side street. But somber governmental buildings with little redeeming architectural value line the street.

I was noting them with interest, until I noticed two French police officers, night sticks prominently strapped to their sides, loitering at the corner. Generally French police officers do not display their weapons, letting their physical presence project authority. So I knew something was up. Then I saw that my side of the street was closed off. A medium-sized yellow sign across the street told me this. There were wooden pillars leeching on the side of the building. I assumed that the reason I had to cross the street was construction-related. My perception was confirmed when I saw the sign on the side of the building, “Hotel de Matignon Restauration” (Restoration is the last word).

But things quickly showed that this was no ordinary building. There was a elegant looking French guy who was ahead of me and on the same side of the street as the sign and the police officers who was shunted off onto my side of the street. Odd, but not that odd. Then I saw two other police officers in front of massive oak doors wave a car over to the side. The doors opened, the police officers saluted, and a procession wound its way out: a police car, a sedan, a minivan, and a motorcycle. I glanced inside the minivan and saw the gnomish pale face of some dude. I realized, when I researched it on the internet, that it was Francois Fillon, the Prime Minister of France, who is currently engaged in a pissing match with Sarkozy over who’s got more mojo. After they passed by, the French dude crossed the street, went up to a residential door next to the Hotel, punched a door and went in.

In the United States, it’s likely that I would’ve been forcibly restrained or something as the Prime Minister/Speaker of the House passed by. Also they would’ve had a lot more than four cops hanging around. And certainly no one gets to live next to the official residence of that important a public official. Does anyone live at 1599 Pennsylvania Avenue? What is on 1599 Pennsylvania avenue?

Altogether, it’s incidents like that that make you think that the French have a much more lax attitude on security. Take another example. There’s a pub in the Marais called Le Ravaillac. Ravaillac was the insane assassin of King Henri IV, who is credited with ending the civil wars in France. Somehow I suspect there aren’t any restaurants named “The John Wilkes Booth” or “Lee Harvey Oswald’s” in the United States. Yet it seemed well-attended when I peeked. “So he assassinated a dude? Who cares?”

But that’s frankly contradicted by anecdote and hard statistics. Throughout Paris, the trash bins are green plastic bags that say “Vigilance Propeté.” At first I thought this was for ease’s sake—it seems a lot easier to just rip off a bag from its hoop than remove it from a trash bin. But it turns out that the clear bags serve another purpose: terrorist avoidance. Apparently, back in the 80’s, when attacks were more common, a frequent tactic was to put bombs in trash bins, where they couldn’t be seen. Hence, the idea of making them clear and emblazoning them with words meaning “Vigilance-Cleanliness.”

Statistically, police in Paris number 15 per thousand; by contrast, New York has 2 per thousand, and that’s an elevated number for an American city. Anecdotally, I see cops on the beat, walking two to a pair, all the time in Paris. They all look tough, even the metro cops. There isn’t a soft mall security guy amongst the lot. The gendarmes just don’t look like people to mess around with.

They don’t look like people to mess around with, to me at least. Parisian civilians break petty rules ubiquitously. I’ve seen people jump the turnstile right in front of the ticket office. People share their tickets amongst one another. That’s just the Metro. Bootlegs are relatively common if you know where to look (and it’s not like it takes a genius to know). One French student that I know speaks casually about the rules he can easily break. The attitude about breaking the smaller yet serious (to my mind) rules is fairly casual, so far as I can see.

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Flan chocolat: think chocolate pie, then salivate at the thought.

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So I just watched the music video “Blue Magic,” a song from the upcoming Jay-Z album. I’m excited. But here’s a tidbit relevant to international affairs: it provides yet another omen for the dollar’s imminent collapse. Rappers enjoy money of course, and so music videos are invariably suffused with money symbolism as well as the actual thing itself. The “Blue Magic” video utilizes both: “Ye$” in lights on some cuts for the symbolism, 500 euro notes for the actual thing. This is extremely worrying. One of the dollar’s manifest advantages over other forms of currency is the variety of nicknames and usages it’s acquired. Substituting “s” for “$”, as above, is just one; it used to be that “Dead Presidents” was good enough for song names, and the “Benjamins” were good enough to stand in for lots of names. But, if they can no longer do for large amounts of money, and 500 euro notes are the best symbol possible for Jay-Z’s riches, then that therefore shows that the cultural value of the dollar is low, just like the economic value. So if the statistical measurements aren’t there, and if the prestige measurements aren’t there either, what is left for the dollar? Nothing. Get used to rappers trying to find clever ways to refer to the Euro, I guess.

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I can assure you, though, that America is still strong in this: rapping. Having heard a street performer trying to make a buck (err…euro…it doesn’t sound as good; see what I mean?) off of his French rapping skills, I remain convinced that despite the current slide in rapper quality, we are still stronger than our foreign based competitors. Although we will have to step our game up from “Crank That” and “This is Why I’m Hot” in order to maintain our lead in this, our most critical of cultural imports.

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To judge by street life, multicultural France seems stronger than multicultural England. I routinely see interracial couples and cute minority children. It’s at more-or-less the same rate as English interracial couples and children, but then again, I haven’t witnessed any incidents with explicitly racist undertones as I did in England (although, to be fair, I’m pretty sure that that thing with the pot-smoking black dude a few days back was racial in nature. I didn’t understand the French, so I can’t say for sure).

So, judging by my anecdotal observations, if you told me that one nation has had riots recently, and the other has had some uncomfortable moments and some homegrown Muslim terrorists, I’d pick France for the slightly more tranquil latter. It’s strange and I wouldn’t know how to explain it. Maybe I only see the more upwardly mobile minority French, since I stick mostly to the richer central Paris? Although there was that time I went into the tenth arrondisement…

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Here’s the worst dressed man of the day: the dude with the mohawk. No, mohawks=bad.