La Grand Arch de la Défense
Ah, Paris, the subject of fame when it comes to all things cultural, yet my experience has been so different.
“Ooh, it’s so beautiful! This is what I imagine Paris must be like.” ~ Marge Simpson
Yes Marge, it is beautiful with art deco architecture, dazzling neon lights, and soft street lighting. Citroën CV2s line the Champs Elysée and gypsies swarm tourists at the Champ des Mars…wait gypsies? Yeah, the EU residents that the French consider an eyesore and can’t get rid of. You know what a society’s like by the way they treat the poorest and most needy. There are a lot of poor and homeless on the streets that nobody in the city seems to take care of and the streets wreak of urine. I even saw a Hasidic Jew take a piss on the metro tracks at one point.
I had high hopes for Paris; France portrays itself as a great civilisation that harbours the best food, wine, cheese, art, and architecture on the continent. But while this is all true, its citizens are a medley of its former colonial subjects from sea to sea to sea. I was attacked by two black French-speaking men and racially discriminated against at local shops. The metro stations were dilapidated and CDG Airport was in a so bad a state they had to install netting on the ceiling to stop flakes of paint from hitting passengers’ heads.
Reminds me of the hunchback of Notre Dame
Metro train drivers went to work in an unprofessional manner wearing sleeveless vests and shorts. Some RER drivers (on the SNCF lines) went on strike the week I was there, so even if the RATP-operated RER lines were operational, travellers were unable to get to the airport as the B-line stopped service in the middle.
The police were as ineffective as its army in WWII as I was able to just cycle right though a gated embassy area. Like Argentina, it’s a former world power holding onto the vestiges of its faded glory. But unlike broke Argentina, the French are still holding on to the central and west African francs. If you want to know what eurocentrism is like, visit Paris.
