Many people, like me, have a special relationship with France. Constructed from books, films, pictures. Especially from the latter. In the light of the recent incidents on the streets of Paris, Nanterre, Marseille and elsewhere, the question arises: how do we reconcile the images of places, works of art, crumbs of memories kept under our eyelids with the images with which we have recently been bombarded by the media?

- France is no longer what it used to be, the French say. This is clear. You don't step into the same river twice. The Paris of 40 years ago is different from the same city of the 1990s and 2000s. However, as an average Francophile, who has been attracted, tamed and shaped by French culture and history, I have to ask myself: does sweet France, as the French themselves wrote about it, exist? And if it does, why are some of its citizens performing a theatre of violence and fire on its streets? When we visit Paris, pop into a Shakespeare and Company bookshop, stroll through Montmartre, are we not accidentally entering an open-air museum, a reserve maintained with our money so that we can visit it? After all, Paris is a movable feast, that is, one that appears in our lives when we are here, as Ernest Hemingway stated.

Education Français

First came the paintings: impressionists, fauvists, cubists. Then, fictionalized biographies of artists closely embedded in 19th and early 20th century Paris. Descriptions of existential misery and complete saturation with their own and their friends' art. Reading the fictionalised biographies of artists by the journalist and writer Jean-Paul Crespelle provided entry to the finest salons in Europe: the museums. It also gently instilled a love of Paris. For where did Degas, Monet and Manet supposedly create, where did Pablo Picasso decide to live at all costs, where Juan Gris starved, Chagall skimped and Amadeo Modigliani did not count a penny (at least when it came to cocaine)....

SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE Then literature and film. As a child, Alexandre Dumas, Balzac, Hugo, Verne, then 20th century writers, poets, noveau roman... Hundreds of films: comedies, dramas, new-wave black and white film impressions. From everywhere came artistic images of France and Paris. For someone who watched "Breathless" in their youth, for them the Champs Élysées will never be an ordinary big-city avenue. For someone who has read the Proust cycle or even the first volume of 'Towards the Swan', the area around the Opéra Garnier, the church of St Magdalene, has a special context: history and decadence.

When a Pole stood for the first time on the cobblestones of Paris, he experienced the shock that he knew so much, felt so much, understood so much. And that, through the city that is its capital, France is so familiar and close to him. The French responded with kindness to this interest. It was enough to know a few words, to understand a little, to have good intentions....

It is an image that is probably idealised, because it comes from the past. From a time when there were few people at the Louvre on free Sunday mornings, but always Japanese people in front of the Mona Lisa and French fathers with their children in the galleries of native paintings.

You can get a French education in many areas: gastronomy (wines, cheeses, seafood, regional products), fashion, sport. In this last category, France is really strong and the French turn out to be real sports fanatics. Just to name a few: cycling, soccer, rugby, sailing (the famous Formula 40 - huge catamarans - sailed under the French flag). It just doesn't occur to anyone to learn from the French about burning cars, smashing up shops and throwing stones. Because the verdict will determine whether it was justified to fatally shoot a 17-year-old who disobeyed orders. The case is in court.

We somewhat mistakenly perceive France as a country of gentle people, happy to stroll with a baguette and with an astonishing weakness for miniature poodles - which is why the riots arouse wonder and horror in us. And after all, the French are a maritime nation, even an oceanic one. Explorers, troublemakers, colonisers. Also soldiers. Also state officials bloodily punishing insubordination. And - the obvious - the creators and shapers of the bloody French Revolution.

'France-elegance', they say in Poland. Recently a Frenchman revealed himself to me on Facebook, in one of his rolls. He was showing how to make a jumper out of a cotton rug (from Jysek, I think). Of course, first you have to get rid of the tassels. Then cut something like a poncho/kimo. He just didn't indicate which parties this exquisite outfit is dedicated to.

His compatriot, on the other hand, was scouring the Parisian lawn in search of edible plants... Bon appétit.

The explanation for such phenomena probably belongs a little to the cultural world and a little to finance. Not all French people are rich. Moreover, they are generally becoming poorer rather than richer. Street criterion

The recent riots in France lasted five days. They erupted on 27 June after the shooting in Nanterre, near Paris, of a 17-year-old Nahel who disobeyed a police officer's instructions or even started running away from him. Disobedience and ignoring officers' calls is becoming more common, according to the media. City districts went up in flames, especially the suburban city of Nanterre. Cars, rubbish bins and houses were set on fire. Shops were looted. In L'Haÿ-les-Roses (Val-de-Marne department), the house of the mayor was attacked with a burning car. Molotov cocktails were sprinkled on mayoral buildings in other towns.

Since that fateful Friday, 4,000 people have been detained, 400 have already heard sentences, Radio France International said on 5th of July (after AFP).

700 police officers and gendarmes were injured in the riots. 10,000 rubbish bins were set on fire, 1,000 buildings burnt down. 250 police stations were attacked.

When a Pole stood for the first time on the cobblestones of Paris, he experienced the shock that he knew so much, felt so much, understood so much. And that, through the city that is its capital, France is so familiar and close to him. The French responded with kindness to this interest. It was enough to know a few words, to understand a little, to have good intentions....

It is an image that is probably idealised, because it comes from the past. From a time when there were few people at the Louvre on free Sunday mornings, but always Japanese people in front of the Mona Lisa and French fathers with their children in the galleries of native paintings.

You can get a French education in many areas: gastronomy (wines, cheeses, seafood, regional products), fashion, sport. In this last category, France is really strong and the French turn out to be real sports fanatics. Just to name a few: cycling, soccer, rugby, sailing (the famous Formula 40 - huge catamarans - sailed under the French flag). It just doesn't occur to anyone to learn from the French about burning cars, smashing up shops and throwing stones. Because the verdict will determine whether it was justified to fatally shoot a 17-year-old who disobeyed orders. The case is in court.

We somewhat mistakenly perceive France as a country of gentle people, happy to stroll with a baguette and with an astonishing weakness for miniature poodles - which is why the riots arouse wonder and horror in us. And after all, the French are a maritime nation, even an oceanic one. Explorers, troublemakers, colonisers. Also soldiers. Also state officials bloodily punishing insubordination. And - the obvious - the creators and shapers of the bloody French Revolution.

'France-elegance', they say in Poland. Recently a Frenchman revealed himself to me on Facebook, in one of his rolls. He was showing how to make a jumper out of a cotton rug (from Jysek, I think). Of course, first you have to get rid of the tassels. Then cut something like a poncho/kimo. He just didn't indicate which parties this exquisite outfit is dedicated to.

His compatriot, on the other hand, was scouring the Parisian lawn in search of edible plants... Bon appétit.

The explanation for such phenomena probably belongs a little to the cultural world and a little to finance. Not all French people are rich. Moreover, they are generally becoming poorer rather than richer. Street criterion

The recent riots in France lasted five days. They erupted on 27 June after the shooting in Nanterre, near Paris, of a 17-year-old Nahel who disobeyed a police officer's instructions or even started running away from him. Disobedience and ignoring officers' calls is becoming more common, according to the media. City districts went up in flames, especially the suburban city of Nanterre. Cars, rubbish bins and houses were set on fire. Shops were looted. In L'Haÿ-les-Roses (Val-de-Marne department), the house of the mayor was attacked with a burning car. Molotov cocktails were sprinkled on mayoral buildings in other towns.

Since that fateful Friday, 4,000 people have been detained, 400 have already heard sentences, Radio France International said on 5th of July (after AFP).

700 police officers and gendarmes were injured in the riots. 10,000 rubbish bins were set on fire, 1,000 buildings burnt down. 250 police stations were attacked.

Nanterre, émeutes quartier Pablo Picasso, par Coco pic.twitter.com/k3CIQQcyRe

— Putzfrauen International®️ (@nomessypolitics) July 2, 2023

Coco's drawing from the journal 'Libération'. Caption: Riots in Pablo Picasso's neighbourhood.

No one chooses to look at suburbia. In the list of the 10 most inflammatory cities of the Peripheral region, the blocks of flats immediately catch the eye. Houses as big as cosmic termites, next to which the Polish achievements of Le Corbusier's followers pale. In Nanterre itself, the Pablo Picasso estate leaves the viewer in awe that one could land there, or rather be condemned to land there and with one's family. Thousands of people live in such estates, living lives that neither we nor their compatriots want to know anything about.

Two disappearances

I cried when the burning Notre-Dame and the collapsing spire of the cathedral were shown in silence, without music, without commentary. Identical to Anne, a friend of mine, a French, Parisian woman I met recently after many years. She had grown up right next to the cathedral, I had read about it, visited it, and I admit that I once had a stealthy slice of pizza in it (on a very cold February day, it was raining icy cold, and I had nowhere to go and was wandering around the city with 10 francs in my pocket). Anne told me that although she might, she doesn't visit Paris often, but she would come to the installation of the spire. I'll probably be following the moment on TV.

I love Paris, although it is very different from years ago. France is precious to me, especially Brittany, the area around Poitier, Niort. It's difficult. I'm sentimental and I don't abandon old loves. I am saddened that, on the one hand, tourists approach the cultural richness of France in this shallow way, reducing it to what they can have at home: a croissant, a coffee, a glass of sparkling wine called champagne. It pains me to see scenes straight out of political fiction films on the streets of France.

Although the social divisions in France do not surprise me. Twenty years ago, when we were returning from a holiday on the Atlantic, near Paris, we realised we had nothing for our next breakfast. It was the weekend. We turned off the ring road into the first housing estate. We were greeted by huge blocks of flats and an all-black population looking back at us. There wasn't a person who didn't look behind us. It was an experience as if from a cinema, from a film, in slow motion. I was determined. We found an active shop and bought toasted bread and nutella for the children for the morning. "Off you go!" - said an elderly gentleman in a turban, sitting behind the cash register. We disappeared.

The minors who appeared on the Champs Élysées have also disappeared. But that doesn't mean they do not exist.

Archipelagos

Many years ago, I studied French at the Institute of French Culture in Warsaw. I had a textbook called Archipel (archipelago). I ask myself: if we teach children today using the island method rather than the chronological one, doesn't the whole world work like that? Floating islands. Once closer, once further away. And each one has a point.

Like the people now lamenting that only €400,000 has been raised in France to help Nahel's family members and €1.6 million to help the family of the arrested police officer - and calling for the latter collection to be declared illegal because it was set up outside the country and supported by a right-wing politician. The Prime Minister is expected to speak out. A competition for contributions? Does that seem strange? The President called for more responsibility of parents for their children. A statement to reduce a family's child benefit money if a child commits a crime flashed by, accompanied by another statement that this was a nonsense idea.

No one waits for justice anymore, no one dreams of it. He wants to use whatever strength he can muster to get his way. And sometimes, to relieve his frustration. Sometimes, to play for time.

Decades ago, it happened that I took the last train back to the village in France where I lived. I had no choice. Yes, I was afraid, but not really, because Poland didn't offer much comfort then either. Only once in my dozen or so journeys was anyone in the carriage with me: a bunch of guys in jackets literally flew through all the carriages and disappeared at the next station. I sat translucent as a ghost in my Polish jacket, Polish cap, Polish shoes and without any reflection. Fortunately, I was lucky.

And as for the archipelago under the name of Marcel Proust... He rescued a simple pastry from oblivion: the magdalene. He wrote a multi-volume work, so outstanding that hardly anyone reads it. A comic strip was made of it in Belgium, which begins with a drawing: a man with a beetle-thin moustache drinks tea and bites into a biscuit. He has a bar named after him in the Hotel Ritz and a pub called 'Chez Marcel' on the secluded rue Stanislas. If you fancy a traditional dish, you can pass the Zadkin museum, cross the boulevard and stand on the street which, of course, owes its name to Stanislas Leszczynski, King of Poland and father-in-law of King Louis XV. There are many Polish islands in the archipelago of France.

– Beata Modrzejewska

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists

– Translated by Tomasz Krzyżanowski