I’m off to London for a special reason: to re-unite and spend Christmas with my childhood friends, Kathy and Claire. Claire and Kathy. We haven’t seen one another in close to thirty years. I’m still trying to figure out how we lost touch with each other.

They’re sisters. As children, they were best friends with me and my sister. They were also our next door neighbours. For the first decade of our lives, we four grew up together, playing on the lawns and in the backyards of our pleasant Toronto suburb. My parents were friends with their parents, all four of them English. Then they moved back to England. But we stayed in touch and continued to see them. And then, sometime in the early 1990s, we sort of lost the thread, all of us caught up in our separate life paths and pursuits.

But we found each other again, in August of this year. (The truth is, I had been searching for them for quite a few years.) And I was thinking: there’s something deeper and richer about old friends. Oh sure, we make new friends all the time. But the friends I’ve made here in France know nothing about my past life, my life in Canada. They only know the “French” Juliet. But Kathy and Claire know my childhood years because they shared it. They knew my family. I don’t have to show them my childhood home on Google Map, the house I lived in for the first twenty years of my life, because they were there, right next door.

Below is a photo of me celebrating my seventh birthday. You can see the heaps of snow and the Xmas tree in the background. You can also see the top of Claire’s head at the bottom front of the photo.

Happy Christmas, everyone! May your holidays be merry and bright.

Leaving Paris on Saturday morning was fraught with complications. The metro lines were closed and the center of Paris was blocked off … in anticipation of more protest marches and riots. So I ended up taking a taxi along the “périphérique“, the outlying highway, to get to the Gare du Nord train station. Once in Lille, the temperature plunged dramatically. It was freezing cold and damp, with an icy wind. Not very propitious for strolling around town.

Soso and I went out for lunch, but it was so cold that he wanted to be taken home afterwards. We scurried through the streets of Lille, taking refuge from the cold in two shops.

First, a herbalist shop, called a herboristerie.

I purchased 200 grams of tilleul leaves above. Known as the ‘nectar of kings’, linden/lime flower and leaf infusions are known for their health benefits and calming effects. Lime flower herbal tea makes a fragrant, honeyish-tasting infusion with no bitterness.

Back outside, we had to wait for a procession of gilets jaunes to pass (who I support, by the way; at least the non-violent ones.)

Then we ducked into another shop for warmth.

After purchasing a box of colored pencils for my amiable six-year old companion, I took him home. Then I went out again to quickly walk through the Old Town. I thought my camera would freeze up.

Today (Sunday) I went alone to the Lille Arts Museum. Walking back to the apartment I slipped on the icy sidewalk and landed on my left knee. My right knee has been giving me pain for a week now. Now the left knee is keeping the right knee company. Perfect timing. On Friday I’ll limp off to London.

Have a great week.

I’m interrupting my Christmas idyll to post news about the urban warfare that took place all day yesterday not only in Paris, but around the country. As I write this, France is considering imposing a state of emergency on it citizens. Last night I watched, stupefied, the images on television. Burning cars, tear gas, masked protestors, hordes of police, buildings in flames … the images resembled those from the May 1968 protests.

I had planned, yesterday, to head over to Galeries Lafayette and Au Printemps, the two side-by-side department stores on the boulevard Haussmann, to take photos of their Christmas windows. Luckily I didn’t go because of light rain. Those two stores were evacuated, neighboring stores were pillaged, and flames and violence erupted all around in that area.

It appears there are two distinct groups: peaceful gilets jaunes (yellow vests) and hooligan ultra-rightwing and ultra-leftwing ‘casseurs‘ (violent anarchists who break things). ACAB graffiti tags (All Cops Are Bastards) used by rightwing extremist groups were seen around the city. And who has to clean this mess up? The city cleaners. Late last night, TV images showed the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and her colleagues walking the streets, shaking hands with the cleaners and thanking them for their efforts. I hope they get paid double-time and receive a big Christmas bonus.

Here are some comments (translated) from ordinary French citizens that I have selected from this morning’s comments section of Le Figaro newspaper –

It is high time to reform France in a framework more in line with the aspirations of ordinary French people. The technocrats who from their ministries “administer” France by reneging on the people, their wishes, their daily difficulties, their aspirations, will have to change before the current ‘peasants’ revolt’ turns to revolution!

***

France: is this not the country in which 90% of the world population would like to live? With a system of benefits and handouts unique in the world where health care is provided for everyone, where various and varied allowances are available (APL, RSA, EDF tariffs, single parents’ benefits, etc. etc.), where education is free, where the right to protest is recognized, and where the press is free? When one reads about our rebellious climate, what must the people of countless countries that do not have a quarter of the rights and living conditions enjoyed by the French think?

***

Macron is paying for his blusters. He cannot escape with impunity the people’s revenge following his arrogant manner and remarks. The French have come to get him and hold him accountable. Without agreeing to all the vandalism, I can understand their anger that has turned into hatred. By continuing to not listen, to utter empty words, to prevaricate and speak a double language has today become unbearable. A political answer is urgent and indispensable NOW, its content will have to exceed by far what they should have said two weeks ago. But I fear they will remain in their technocratic postures, with the risk that this mutinous climate will turn into a revolution.

***

It is not only the increase in fuel prices that has triggered these riots…!
But also the injustices of which the “socialists”, are largely co-responsible, all the taxes, paid for by those who work honestly …!
– the real workers (workers, peasants, artisans, …), no gifts, minimum wage, many unpaid hours, and a “justice” hard and unyielding!
– the parasites (thugs, idlers, spongers of the system, …), lots of gifts, winners (with allowances and state benefits) who often fare better than those who work, and a “justice” soft & lax!
How to accept that we pay footballers hundreds of millions of Euros?
The recent Marseillais scandal in which decrepit apartment buildings collapse (with the inhabitants inside), while only blocks away are magnificent new and expensive football stadiums?
How to accept corruption and money laundering by world-name big banks?
How to accept that Renault’s rogue CEO, currently in prison in Japan, can receive five million euros for each day of his life?
Or that bosses receive 80 million euros a year while the workers earn minimum wage on temporary contracts? Or that Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron spend 300,000 Euros to change the carpet of the presidential residence?

***

On this Sunday morning I can still hear police sirens in the distance. All night long – and all day yesterday – they were wailing.

President Macron abolished taxes on the controversial “wealth tax”, otherwise known as the ISF. The solidarity tax on wealth (Impôt de solidarité sur la fortune or ISF) was a direct annual wealth tax imposed on those living in France having assets in excess of €1,300,000. The amount of these taxes brought in over 5 billion euros per year to the state. Its idea was to be “redistributive,” helping narrow the gap between rich and poor, hence the name – “solidarity tax.” The majority of French people demand that this tax be reinstated and that the proposed increase of gasoline tax and all other tax hikes be cancelled. (Personally, I’m not in favor of the ISF. I don’t see why wealthy people should be penalized for being wealthy. Surely there are other tax sources…like imposing income tax on those behemoth companies that, up until now, are exempt!)

Here are two articles and analysis on the subject in the London-based The Guardian –

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/03/paris-streets-riots-violence

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/02/paris-riots-worst-unrest-decade-with-shops-and-cars-set-alight-gilets-jaunes

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/02/france-is-deeply-fractured-gilets-jeunes-just-a-symptom