I just finished eating French Onion Soup for dinner. I'd been craving it all day. In late afternoon NPR played La Marseillaise and I looked at the date. It snuck up on me! I actually feel as in tune with this day as I do our July 4th. I have been to France on a couple of sabbaticals and also many extended working trips. On my first sabbatical in Paris my PhD student went along and we did some of our best work together at the CEN in Saclay. He met his wife there and went back to stay. He now is on the faculty of the Nekker hospital in Paris and besides his lovely French wife he has has these wonderful bilingual daughters. I love France just as much for its faults as its good points. I never really mastered the language even though I worked at it very hard. Among French people I was forced to endure their very broken English because they were offended by my ineptness at their language. Read on below and I'll tell you why I love them.
When I was there for my first sabbatical in Paris I walked across the city from near the Beaubourg Museum in the Georges Pompidou Center on the left bank to the Alliance Francaise across the city two nights a week for lessons on the French language and civilization. ( I have been called a "Barbarian" by my closest French friend.) I wore out a pair of shoes during my stay. I took different routes and got to know Paris as few visitors do.
I admire the people of France. As a radical leftist I found the political climate very congenial. Most of the people I worked with who hosted my stays were Communists. They basically were part of a structure that ran their Universities, Research establishments, etc. They often lived in communities on the edge of Paris or other places that had democratically elected Communist administrations. It was no big deal! Yes there are rightist who oppose them with passion. Yes they all struggle for power. Yet the McCarthy like red hate we have here is not how they do it. I have met few Communists in this country. They all bear the scars of oppressed scorned people. They have no dignity nor any reason for hope.
My French friends had no use for Stalin and his brand of Communism. We were responsible for Stalin but that is another story. There is a strong fear among the French establishment of these people. They have not castrated them as we have here. On days like today the Hotel de Ville was surrounded by bus loads of troops with machine guns.
The medical school where my ex student is on the faculty is built like a fort. It is built that way because the establishment fears the students. If there ever is another student uprising the steel doors slide down and lock the students in. One gets the feeling that people mean business over there.
On more than one occasion there were general strikes while I was there. The workers and the students had the power to shut down the country to send a message to the government. It makes our Tea Baggers look like they need a May Pole to dance around.
I could go on and on, but this will suffice as my tribute to a country, a heritage, and a culture that I love with a passion. And me an American with purely Slavic heritage.