A Report From Wine Explorer Diego Samper
Paris, France
The police were having lunch. They were dressed for something else.
Some were eating sandwiches. Others were helping each other into their protective gear. I passed them on my way to our market, looking like Robocops between bites.
Police cars lined the street. The market’s usual entrance was closed, and people were coming through the sides.
I had gone out for the weekend groceries. Around me, preparations were being made for a rather different afternoon.
The police had brought their cars. I would have moved mine.
The officers still had to eat. I still had shopping to do.
Later, I saw young people marching with their faces uncovered. To me, they looked proud to be there. At Place de la République, an orchestra was playing while tear gas burned.
People had brought instruments to a confrontation.
That stayed with me.
Better schools. A pension you can live on. Public services that work. These are reasonable things to want. I understand taking to the streets when you feel nobody is listening.
I am still learning how to live here. My French remains a work in progress. But I appreciate the willingness to challenge the people running the country.
You can care about a place and have plenty to complain about.
I also saw young people throwing trash cans down. Their faces were covered. I wondered who they were, whether they were students, whether they had come for the march or for something else.
I could not tell. What they were doing was easier to judge.
We had family visiting. That afternoon, we stayed in.
Later, watching the news with the sound off, I thought of Dante’s Inferno. Flames, smoke, people moving through streets that looked very different from the ones where I went shopping.
Friends and family wrote. Some readers did, too. They wanted to know how we were, what it was like.
I understood why they were asking. But parts of the city were untouched. We live along the protest route, so the trouble was close to home. Elsewhere, people were having a different Saturday.
Cameras go where the action is. “Paris on Fire” makes a better headline than “An Uneventful Afternoon in Another Neighborhood.”
The damage was serious. The pictures still could not show you the whole city.
A Glass in the Middle of the Chaos
Then there was the couple at a café, having a drink with fires nearby.
I found something very French in that.
The street was having its upheaval. They appeared to be having their digestif.
I smiled. They seemed unwilling to surrender their table or their afternoon.
If I am going to become a little more French, I would rather protest with a glass in my hand than a rock.
The looting was harder to find anything amusing in.
Luxury goods. Sneakers. Tobacco. I struggled to connect the shopping list to better education.
The images brought the French Revolution to mind: kings, palaces, a population demanding to be heard.
By Sunday morning, the comparison seemed rather less grand.
The little market near our home was hardly Versailles.
It had been looted. Tobacco and vapes were among the things taken. It felt targeted to me.
The shopkeeper stood with colleagues from next door, looking.
As someone who works for a living, I found that difficult to watch. Somebody had paid for the stock. Somebody would have to repair the damage.
Be on the left. Be on the right. I don’t care. You cannot help yourself to somebody else’s livelihood because there is a protest outside.
They left with the tobacco and vapes. The shopkeeper was left with a shop to put back together.
I wondered whether their mothers might achieve more than another line of police.
Mine would certainly have had something to say.
I understood why the police had come prepared. I also doubted that a sense of belonging could be imposed with a baton.
The Morning After
By ten on Sunday morning, we were out with our visiting family. Some wanted to go to Mass at eleven.
We dropped them off and walked to a café.
Along the way were burned bicycles, scorch marks, graffiti. The smell of burned plastic still hung in the air. People were cleaning. At the market stalls, people were working and talking.
This is where I usually come for a croissant and coffee, or a glass of wine, depending on the hour.
I like that about living here. Wine can have a place in an ordinary afternoon. You sit down, order a glass, and give yourself a little time.
It is a habit worth keeping. One you can bring home without moving to Paris.
Seeing people cleaning, talking with their neighbors, and opening their stalls gave me some relief. We were out with family. There was still somewhere to sit down for a drink.
I was still upset. But I was beginning to understand that couple at the café. You could care about what had happened and still sit down together for a drink.
The looters had given me plenty to be angry about. I did not want them to have the whole story, too.
Tomorrow is Saturday. Another round of protests is expected.
I hope the marchers get heard. I hope the shopkeeper has a quiet Sunday.
Diego Samper
The Wine Explorer
