Paul from Paris

French city-dwellers live differently than do French farmers. A glorious proliferation of springtime holidays, the French Open, and especially the Cannes Film Festival all drive home this point, emphatically. Springtime in France is littered with events that only city-dwellers can follow; most farmers are too busy tended their fields, vineyards, or orchards even to notice.

One of my favorite photos from the Cannes Film Festival dates from 1971 and marks its fortieth anniversary this year.

The photo shows Keith Richards, longtime companion Anita Pallenberg, their children (presumably, although given the ages maybe not children they had together), various onlookers, and the palm trees that line the Cannes boardwalk.

Richards and family are on their way to the screening of “Gimme Shelter“, a documentary concert film built around the Rolling Stones that dramatically illustrates what can go wrong amidst poor planning or organization, circa 1970. (It’s neither a happy movie nor a protest film.)

In the photo, Richards and family are more upbeat and arguably more relaxed than the concert film they’re about to see. I love the photo because it’s so relaxed, yet stylish. Palm trees, a cigarette, a sun hat, a sunset. The family travels on foot, not in a limousine. She’s carrying a child; he’s carrying what looks like a purse.

What I like most in the photo is the young boy’s expression, particularly how his happy exuberance contrasts with the taut impatience of the tuxedoed photographer in the background. (The two children appear more engaged with their surroundings and the spectacle than their parents, who strike me as vacant or not wholly present.)

I’m not sure who the boy is, and I haven’t been able to identify the photographer, for attribution; the image is catalogued in the Bettmann archive.

self-portrait at Louvre

Every month, the Louvre chooses a “painting of the month”, which is displayed in Salle 18.

From June through September, the Louvre has chosen a self-portrait by Elisabeth-Sophie Chéron. Summer visitors to Paris: rejoice! This is a rare chance to become acquainted with a remarkable artist.

I must have dozed off in art history class when Chéron was discussed, because I became acquainted with her work years after my college days.

An introduction to Chéron:

• born 1648, died 1711
• protestant father, catholic mother; brother Louis, also an artist, settled in England after the revocation on Nantes made life difficult for protestants in France
• won acclaim as a painter for portraits, including the two self-portraits in this post, done while Chéron was in her 20s
• admitted into the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1672, when Chéron was in her 30s
• also a celebrated writer and poet; most of her work had religious or Biblical themes
• good with languages : French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew
• for her writings, was inducted into the Accademia dei Ricovrati in Padua, which seems to have had a practice of admitting French women because they would not attend Academy proceedings in person
• also an accomplished musician
• married after her childbearing years were over

self-portrait at musée condé, chantilly

Seen at a French railway station, a sign points out that seats in a waiting area have been set aside for the handicapped.

The text is clearly stated (in French). Pictograms accompany the text, but they lack clarity. They illustrate different sorts of handicap: people who are deaf, blind, wheelchair-bound.

The fourth pictogram leaves me puzzled. By elimination, it seems to illustrate mental handicaps and possibly alludes to people with Down’s syndrome. But it looks like a pair of masks, suggesting actors. And as one face is black and the other white, the pictogram also inadvertently makes all sorts of awkward ethnic allusions, suggesting handicap among foreigners, people of color, pale people, or multi-racial couples.

French prime minister François Fillon accepted lavish gifts, including use of a private jet and luxury hotel accomodations, from Mubarek while vacationing in Egypt between Christmas and the New Year, it has been reported.

Fillon saw no need to comment on the situation until the day before a national newspaper went to press with the story. Fillon’s office has limited remarks, and the prime minister left National Assembly question time early, and ducking the press at appearances yesterday.

As with a similar problem with French foreign affairs minister Alliot-Marie, Fillon’s office answered questions posed with indirection: Fillon was on a private trip, but he did have a meeting with Mubarek; Fillon will pay (or has already paid) for use of a French government jet that carried him to and from Egypt.

To the fundamental question of why the leader of the government would feel compelled or entitled to accept significant gifts from the Egyptian strongman, silence seems to be the only answer.

Some commentators have drawn a connection between the Sarkozy presidency and a political class with loose morals. For my part, I’m inclined to believe that the scandal could have arisen under a left-wing government.

The big story is the insouciance with which the French political class willingly accepts –and maybe actively seeks– personal gain from office, while in office. The gains tend to be soft, consumable, and offshore; but there seems to be a cognitive gap where others would perceive conflict of interest, profiting from public service, or the appearance of impropriety.

The little story is a proclivity, at least among monied Parisians, towards long-distance travel during the week between Christmas and the New Year. In a manner akin to the “5-to-7″, where married men feel unduly imposed upon if asked to account for their late-afternoon activities, there may exist a French social habit where a nice vacation abroad is taken as a matter of course, not the subject for probing questions.

Despite an abundance of civic-minded talent among conservatives, French president Sarkozy continues to surround himself with people whom he knows but who lack policy skill or political savvy.

The most recent diplomatic blunder comes from the woman in charge of French diplomacy, foreign affairs minister Michèle Alliot-Marie.

Alliot-Marie was practically born into politics: her father was a political figure in the French Basque country (and is today a rugby referee, which in some respects is a higher political calling). Alliot-Marie long served as a local official on the Atlantic coast and as an MP. As though she were playing a ministerial Monopoly game, Alliot-Marie assumed the foreign affairs ministry last year, after having previously served in  conservative governments over the past twenty-five years as minister for justice, interior, defense, youth, and education.

Despite an impressive background in politics, Alliot-Marie has made some remarkably impolitic blunders in the past weeks.

Most recently, Alliot-Marie made an appearance in Cairo where she flattered the Mubarak regime with praise that seems not to have been necessary or diplomatically expedient.

This absence of diplomatic caution is all the more remarkable as Alliot-Marie had faced public criticism, only a few weeks earlier, in the wake of an offer of French savoir-faire in policing or riot control to the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia.

The revelation that most calls into question Alliot-Marie’s judgment is also the most personal, concerning a vacation Alliot-Marie took with her husband (a longtime conservative MP, now deputy minister for parliamentary relations) during a vacation between Christmas and the New Year.

Given that protest had already gripped Tunisia before her departure, Alliot-Marie’s first lapse in judgment was going on the holiday at all: even while traveling as a private person, Alliot-Marie’s ministerial function would give rise to all sorts of speculation.

More fundamentally, while on vacation, Alliot-Marie rode in a private jet and stayed at a luxury hotel owned by Tunisian businessman Aziz Miled. On this point, French commentators have gotten sidetracked, intrigued with minutia such as whether Miled was part of or apart from the Ben Ali regime. This misses the fundamental political point of accepting gifts, especially those offered by foreigners in turbulent places to the political head of a diplomatic service. It is remarkable that a diplomatic head, seasoned by decades in politics, would fail to appreciate the appearance of impropriety that accepting such gifts -calls for Alliot-Marie or her husband to produce receipts (for the hotel stay) have, so far, gone unanswered- would create. It is despairing that she would not have thought to take a few steps to make sure such an appearance would never be created.