Paul from Paris

The school year now sets the rhythm or backbeat to life in France. (I’ve posted on this point, twice.)

This is especially true this year, in my life.

We took up a challenge and relocated our family base from the historic center of Paris to a mountain town high in the Pyrenees.

Our move offered me a chance to step back and think about this blog. Since 2008, the world and blogging has changed; so have my own interests and preoccupations. After giving a close look at blogs that I read and canvassing some newcomers, I made some changes to this blog: a new theme, new kinds of posts.

As always, thanks to my readers for keeping in touch and carrying on lively discussions.

5 rue de Luynes

“Finally, we’ll describe the charm of detail, of invention, of inspiration from nature for the sculpted elements that seduced all of us in an apartment building on the rue de Luynes, by the architect Pradelle.”

These were the remarks made by the jury when it chose Pradelle and his building at 5 rue de Luynes as having one of the six priezwinning facades in Paris for the year 1904.

Pradelle’s building looks typically Parisian, Haussmannian. Nothing makes it stand out from its neighbors, in a quiet part of the 7th arrondissement.

Pradelle’s inventiveness lies principally in his use of decoration, especially vegetal and floral motifs. The ironwork of the building door signals or echoes these motifs.

floral motif; "swastika" motif unfortunate in hindsight

A hundred years ago, the city of Paris held a yearly contest, brought to a halt by the first world war. The contest chose the six best building facades built in a given year.

This was a brilliant contest. By celebrating the facade –what a passerby sees, from the street– the city celebrated citizens as much as architects. By critiquing the facade, the city also addressed, indirectly, ongoing social patterns: urbanization; democratization; social classes and disparities of wealth; tradition versus novelty. Since the time of Baron Haussmann, Paris building facades were regulated strictly; architects in 1900 used a limited vocabulary in surprisingly innovative and challenging ways. By choosing six winners, the city allowed for diverse schools and interpretations to shine.

The spirit of these years and of this contest is captured by an observation from the city of Paris:

No one disputes that Paris is the most beautiful capital in the world. It owes this supreme glory not only to the magnificence of the Seine, its avenues, its parks, its gardens, its squares –whose aspects are in all points admirable– not only to the varity and number of its sumptuous monuments; but also to the felicitous line of its broad streets, which offer profound perspectives that give it the cachet of opulent originality, for which there is no equivalent, anywhere abroad.

The quotation is from a publication by the city of Paris, Les concours de façades de la ville de Paris, 1898-1905, published in Paris by the Librairie de la construction moderne (the quoted passage is on p. 23; the translation is mine). The passage struck me, partly because it’s so triumphantly chauvinist, but especially because it places the heart of what makes a city great and beautiful at and in the street.

Les concours de façades de la ville de Paris was published in two volumes, one for the years 1898-1905, the other for the years 1906-1912. I located and read a copy at the historical library of the City of Paris. The contest offered a public reward and recognition for architects, and I regret that the slender volumes have gone out of print. The contest reports, and the drawings or photographs of award-winning facades, are priceless. In the coming days, I’ll comment on some of the winners that especially marked me.

Neveah. It’s “heaven” spelled backwards, and it’s become a popular name for girls in the United States.

This tells me that life in the United States has changed (a lot) since I moved to France. Never in my life have I met a Neveah. Never would I have dreamed that such a name existed, or had become popular.

Names given to babies change over time. They also vary from place to place.

Here are the names most often given to boys and girls in the USA in 2009:

Are names given babies similar across English-speaking countries? Here are the most frequently given in 2009 names in the Australian state of New South Wales:

What about names given to babies in Europe? To highlight differences, consider European countries whose national language is not English. Here are the 2009 results for France:

These are the comparable results in Italy:

Finally, these are the 2008 results for Spain:

The financial crisis in Greece, and especially how this crisis is being handled today, bring back memories of Henry Paulson’s efforts in 2008 to contain the financial crisis in the United States.

The process troubles me. Here’s why:

• Magnification. All 27 EU member states are equal, but the relative size of the Greek economy is small, accounting for about 2.5% of the overall EU GDP.
• Insistence on hasty action. Only immediate action is thought to stop or reverse the crisis. This having been said, when action is taken, the crisis returns: markets fall, instability moves elsewhere.
• The absence of deliberation. The problem is presented as technical and difficult to understand. The solution to the problem is presented as technocratic, not democratic. Politicians appeal to experts (and other politicians) operating behind closed doors, leaving no space for discussion or debate.

Something odd happened to me last week: I felt sympathy with positions taken by the French communist party on the Greek situation. What made me feel this way? The terms of a three-year austerity package, reportedly a condition to a bailout –the word has been transposed from the United States to Greece– by the IMF and EU:

• New taxes, including a 10% hike in excise taxes on gas, alcohol, and tobacco;
• Increasing the value added tax from 19% to 23% (which would mean that a consumer who purchases goods for €100 would have to pay €123).
• Freezing state pensions, increasing the retirement age by two years and the duration of social security contributions by three years;
• Freezing public-sector pay until 2014, and stopping or capping bonuses.

The reported aim of these measures reportedly is to trim the Greek budget deficit by € 30 billion, and to reduce the extent of deficit spending, expressed as a percentage of GDP, from 13.6% today to under 3% by 2014.

Will this work? Will it really achieve the aims intended?

Don’t the aims sound abstract? Deficit spending is nothing new in Greece: why has an acceptable process (in 2009, for example) become impossible in 2010? Why hasn’t Greece acted forcefully to reduce tax evasion, which reportedly costs the Greek treasury €20 billion annually? In the alternative, why hasn’t Greece acted decisively to reform a tax code with a complex tower of increasing marginal rates, in order to reduce the incentive to misstate earnings? Finally, because symbols matter, why haven’t the Greek prime minister and other officials themselves taken steep pay cuts? Why must the first response be huge tax increases and punitive treatment of civil servants (but not necessarily of the programs they administer)? Why does the response come solely from the government, and why are markets absent? Why doesn’t Greece want to grow its economy to promote healthier public finances?

My predictions:

• There’s a disconnect between the Greek authorities and the citizenry at large. It will expand.
• The austerity package will “solve” the problem as much as the Bear Stearns rescue “solved” problems in the United States.
• The “solution” won’t work. Politically, it is not feasible; the markets know this.
• Markets ultimately will realign the financial situation; governments will take credit for this.