LETTER FROM PARIS #26 - ever-green

In the name of “green” one of the world’s greatest city streets closed for three days.

The Champs Elysees, all the way from the Tuileries to the Arc De Triomphe closed for Sunday (when we attended,) Monday and Tuesday.

In place of the enormous streams of traffic there were thousands of trees, bushes, flowers, lawns and, because I didn’t “do” the entire length, I’m not sure what other kinds of farm flora and fauna were on display.

If you have trouble with crowds, do not visit “Nature Capitale.” I am no estimator of crowd sizes, but the number was in the hundreds of thousands. For all I know – half a million. It is right up there, perhaps exceeding the Pope on Easter Sunday blessing the crowds in front of St. Peter's, or the mobs that jam Times Square for New Year’s Eve.

What I gather is, it is a celebration of France’s most cherished industry: agriculture. They proclaim “L’agriculture est capitale pour les generations futures.” The event is there not only to celebrate everything that is grown or bred in France, but to encourage youth to become part of it.

I’m not sure if it is, for the hundreds of thousand pushing through crowds, a stimulation to direct their interest toward all forms of farming. husbandry, and forestry. Or were the crowds there to gape and take pictures and share the event. I do know that the French, and the government, take their agricultural and forestry industry very seriously. You only have to look back at how any uprising by farmers can bring the whole country to a stop.

But I wasn’t there for the politics of agronomy, or to see if French youth is really interested. The fact is that it was like the biggest midway you’ve ever seen. I was told by Henri not to miss it. We tired after a couple of hours in the unforgiving sun and tottered back to the shelter of our apartment.

I took only one precaution: knowing how the Champs Elysees teems with tourists who are magnets for the shadier members of the local population, I did not carry a bag. I put a couple of credit cards and some cash into a bag I hang around my neck and hide under my T-shirt. I looked around me but saw no one suspicious. I saw notbeggars or thieves or pickpockets. I heard no police sirens and saw no confusion.
What I did enjoy seeing, in a kind of perverse way, were the crowds at MacDonald's.

Really - what I saw is what I felt – delight, just to be there, pushing and shoving through the crowds.