La Coupe du Mondialisation

I saw this sticker graffiti the other day. For anyone who doesn't know, the "Maghreb" are the three french-speaking countries of North Africa: Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. In North Africa, the relationships between the countries are a little terse (borders are closed between Algeria and the other two, who want to distance themselves from Algeria's fundamentalism; Tunisia is the tightest with the EU and strives to present itself as Westernized, much to the disdain of the other two; Morocco has by far the highest tourism rate). However, here in France where immigrants of all three nations find themselves in the margins, they seem to be united. Or at least aspire to be:

I got to witness this firsthand at the England-Algeria World Cup match, which I went to watch in State Charlety. This stadium, with its spacey, planet-like ring around it, must have seemed like a great idea when it was rebuilt in the early 90s--rebuild stadium in the dead zone on the Paris perimeter, bring people and revenue to the area. It flopped horribly, however, quickly falling into disuse and disrepair. As an effort to use the space, the Mairie of Paris decided to open it to the public for the World Cup and project all of the French, Algerian, Cameroonian and Ivory Coast World Cup games on the jumbotron. Since the southern suburbs host a lot of Paris' Muslim families, the Stadium attracted an enthusiastic crowd for the Algerian match.

I was thrilled to be in the midst of the excitement. The French, however, were not. I had already heard several racist doomsday prophesies muttered at me throughout the day ("The Algerians are playing tonight? Alas. And it had been so calm up until now. Guess everything will be broken tomorrow. Better stay in and lock the doors...") The huge lines of riot police waiting to heard us along when we got off the metro were a testament to this fear--which seemed completely unwarranted when juxtaposed with the families of women and children passing by, on their way to cheer on their country.

Almost every Algerian supporter seemed to be wearing some form of their flag, be it face paint, a jersey, or even a flag-cape. There were also a sizable minority of Tunisian and Moroccan flags being waved and worn in support of the Algerian team--and surprisingly, with the full support of the bearers' Algerian peers. It had never occurred to me before, but the Algerian flag is, quite appropriately, a visual amalgam of the three francophone countries' flags--it has the star/Moon emblem of the Tunisian flag, and the red and white color scheme, but it mixes those elements with the green of Morocco's flag.

If you watched the game, you already know that it was pretty dull and uneventful. You wouldn't have known from the Algerian supporters' enthusiasm, though--everytime one of their players merely had possession of the ball they would start cheering like crazy, and any attempt at scoring, no matter how ridiculous or off the mark, would produce a roar of approval that sounded no less joyful than an actual goal might have been (had one ever been scored). At halftime, fans stormed the bleachers at the far side of the field with flares and scaled the stadium to wave flags from the top as florescent-vested stadium workers did their best to keep things under control.
The excitement was even greater at the end of the game. Flares were lit across the field, and there was a wild stampede towards the exit to reach the riot-police lined streets, where you could hear the whoops and cries and horn-honks of "victory" (well, of 'not losing'--the game tied 0-0) for hours to come.
I'm a little sad that the Algerian team didn't score because I'm curious to know what the reaction would have been. On the other hand, I'm also glad England didn't win, because I would have hated for the suspicion and mistrust behind the scads of riot police to have been justified. As it was, the Algerian reception of our group of Americans and an Englishman was jolly and playful, and the experience wholly unifying. It's a real shame that America's two favorite pastimes--football and baseball--are so insular, because it seems that nothing brings countries together like sports.

Strike!

With the RER on strike (yet again) today, I opted to walk home from Denfert Rochereau. I started hearing Michael Jackson about half way along Rue Daguerre. I decided to investigate, and this is what I found:


Not far away, I ran into an awkward white dance party, rocking out to tracks from Grease:
(that's for you, Laura)


Block party? Festival? No, of course not. It's a strike!

Confused? So was I. It took a group of excited, costumed French workers and a few sheets of propaganda to explain it to me. Apparently the strikes are nationwide, against a new proposed law that would push the age of retirement back from where it is currently set at 60 years old. Their posters made me laugh: "6o isn't early enough, 40 years of working is already too much!"--not because I disagree with the idea, necessarily, but because starting work at 20 is pretty old by American standards, not to mention totally unrepresentative of French youth, who seem to linger around the house and mooch off their parents until their mid 20's.

Sticker of plebeian rage were everywhere:
As were banners and huge helium balloons strapped to cars:


There were a range of different career fields represented at the strike, from street cleaners, to industrial chemical workers, to nurses. This nurse was wearing a lab coat and a jester hat with syringes dangling from its points: Grève-ing starts young. Here, we see that even the students are invested in the age of retirement:
The magic words, it seemed, were "salariés respectés" (respected workers). For the French, retirement seems to be not so much a matter of resources (or lack thereof) so much as it is an issue of respect--or at least that's the way it is being framed in the reactionary rhetoric.
The parade started to move, and I moved with it, cheering and drinking in the excited atmosphere:
Many of the vans were equipped with loudspeakers and blasted music, motivational, anti-Sarkozy speeches or, most commonly, simple chants: (in this one, she's leading the paraders in a cry of "tous ensemble, tous ensemble--Grève! Grève!" or "all together, all together--Strike! Strike!" which is catchy, I suppose, if rather uninspired)



The MJ performance wasn't the only aspect of the strike that felt bizarrely party-like, as the drink menu on the ubiquitous food vans showed:
Ah. The abandoned, lime-filled cups and jolly strikers suddenly made sense.

This particular food van made me smile, because it seemed like the majority of its protest signage was general, revolutionary stuff (note the Che Guevera flag), which I assume means that it has been adapted for frequent use at this type of event. And you know what? That's probably a smart business move, because even if the economy plummets, France will still continue to strike (probably moreso) and those strikers will still want their 2 euro beers and baguette sandwiches. Even the French term "en grève" (on a strike) sounds to me like a habitual action, almost happy: "on vacation", or even comical: "gone fishing".
But maybe that's just because I've grown accustomed to hearing it with a casual attitude and a frequency that I never hear associated with its English equivalent. The French are often mocked for their eagerness to strike, but the American taboo on strikes reflects a cold, capitalist approach that values efficiency over workers' rights, and leaves the overworked and mistreated with little recourse. Striking in France makes these workers more visible, and as a result, more respected and more accommodated.

And even if the strike doesn't accomplish anything--if Sarko insists on dragging his 35-hr work week, early retiring country kicking and screaming into the modern world--well, at least the French got a good party out of it.

Living it up like the ancient Greeks

Athens felt a little like Spain to me: built up to be cute for tourists but happening, with a real pulse, and slightly less developed/cheaper than Western European countries. Greece in general seemed to have a lot of stray animals and a fair amount of abandoned construction projects --perhaps the after effects of a once much healthier tourism-fueled economy. It also progresses very quickly from the cute, friendly, consumer-driven tourist center of Athens to the grittier, grumpier, no-English-spoken "suburbs"--our trips to and from Athens' industrial port city of Pireas were a little less than picturesque. The Athenian transportation system leaves a little to be desired as well. The city's entire bus and metro system was shut down on the day we arrived, and when we returned the metro was running but with several stops closed, making it necessary to use a replacement bus service for part of the line. When we tried to get to the airport the next day the end stretch of the line was out of service, so we again had to rely on a taxi. Irritating, but at least it puts my annoyance with Parisian train strikes into perspective (train systems here are required by law to maintain minimum service, so it's never entirely impossible to get where you need to go).

Here's the view of the hilltop Acropolis from our hostel balcony. We got a private room and bathroom, kitchenette and sweet balcony for 25 euros a night each. Definitely the best value hostel I've ever stayed in:

Laura, enjoying said balcony after taking a car to a rickety island bus to a ferry to a train to a line replacement bus to another train to get there (ah, disfunctional Greek public transportation):

Big communist protest group we ran into while walking around. We never managed to figure out exactly what they were protesting, but considering the current financial crisis I'd say the government's handling of the country's finances is a good bet:

Cool graffiti found halfway up the Acropolis hill:The cool thing about Athens is that it's a bustling, modern city, but then everywhere you turn you see remnants of something from the 5th century. Wild. There was even an underground monument area in the middle of Monastiraki plaza, where you could look through glass as you walked across to see the stone foundations of ancient houses around a long since dried river.

Monastiraki plaza at night (you can just see the Acropolis lit up in the background):
We splurged on a nice dinner for our last night, being sure to get our fill of stuffed vine leaves, feta, zucchini balls, lamb, moussaka and a honey-cake dessert called galactobourico. After heading back to the hostel we enjoyed a night view of the Acropolis over 3-euro pints of Mythos (Greece's go-to cheap beer) at our hostel's rooftop bar: