September 30, 2014
I spent twelve days away from Beauregard and Caunes, and it did me good. I learned several things: 1. that the Mediterranean coast of the département nearest Italy, Alpes Maritimes, is full of Russians, that real estate agencies bear signs in Russian, hoping to attract their custom. The same is true in San Remo, Italy, another redoubt of 19th century royals, if less intimate now than the nearby French villages of Menton, Beaulieu-sur-Mer, Cap Ferrat and Villfranche-sur-Mer.
I also learned 2. that driving on the French toll roads from the Italian border to Toulon is a driver's dream. The tolls mount, but the roads are fleet and well-maintained, curling through the mountains that hug the Meditrranean. For the first time ever, I enjoyed driving very much.
I also learned 3. how pleasurable it can be to be on a sailboat at rest in a beautiful harbor, specifically that of Hyères. The village has beautiful areas, notably the old town; and students of the European avant garde in the 20th century will find it worthwhile to mount -and mount, and mount to reach the Villa Noailles, the concrete villa created by Robert Mallet-Stevens for the Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Noilles, between 1923 and 1927. The concrete has not aged well and the right-angled rooms are not to my taste, but the overlook is worthy of an emperor and empress.
Returning to Caunes Saturday, I had a weekend before I had to pick up Beauregard, who did well by his stay with Madame Froment. I found a calmer dog, perhaps due to the naturopathic capsules Madame Froment gave Beau each morning: sprinkled over the dog food, the taste mimics that of a canine mother's milk. Eager to see Beau's transformation continue, I visited Dr. Mougin and signed up for a month's supply, the normal course of treatment.
Now it is time to attend to the tasks associated with closing the house: Monday I went to the Trésorie Publique to pay the taxe foncière and set up the mensualité (auto-pay) for it and the smaller tax levied in late November, the taxe d'habitation, which includes the yearly tax on televisions.
In paying the tax I discovered something surprising: the notaire who handled the real estate transaction identified me by my late husband's name, "Barbeosch", rather than mine, "Varela". Of course, this suggests that the deed filed is also in Bill's name. And while it might not be particularly serious in the case of the taxes, as the funds will be deducted automatically from my French bank account, should I wish to sell --or the house pass under French estate law-- the notaires' error will complicate matters.
Another error I discovered relating to the house is that once again, my internet, telephone and television company, Orange, signed me up for a contract for a house that belongs to someone in residence year-round, rather than someone who has signed up for an Orange contract for a second residence. All of which means that next year I will have to set up the service from scratch, paying contract cancellation fees meanwhile and losing what I had thought would be my permanent phone number. La Marbrerie may once again, become my office next summer.
All these inconveniences are as nothing relative to what the average Frenchman is going through. Yesterday the news reported that the number of salaried employees asking their employers for an advance on their salaries for the purpose of paying their tax bill has exploded. Today the news reported that for the first time the French national debt passed the two billion Euro mark. That means that a baby born today can be said to be responsible for 30,000 Euros of the debt.
Tomorrow the Air France pilot's strike, which has lasted two weeks and stranded passengers all over the world, ends. The strike stranded passengers far and wide: the France 2 correspondent in Moscow explained that a particular problem for travelers whose fights were cancelled there was that they were forced to overstay their visas. Those that could grabbed flights out of Russia to anywhere in Europe, for instance, Frankfurt, the third busiest airport in Europe after Heathrow in London and Charles de Gaulle in Paris. The strike is estimated to have cost Air France $355 million dollars. The reason for the pilot's strike? Their opposition to the development of a low-cost airline by Air France.
Other unhappy news:
- Senior citizens were told that as inflation has not increased, they would not receive a cost-of-living allowance expected by many of them.
-Parents of families learned that the allocation familiale --paid to any family with two or more children under twenty, regardless of income-- would be reduced.
-Pharmacists were told that legislation would end their monopoly on the sale of over-the-counter medications and permit sale of the products at shopping centers. (Some pharmacists say the sale of over-the-counter medications accounts for 25% of their sales.)
Meanwhile, the Front National picked up two seats in the Senat. The French senators are not elected directly, but by the mayors and conseillers of French départements, regions and towns. Their power to express dissatisfaction with a President and his government is more limited than that of the Assemblée Nationale, which is necessarily of the same party as the president's. The election of two FN Senators is not expected to shift the balance of power --overall the Senate elections shifted power to the right. However, the election of two Senators is a symbolic first for the party of the Le Pen family and illustrates the increasing reach --and sophistication-- of the party.
The Front National is gaining support among France's disparate working classes, which both parties have written off. The FN is attracting young supporters and more, leaders who would never have a chance in either the Parti Socialiste (PS) or the Unton pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP). "Without a degree from one of the "Grands Écoles" it is impossible to get anywhere in either the PS or the UMP," observed a French political scientist. "In the FN, if you are talented, you rise."
In fact, one of the new Senators, David Rachline, the mayor of Frejus in the Var, is twenty-six years old. (In France, one can hold both offices.) Activist from the age of 15 years of age, Rachline plies the anti-immigrant line, popular in Frejus, where many pieds noirs (French returned to France after the country abandoned its colonies in North Africa) live. Stéphane Ravier, the mayor of the seventh district of Marseilles, won the other Senate seat.
This is the third defeat of the PS by the FN: earlier this year the FN took twelve mayoral contests, before winning 24 or 74 seats in the elections for French representatives to the European parliament on the strength of almost 25% of the votes.
France's working class has been relegated to the periphery of national politics by the two major parties and the FN has taken advantage of that to broaden its base beyond the original anti-immigrant base of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the eighty-five year old founder of the party. His daughter Marine is shrewd enough to articulate a party line that buries the anti-immigrant impulse (which is less acceptable outside France's Midi) in rhetoric that speaks of France, of civility, of traditional values --a line that appeals more in France's industrial northeast.
Hollande's term has two and a half years more to run. Little is anticipated from his government, besieged from within and without. With the beheading in Algeria of Hervé Gourdel, the French mountain guide, many French are re-evaluating their attitudes towards the Muslim population. Combined with the economy's moribund state and the worsening of conditions for its improvement, it is not a happy time to be a Frenchman in France.
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