Paris Noir

PARIS CALLING by JEAN-HUGUES OPPEL

Paris is calling for help, gentlemen…’

The suits with matching ties and pocket handkerchiefs sit around three sides of the boardroom table, stony faced. The only woman present (suit-blouse-neckscarf- not matching, for ultimate chic) greets the opening remark addressed solely to the men with a resigned shrug. She’s more than used to the all-but-automatic boorishness of her peers, whatever their position in the social or political – above all political -hierarchy.

The speaker seems to notice his omission. By way of excusing himself, he grimaces vaguely in the woman’s direction before going on, his torso bending forward slightly as he rests his fists on the table below him like pillars under a viaduct.

His sharp gaze took in his audience, face by face, before he uttered his first words, a way of quickly making acquaintance to avoid the tiresome ritual of introductions. No one avoided his eye. Someone coughed slightly, breaking the graveyard silence that had prevailed until then in the boardroom of a sumptuous building in the ministerial district.

No minister is present. They are all represented by their chiefs of staff or their deputies. The woman with the offbeat scarf hails from Foreign Affairs.

The speaker has the unmistakeable air of a secret service mole. Yes, Paris is calling for help, he repeats, enunciating each syllable, adding, after a short pause for breath, that as he speaks, right here, right now, it’s no longer a question of deciding if the capital’s terrible cry is justified or not, but of understanding why we remain deaf to it still today.

The woman with the scarf discreetly admires the speaker’s subtle rhetoric, which somehow makes ‘we’ sound like ‘you’. With a jerk of the chin, the speaker indicates the file handed to each person before they entered the room, a file whose contents will perhaps help unblock a few ears in high places. This hardbound file contains: a thick pamphlet of spiral-bound A4 pages, in small print to save paper; a series of colour and black-and-white photographs, numbered in the chronological order in which they were taken; a CD-ROM containing the report and photographs in current software formats for computer nerds incapable of reading anything – words or figures – unless it’s on a screen.

The speaker reminds anyone who might not know that a study’s been requested from his serv… from the organisation he works for. The slip draws a few ironic smiles from the assembled audience. Next the speaker announces that the summary of this study can be found in the written report which details all the sociological issues. The photographs are there to illustrate certain aspects of the phenomenon, the better to capture the imaginations of superiors whose minds are sometimes on other things; with a decent budget, they might have had animated images and stereo sound too.

In several shots, a casual observer might nonetheless note at first glance that a burning car in the night is a beautiful thing.

There were hundreds of them in the streets and in residential car parks in the autumn of last year, and in all four corners of the country. The fire had started at the gateways to the capital, following the umpteenth tragic news report of suburban youths pitted against police officers. The fire in the city had lasted a month.

A month of riots.

Riots that were predictable. The speaker would go even further, weighing his words: they were so predictable they should never have happened at all.

‘Business good, Momo?’

‘Well yeah, I s’pose, sir, but shit, it’s been better! Hash doesn’t pay like it used to, and I’m not even talking about the stuff that falls off the back of a van, hi-fis and TVs… Prices are rock bottom! Lucky there’s still mobiles to make a bit of profit on, otherwise business would be a total disaster!’

‘So it’s lucky I turn up from time to time, huh?’

‘Don’t I know it, sir. You pay well but times are hard and I’m the family breadwinner, so you’ve got to understand I’m putting up prices for information…’

‘You’re on the ball, aren’t you! Life’s tough, especially for the poor, or didn’t you know? People have got no money now, Momo, so they’re going back to basics; first things first and the small stuff goes out the window, see?’

‘I don’t see anything when you start talking like the class brainbox!’

‘Because you went to school, I suppose? It’s true you can count…’

‘Of course!’

‘People are skint so they haven’t got the money to buy your junk any more. D’you get it now, Momo?’

‘Yes sir, I get it. But it stinks, if you ask me, because if that’s true and it goes on like this any longer, things’ll stay in the shit and we’ll have to find ways out of it so we can put food on the table, see?

‘If not, I’m telling you, all hell’s going to break loose on the estates.

‘The shit’s really going to hit the fan, sir.’

The Prime Minister’s chief of staff is disconcerted by the speaker’s last assertion, delivered as if it were gospel truth: was he accusing the government of incompetence? Or worse, laxity? The Minister of the Interior’s right-hand man immediately weighs in, fearing a dirty trick by opponents hidden even among those loyal to the majority party.

The speaker raises a conciliatory hand. He’s accusing no one in particular. He’s merely making an observation.

An observation that someone, anyone, should have made ages ago: the accumulation of social problems and architectural aberrations, the increased poverty resulting from the continued rise in unemployment and the growing precariousness of remaining jobs, of deliberately badly controlled illegal immigration and thus of more-or-less latent racism, which will eventually lead to the ghettoisation that automatically acts as a breeding ground for religious fanaticism, and… Need he go on? This has been the state of affairs for a good half century, deteriorating almost daily, depending on which party’s in power, so we shouldn’t pretend we just discovered the scale of the disaster upon opening our eyes this morning.

Undisguised anxiety is painted on most of the faces around the long table. Some of the speaker’s words were unpleasant to hear, but more than that, they’ve prompted enormous doubts as to the reality on the ground. Several hands go up, requesting permission to speak.

The first question asked, relating to the allegedly ‘badly controlled’ illegal immigration, in fact sums up almost all the rest.

The speaker could have bet on it.

He restricts himself to reminding everyone that if there were available jobs elsewhere, no one would willingly leave their country and their family to come and sweat blood and tears in France. And if these jobs were properly remunerated, unemployed nationals would snap them up, but since the pay offered is worse than laughable, they’re reserved for a docile workforce that’s easily replaceable and thus exploitable because it’s outside the law. Illegal workers fulfil these criteria perfectly.

Californians don’t risk their lives swimming across the Rio Grande to go and work their fingers to the bone as illegal slaves in Mexico.

The speaker makes this point with a broad mocking smile.

His humour doesn’t raise a laugh in the boardroom. The smile fades into a carnivorous scowl; the speaker chews his words like a predator that’s captured its prey after three months of enforced starvation.

Once they’ve established that the massive presence of foreigners on their soil is artificial, but definitely never presented as such, it’s easy to understand why racism rages on and why emphasis on minority issues is fast becoming prevalent. By humiliating the other without giving him a say in the matter, a painful feeling of powerlessness develops within him, and powerlessness leads to violence if over-enthusiastic souls fan the flames of revolt. The religious fanatic is a fine example of this bellows effect. One only needs to observe the growing number of veiled women and girls within a Muslim community adrift in Christian lands to measure the quasi-exponential expansion of a religion whose stranglehold tightens a little more each year around bewildered populations attempting to shelter behind the barriers of tradition.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs delegate points out in passing that the veiling of women and girls in fact has very little to do with religion, fanatical or not, and a great deal to do with oppression by men who consider it’s always less tiring to eat couscous than to make it.

The men around the table and the speaker feebly concur, looking away.

‘Pissed off, Momo? Your girlfriend ditch you?’

‘Her? Her father and brothers are giving me dirty looks, yeah, they’re morons, but no it’s not that.’

‘What then?’

‘Haven’t you seen the neighbourhood, sir? It’s enough to piss you off, isn’t it? It’s not a neighbourhood any more. There are so many cops on the street, day and night, it’s a fucking pigsty! It wasn’t exactly fun and games before, but now a guy can’t work!’

‘Is the deal breaking down again, Momo? My condolences! Well, you shouldn’t have gone overboard with the Molotov cocktails… It looked good on TV, but the President wasn’t exactly thrilled, you know.’

‘The President can go fuck himself! Is he going to put food on my table? Can he strip a truck with his eyes closed, the fat bastard? Cut good Colombian with the right dose of flour? Respray stolen cars? My arse.’

‘That I don’t know, but apparently he has other, hidden, talents. Tell me, little Momo, did I hear you right? There are still cars to steal? That’s news! You didn’t burn them all last month?’

‘Don’t take the piss, sir, I swear, life’s no joke right now. If I’m broke, I can’t pay the rent and my family will be evicted, the mayor said so, the bastard!’

The speaker draws himself up, an incantatory finger pointing to the ceiling. More serious, according to him, is the vanishing social mix in the capital.

A lot more serious because it has implications for the near future, so near it’s already around the corner.

Does anyone here know the price per square metre in Paris? the speaker hammers it out to the beat of a requiem. Of the lowest possible rent, if you can find someone willing to let you even a crummy studio on the top floor with no lift? Who, among the Parisian middle classes, can still afford to live in the centre of Paris these days? The last remnants of accessible working-class districts are disappearing one by one under so-called joint urban rehabilitation programmes, which don’t even bother to hide their true nature – lucrative property speculation – any more.

The Finance Minister’s chief of staff looks at the speaker askance. He can’t quite place this young upstart who makes remarks that a hardened left-winger wouldn’t disagree with, and, making no bones about it, decides to ask him where he lives. Unfazed, the speaker replies that he lives in the outer suburbs but for security reasons he’s not authorised to discuss that here. He won’t, however, insult anyone by asking for private addresses at such a fine gathering of senior ministerial officials, who ought to be aware of how many of their subordinates really can easily afford to live less than twenty minutes away from their workplace.

Never lost for words when the opportunity presents itself, the only woman in the room points out that it’s become commonplace at international level: what mid-income household can still afford to live in the centre of London, for instance? The big cities are emptying themselves of their poor, one after the other. The exodus speeds up when a hurricane has the bright idea of ravaging the metropolitan coastline. Having said that, the rich don’t all cling to their town houses but prefer a life of luxury in the country or the privacy of good company in five-star apartment complexes with a pool and private militia, sifting visitors at the entrance.

The speaker doesn’t disagree, but his concern is Paris, Paris whose well-off inhabitants are not only deaf to the complaints of suburbanites but also blind to the urgency of their situation since they don’t realise the ghetto’s been reversed. The speaker’s tone suddenly turns bitter, the words fall one by one like bombs.

It’s time to stop feeling sorry for ourselves. Urgent full-scale measures must be taken, unless we want to see the isolated city plundered, invaded by new, ravenous beggars who will cross the orbital road – on horseback if necessary, if they haven’t eaten their horses first. Their kids with wolf-like fangs are no longer content with fine words when it’s become impossible even to make a dishonest living. The speaker knows them. The speaker’s seen them. The speaker no longer sees those who were once his best informants on the ground.

Yesterday, they stole. Today, they have guns.

Barbaric hordes are surrounding the capital. It will only take a spark for the city to be besieged, while awaiting the final assault which will have the last privileged few taking refuge on the Ile Saint Louis or the Ile de la Cité, in the middle of the Seine, blowing up the bridges behind them. In the glow of the fires that will devour the nights, the city of fire and blood will plunge into the chaos of a future with no tomorrow. So yes, again yes, Paris smells danger and sends out an alarm signal. Paris is calling. Paris is calling with all the strength it has left. Paris is calling for other cities to help before it’s too late.

‘You were meant to call me, Momo. Did you forget?’

‘No, sir, but I couldn’t. I was busy, I couldn’t find the time, you’ll have to forgive me…’

‘Oh, so you found a job? An honest job, I mean?’

‘Don’t swear, sir!’

‘Ha, that’s a good one, well done! I knew you were a good grass and now I see you can be witty too. So tell me, am I going to have to do without your services, Momo?’

‘Well, sir, it won’t be like before, sir, yeah, I’m sorry but…’

‘But you’ve found someone who pays better than me, that’s all. I get it, I’m not stupid, I only hope you’re not barking up the wrong tree. They’re saying second-hand Kalashnikovs bring in more than dope these days, Momo?’

‘I don’t know, sir. Seems so, yeah. But then some people would say anything to get attention.’

‘Momo, you disappoint me, you know that?’

‘I’m not a grass any more, sir!’

Alone and last to leave the boardroom, the woman with the scarf slowly closes the open file in front of her as if sealing a tomb. The speaker’s lyrical flights have scared her. His last words are still ringing in her ears, like a haunting refrain: Paris is calling for help…

But who will hear?

Translation © Lulu Norman and Ros Schwartz