Today’s Paris Story

On our drive into Paris yesterday we were singing lines from Les Miserables. Everyone loves Victor Hugo’s story of the everydayman driven by desperation to a small crime, excessively punished but spirit unbroken by oppression, pursued by the villainous policeman who follows the unjust law to a mindless extent, with no thought for the people harmed along the way. It’s a compelling and enduring story.

We heard another story a couple hours later, of a young male who was stopped by police, tried to flee the scene, and the police, fearing he was a threat, fired on him and he was killed. Then people unrelated to the event came out and burned cars, buses, and businesses, destroying the city that belongs to them in violence deemed intolerable and inexcusable by those in power. That is also a compelling and enduring story.

With a little research, I read the story of the 2017 French law allowing officers to shoot at driving cars (something generally prohibited around the world) and the result that these incidents increased more than sixfold in the years since. Some people said no, people are just running from the cops more than they used to, and indeed that has doubled, but 2 is a lot less than 6. And one could suggest that the negative and mutually disastrous cycle of distrust of police is at fault for the increased incidence of people running from them.

What I haven’t really heard is the story of a young man, probably with a name other than Jean Valjean but equally human and identifiable, who feels repressed by unjust legal, economic, and social systems, and maybe he does break a minor law. Nothing so iconic as stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family, but not that different in scope. Except instead of a valiant Victor Hugo novel of successful redemption, he is shot dead in the street. Others in the community, instead of being unrelated to the event, see their brothers and fathers and sons and selves in the victim, and since their speaking voices have been ignored for so long, they try shouting. They try the long historical and biological tradition of violence in the face of implacable injustice.

That’s another story. Whether it’s compelling or not is up to you. Telling it would probably get a director nowhere. Luckily, someone made another movie, with much more nuance, authenticity, and informed insight into the French reality. And guess what they called it?

Les Miserables, 2019 film by Ladj Ly. Victor Hugo is great for the 1800s, but give this one a watch if you’d like to better understand France today.

PS. Given the importance of stories and their effect on the public’s reception to events, I notice that France’s highly respected newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche went on strike this week, missing an edition for only the second time since its founding in 1948. The strike is in response to the appointment of an editor with a far-right track record by a far right billionaire media magnate, sometimes referred to as France’s Rupert Murdoch. I think we all know what kind of stories he would push into the headlines, and which stories would be shot dead without ever getting a voice.

Cheers from Paris. Still a magnificent city. Egalité, liberté, fraternité.