Author: Stephen Heiner

I Live in a Different Paris Than You Do…

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“And you know, Paris is all metro and work and the run-around.”

He used the famous idiom “Metro-boulot-dodo” which is a colloquialism that is literally “subway-work-sleep” that indicates the grind of life for many in the City of Light.  We were high in the French Alps, not far from the Italian border, but quite a distance away from home, and yet the complaint was similar: “I used to think Paris was magic, but now it’s just a place I work and pay bills.”

I tried to hide my dismay at hearing this, because no one should live in a place that one doesn’t love, if it can be avoided.  It’s socially acceptable to tell people you moved to a dreadful city for a job but it’s some revolutionary concept to tell people you moved someplace for the city and who cared about the job?  It would come.

Now, I’m not pretending that everyone can have a great amount of time wealth/lifestyle in the world’s finest cities, but if you are going to bother to live there, to “put up” with the cost of living, it’s surely a great shame if you can never enjoy it.

Now, the first time I heard this complaint was from a lady who attended my Paris Culture Lovers meetup who rather sourly complained about her schedule as I described my own, which included grocery shopping, visiting parks and museums, and riding a Vélib during “off hours” — when everyone was at work from 9-5.  While I was a bit taken aback at her tirade, even though I’ve become very used to the French complaining (it’s a national art and sport), especially since she chose to move to Paris 15 years ago — for work — I avoided what would have been a typical American retort: “Well why don’t you do something about it instead of just complaining to 10 near-strangers about it?”  I said it another way to my friend Julia last month: “The French as a people would rather complain about what they don’t have than take responsibility for building their dreams.”  Instead, I just managed to stutter, “I guess…I guess I just live in a different Paris than you do.”

Since my current conversant was French I decided to take a different tack and asked him how he planned to break the cycle.  He shared some great ideas, but unsurprisingly, had not done any real research into those ideas.

***

Okay, Stephen, so people quit their miserable city jobs, then what?  Look, I don’t know.  I’m not advocating that everyone quit his/her respective jobs.  I’m just asking the serious and adult series of questions: what is the life you want for yourself?  Are you living it now?  If not, why not?  Do you have any plan or timeline in which you will be living the life you want?  Does it solely hinge on money?  Have you rethought that?

Surely life is more than paying rent or a mortgage.  Our time on this magnificent planet is too short and brief to spend focusing on the life you don’t have.  Start creating the life you desire and marvel at how much the journey alone will prepare you to enjoy what awaits your sacrifices.  I’m reminded of the words of Marcus Aurelius:

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

The obstacle is the way.

I took the featured photo in the Tuileries when Spring had definitely arrived this year after a very long stay by Old Man Winter.

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Learn French in France? Not So Fast!

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I often tell people that I studied French prior to coming here but I truly learned French whenever, over the years, I was in an immersive French environment (as in during my teenage visits to Montreal).  For those who think simply being here will make you fluent in French, I need to warn you: it won’t.

Apart from what fluency really means, there is the issue that language studies take five ingredients to make strong and serious progress.  If any of these ingredients are missing, your progress will be slowed considerably.

The first ingredient is perhaps the most obvious: money.  Whether you choose the path of a private tutor (25-40€/hour) or a large class at a school like Alliance Française (11-20€/hour) you will need thousands of euros to progress to any level of satisfaction in this language.  You can go to all the free language meetups or do all the Duolingo you please (I know, I’ve done both) but they are night and day from serious study of this language.

The second thing you need is time, and its handmaid, patience.  Just as Europe can’t really be seen in the madcap 30-countries-in-14-days dash that Americans are so infamous for putting themselves through when not better advised, French is not a language that can be “hacked.”  The pronunciation, exceptions, and nuances of the language demand more, even from English speakers who speak a tongue which is heavily influenced by French.

Finally, you will need practice and its champion, perseverance.  If you work in and speak English all day on a daily basis (as I do) you simply have less time to practice.  It also means you should do as much as you can in French — be it making your grocery list in the language, or speaking with your French friends in it, who will be anxious to speak to you in English and help you as you struggle (classic example — this weekend I was trying to deconstruct a very funny expression with my friends — the French equivalent to “when pigs fly” is “when chickens have teeth” but the verb used was in the subjunctive, which I still haven’t learned, so we were discussing the change in stem and the various endings).

I have run into people who have lived and worked in France for 3-5 years who have a low level of competence and a horrible accent in the language (think “merci” pronounced “mercy”).  I used to despise them but as time has gone on and as I’ve faced my own roadblocks in the last 16 months (I was low on money, I was impatient, I didn’t make time to practice) I’ve come to accept that language studies, when not required for a job, are not persevered in without an overwhelming passion for the language in question.  In the United States, Spanish is universally the “practical” language to study in school but only a small handful of my friends, even the AP Spanish ones, have pursued their studies more seriously than being able to get around Mexico or South America.  The common denominator?  They all genuinely enjoyed speaking Spanish and connecting to that marvelous world.

I told you in another piece that the visa process weeds out many who just consider France a romantic possibility but don’t have the bottle to get through the hard work.  The reality of studies beyond, “Comment t’appelles-tu?” is a language rich in exceptions and irregular forms.  You’re going to have to love it.  Thankfully, j’adore le français.

* * *

One of the distinct advantages of being immersed in French is having pronunciation modeled for you 24/7.  All my friends tell me that my pronunciation now is night and day from this time last year.  But you also hear things in oral situations that you have to unpack later.  Three examples:

1.  “Voici.”  It is customary to say goodbye when leaving a café or store — be it an “au revoir” or “bon week-end” or “bon après-midi,” etc.  People would occasionally call out what I heard as “voici” (pronounced vwas-ee) after me.  After some time  thinking on it I realized they meant “a vous aussi,” “to you as well.”  Parisian speech is traditionally fast, even among the French, and the French love to shorten things so no surprise that “a vous aussi” elided to something that sounds like “voici,” at least for some people.

2.  “Chef.”  I’ve encountered this before in varied situations, but usually from strangers around sporting events.  We don’t have an exact equivalent in English, but it is akin to someone young saying “sir” to someone else their age or younger, either as an artifact of their speech (as some 20-somethings are wont to drop putain into their syntax just as a placeholder) or because they want something from you and calling you “chief” is part of the “flatterie.”

3.  The disappearance of “ne” from negative statements.  In French you need to put a “ne” in front of the verb and a “pas” after it.  Since almost medieval times the French have been dropping letters from their text and speech and I happen to be living in an era when “ne” is disappearing in speech.  Since my tutor assigns me written homework my written French has to be “by the book” so this was a perfect example for me to learn by recognizing the difference.

Proper French: “je n’ai pas d’argent.” (“I don’t have any money.”)

Colloquial spoken French:  “j’ai pas d’argent.”  (“I don’t have any money.”)

As I queried my French friends about this they explained that it was similar to the English tendencies of using “gonna” as an elision of “going to” and “gimme” as an elision of “give me.”  It has that “slangy” sound to it when it’s used, but no one properly educated would think it would be correct to write using that format.

This tendency is a cause for alarm among the chattering classes that favor the (very reasonable) power of the Académie Française.  For the person in immersion, it’s reassuring proof that, more and more, you are “getting” the nuances of this lovely and storied tongue.

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Forgetting My Passport

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A huge pit formed at the very bottom of my stomach.  A hot flash of embarrassment started at my chin, ducked below my eyes, and lurched forward onto my forehead, spilling down my cheeks.  These physical reactions usually accompany the realization I have done something catastrophically wrong.  I said the words to myself, just for effect:

I forgot my passport.

I rehearsed quickly what I would tell my French cab driver, which would start with an apology and a request that he immediately turn around.

But my brain had already run ahead of me (as it is wont to do), presenting two factuals:

1)  If you turn around now, you will certainly miss your flight.

2)  On several occasions you have flown within the Schengen zone and not been asked for your passport.

This stood against the conditional:

1)  How do you know they will ask for your passport?

Since turning around to get my passport offered the same risk as trying to board my scheduled flight and being turned away (missing my flight), I decided to proceed.  My brain asked the conditional “But what about returning” question but answered it within seconds saying: “Let’s worry about this first.”

If the driver had looked back during the two-minute colloquy that had begun with that flush of embarrassment, he might have seen my furrowed brow accompanying my eyes glancing out the back window, moving side-to-side in a slow calculus, because surely part of me was wishing I took a short international flight more seriously than a bus ride.

Worse — I still didn’t have my permanent carte de séjour — I wouldn’t have it until April.  All I had was my temporary récépissé, which simply indicated that I would get an ID.

I showed up at Paris’ southern airport, Orly, about 30 minutes before boarding time.  It was a 07h20 flight to Rome.  It was my grad school friend Donald’s birthday, and he was due to be in Italy for a few days, so I thought to join him for dinner before coming back to Paris the next day.

As I passed through security the only thing they asked for was my boarding pass, which I was carrying electronically in Passbook.  I cleared security with a little bit of private nervous laughter.  As I moved towards the front of the boarding queue, I unfolded my récépissé and steeled myself with a confident insouciance (imagine a “What, I need a passport?” type of look).  The gate staff were really only looking to see that my name matched the one on the ticket so I’m not certain she even realized what class of ID I was presenting.  I shook my head after I passed through and wondered why I had been conditioned to think that in a 1st world country it was vitally important to always show ID.  Grateful for the nonchalance of the gate agents I started planning for hitting the ground in Italy.

Donald had booked a cooking class beginning at 10h00.  Since I was due to land a bit before 09h00 I knew I would have to take a cab.  Traffic cooperated and I arrived there and had a 6-hour culinary experience of learning, prepping, cooking, and eating.  It was lovely.

Since the theme of this blog has always been focused on Paris and France, I’ll perhaps share the details of the Rome trip at another time and in another place.  For now, know that I am writing this to you somewhere over northern Italy.  On my return to France the Italian gate agent had taken exception to my récépissé, but fortunately two (quite lovely) Russian ladies who also did not bring their passports had already been asked to stand aside while a supervisor was called.  I was asked to stand with them and we started speaking in French about the Schengen area.  “I didn’t forget,” said the older one, “I simply didn’t bring it.  You don’t need it in Europe.”  I shared that I had needed it in Romania, Poland, and Croatia, but then added, “but I’m not an EU citizen, you know, so I never go in your line.”  “Ah yes, she nodded.”  The gate agent returned and waved us through.

This time the cool wave of relief started at the top of my forehead and slid slowly and luxuriously down my head, cascading over my shoulders, and down the rest of my body.  I flipped to “music” on my iPhone, tabbed to David Gray, put on Shine, and slipped my noise-cancelling headphones on.

***

Moral of the story: write a huge note to yourself of DON’T FORGET YOUR PASSPORT YOU NON-EU CITIZEN and put it on your computer monitor the night before any international flight, Schengen or not.

Photo taken of some of the pages in my passport.

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Little Entrepreneurs and a Sunday Stroll

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I’ve often said that Paris is built for walkers.  The subtext there is that it’s a dream for wanderers.  Have some free time and nothing on your agenda?  Just take a stroll.  If it’s a particularly cold day, you might hit a string of Passages.  Historically these were just places where the bourgeois could shop, free from the threat of the elements.  Now tourists (and locals) mug in, enjoying the ongoing “show” that is the endless corridors of glass shop windows.  Today my target was a string of them, starting in my neighborhood, the 2nd, at the Cadet Metro station and working my way south towards Bourse.

Because my French is still a work in progress, I will often buy used children’s books as a means of improving (so I read like a French 10-year-old, so what? 🙂 ).  If they are used and on offer for 1 or 2 euros, that’s ideal.  These young entrepreneurs had set up in front of a beautiful art store that was conveniently closed.  People might crowd around looking into the store at curios and hey — there are some kids selling books right here — let’s take a look.

Where had these children (they couldn’t have been older than 10) gotten these books?  Had maman insisted on a cleanout of the rooms?  Had they found them by the trash somewhere and decided to be enterprising?  I stopped asking myself questions and started looking for my friends Babar, Madeleine, Tintin, and Asterix.

I spotted what I wanted — a picture book on St. Bernadette, and inquired of one of the young ones — “how much?” in French.  She told me to wait one moment and she asked her brother.  He told her, “Whatever you think.”  She paused, hand firmly under chin, mulled it over, and said “deux cinquante.”  I shrugged and nodded and reached into my pocket and pulled out a grip of coins.  Seeing my “riches” she quickly amended: “Trois.”  I laughed.  How do you say no to a kid selling books on the sidewalk on a Sunday?

I happily paid the spontaneous 20% upcharge and walked away with my new treasure, grateful to witness yet another facet of life in this amazing city.  Entrepreneur might be a French word, after all 🙂

Photo of said entrepreneurs in the Galerie des Panoramas.

Did you enjoy this article? TAIP is 100% reader-supported through tipping. If you want to leave us a tip of any amount it would be highly appreciated. These tips help support our efforts to keep TAIP an ad-free environment. Just as at a cafe, the tips are split evenly among the team.

How to Renew Your French Long-Term Stay Visitor Visa

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Note from the editor: In light of new guidance on remote working in France as shared by the official French tax office in June 2025, we have also officially changed our stance on remote working for a US company while living in France under the visitor visa. Read more here, and contact us with any questions or concerns. We’re here to help! — MS

The heavy, ancient printer started printing my récépissé.  I closed my eyes.  Whenever the old printer starts running in a French immigration office, you’re in the clear.  I had done it.  I had survived my first year in France and I had just renewed my visa too.  The relief and triumph wasn’t nearly what I felt when I first got one or confirmed it.  But it was relief.  Palpable relief.  I could go on about my year without having to think about this again for a while.

Because I had originally moved to Paris in December 2013 my one-year visa was up that same month in 2014.  Trouble was it was around the time I needed to go back to see my family, take care of some business, etc.  I could have chosen to renew it earlier, or I could have just chosen to move to France sometime other than in December, but there it is.  Think about where you will be in one year whenever you do apply for your visa.  I think December and January make a lot of sense for many, though, because the move has all the notes of a “new start” and you give yourself a whole year of runway (although some of our readers need only two months!)

To be fair, I had to make two visits, because they asked for some things I didn’t have on hand the first time.

You can make your appointment for renewal online at this link.  I should make the point that I am speaking to people applying for a long-term visitor visa.  Students and workers should consult their own subcategories when preparing their dossiers.

I did have a list of what was needed at the time, but this constantly changes and the Préfecture has stopped providing an online link to such a list.  On that list is marked the need for the original and one photocopy for each of the documents listed.  However, if you have forgotten or the copies get damaged on your way there, there are large commercial copying machines that charge you ten cent(imes) per copy in the vestibule of the office you have to go to.  There are also two Photomaton booths to take your pictures should you have forgotten them.  They honestly do have your bases covered here.

Where to Go

It faces Notre Dame directly and is easily accessible via the Cité stop on the Métro.  Bring water, snacks, a nice book to dig into, a charger for your phone, and block out your whole day for whenever your appointment is.  Some say mornings are better, others afternoons — I only chose afternoons because I’m not a morning person and in both instances I “checked in” an hour before my appointment which allowed me to actually be seen only 30 minutes after my scheduled appointment time.  Be early — or you may not even get seen that day.  I’m serious.

Paperwork you MUST have:

1.  A copy of your original titre de séjour as well as the passport which contains it.  This is the sticker you would have gotten on your follow-up visit when you first arrived in France.  For visitors your first year titre de séjour resides simply in your passport.  Come renewal time, you actually get issued a card.

2.  Your birth certificate.  You’ll need a certified French translation of it.  Mine was written in English by the Singaporean government and the French translation cost 72€.  If you need the translator’s contact info, simply send me an email.

So, about that birth certificate.  If you’re like me, you keep all your important documents in a folder somewhere.  The trouble was, up to the point when my eyes first looked upon these requirements, I thought I had brought them with me to France.  My birth certificate, immunization record, baptismal certificate, all that jazz.  After the search that starts with, “I’m sure it’s around here somewhere,” turned to, “Goodness, did I actually not bring it to France?” I ended with the eye-closed panic of, “Oh no, it must be with my stuff in storage.”

Before I went to the nuclear option of having to order new copies I called up reliable people in my life — a business partner, a sister, and my mother: “Did I leave any documents with you or do you happen to have a copy of my birth certificate?”  They all replied in the negative.

The boxes of “stuff” that comprised my life when I had an enormous townhome in the United States were currently peacefully residing in the spare room of a dear friend in Kansas City.  It was already enough that he was storing these things for me at no charge.  I wasn’t going to ask him to do the dreaded task ahead: go through all the boxes looking for a manilla or green folder that has a bunch of important documents in it.

Who could I call?  My ex-girlfriend.  I know, this sounds odd, but hear me out.  She is one of the sweetest, best girls I’ve ever dated and she can tell you herself that the move to Paris was perhaps the biggest reason we broke up.  So, could she now assist me in helping to prolong said stay in Paris?  Yes, she’s actually that awesome.

After work one day she drove 30 minutes to my friend’s house and audibly inhaled when she saw the roughly 20 boxes and rubbermaid tubs she had committed to going through.  She called me.  “You’re kidding, right?”  Chagrined, I replied, “Look, if you find it, great.  If you don’t find it, I still owe you.”  Various words of affection were exchanged and she commenced.  Two hours later, no dice.  She hadn’t found it.  (Postscript to the story: when I visited last month to clear out those boxes I found the documents, in a green folder, in a box closest to the doorway.  It might have been in a state of fatigue that she missed the closest possible option.)

So I was officially out of luck, and given that I had only pulled up the requirements six weeks before renewal (how hard could it be, right?  Wrong!) I now had to convince either the American government or the Singaporean government to get me a certified copy of my birth certificate.  Why would both of them have one?  Well, I was born in Singapore, so that’s why the Singaporean government would have one.  But I was born as an American citizen abroad, by virtue of my father, so we had a Consular Report of Birth Abroad as well.  Either would suffice.  I decided to bet on both simultaneously.

I went to the American Embassy the Monday after Meghan’s unsuccessful search and got a notarization for a request for the certified copy of my consular report.  I enclosed an American check with the $14.95 overnight mailing fee.  The Singapore process was a little more complicated, but more automated.  I would have to request a copy of my birth extract, which would contain my birth certificate number.  Then I could use the birth certificate number in conjunction with other documents to request a certified copy of my birth certificate.

What had my failure to bring this single document to France with me cost, apart from the emotional distress of waiting?  Roughly 300USD.  So, don’t forget, kids.

Ultimately, Singapore won my bet.  A registered letter containing my birth certificate arrived the day before my appointment at the Prefecture.  The American one had arrived at my American post office box (I use US Global Mail to receive mail and packages while I’m in Europe) a day before but because it was around the Thanksgiving holiday I would not get it overnighted to Europe in time.  And you can’t ask them to ship your certificate outside the US.

3.  Three photos of standard size.  As I said in previous articles, you can find these literally all around Paris and even if you don’t, they have two machines out in the vestibule you can use.  Five euros gets you five photos.  Keep the photos.  You’ll need them for other documents and applications while here.

4.  If you are married or have children you will need proof of marriage as well as the birth certificates for your whole family.

5.  EDF or QDL.  EDF is short for “Électricité de France,” the monopoly state-run organization and one of the many providers who can give you an attestation you can use for pretty much EVERYTHING in France.  If you rent, like I do, you might not get an EDF, so you’ll bring an up-to-date Quittance de Loyer which is simply proof from your landlord that you are paying rent and have done so faithfully, etc.

So those are the basics for all visas.  Now, let’s look at page 2 and what we long-term visitors additionally need.

6.  Twelve months of bank statements.  I hope you saved yours or get them digitally.  These should come from a French bank account and you need to ensure that you are not receiving any income from any French companies.  Make sure any wire transfers that come in come from a corresponding account in your name.

Remember that you signed an attestation when you got your visa that you would not do work while here and the careless forgot that (or just stupidly got jobs) and the careful civil servant may look at your statements line-by-line.  All my paperwork had been in order up to this point so when my agent started flipping through my bank statements she looked up and asked, “Where do you get your money?”  “I tutor on the internet and I also write.”  She nodded, flipped through to October 2014, which was the last statement I could provide, and promptly turned them all over to her “done” pile.  If you don’t have sufficient cash flows in said bank account (they like to see a minimum of 1.5-2k € a month of revenue) you may have to produce other evidence of means — be it a savings account, etc.  As I’ve written before, a simple letter from your bank will not be sufficient.  They will want statements.  (A previous version of this article implied that your foreign, i.e. non-French, account would be sufficient, but that is not the case anymore.  They want to see a French bank account for renewal.  If you have experienced otherwise for a renewal of this visa, please share with us in the comments.)

7.  Health Insurance.  When I was in America, it was okay to provide proof for this in English.  Not now.  You’re in France now, so just as my birth certificate needed an official translation, I needed one for my medical policy as well.  I had originally selected Cigna Global and while I only found out later that they did have French translations of all the relevant documents, the agent on the phone told me that the “front page” of declarations would be sufficient.  Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t.  The cost of translating my whole policy would have been more than simply buying a French policy of health insurance for foreigners.  So I did just that, and in my cancellation call with Cigna (with a very courteous and apologetic Irish girl) I was told that they did indeed have French docs.  Sorry, I told them.  Maybe next year.  If you want a French policy, I can put you in contact with my agent.  Great lady.

8.  Renter’s insurance for my apartment.  Ohhhhhh.  Well, despite the fact that my lease had stipulated that I carry this, I had simply forgotten.  This held me up at my first appointment and led to a “follow-up” at which time I would bring said documentation proving I did have it.  Rather than admit straight out that I didn’t have such insurance I simply said that I didn’t bring it, which was true — I hadn’t. 🙂  We scheduled a time seven weeks out, when I would have been safely and actually back from my Stateside visit, and when I came back, having secured insurance (if you need that, my guy is great), I handed said docs to her.  She stamped a couple of things, had me sign the document for my new carte de séjour and the old printer started printing.

What was printing was my “récépissé.”  It was a “temporary ID” that was valid for two months.  In two months I could come back to the prefecture, drop 106 €, and pick up my permanent card (which I’ll have to renew again).  This was the final separation of my passport from the act of flashing “ID” when asked in France.  To be honest, my American driver’s license worked most times.  But if you’re writing a check, they will prefer a French ID, though some smiling and hand wringing will usually allow for the exceptional passport to be used as proof.

I was, of course, relieved.  I didn’t do this entirely by myself, though.  I consulted with someone who specializes in helping expats, Jean Taquet.  I first started speaking to him last year as part of a long-term strategy to build a business and stay in France.  If you want he will hold your hand every step of the way through the titre de séjour process, up to and including coming with you to the Prefecture.  It’s not free — but I’ll leave it to you to discuss fees with him.  I’ll also talk more about Jean and his help for those who want to make a long-term living here in a future blog post.

As always — remember that if you have your stuff in order and are polite you’ll have success.  Speak the French you’ve hopefully been learning all year with even a measured diffidence, and you’ll go further.

Photo is of the eastern-facing entrance to the Prefecture, which is where you will exit from whether your visit was successful or not.

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Mailbag: Long Term Stay Visa Q&A

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So as I was getting ready to go back to the States in December I started corresponding with a Lauren L. who had some visa questions for me which originated from this article.  Here were her questions:

— I have an appointment for the long stay visitor visa in New York in three weeks and I’m noticing differences in the requirements between the NY and Chicago consulates. Is this normal? NY seems to require fewer documents and doesn’t mention needing notarized statements or forms for my application.

This is totally possible.  There isn’t a uniformity of observing standards, even though there are universal standards.  If there are fewer documents, that’s great.  If you feel you need backup, there’s nothing wrong with having that with you as well.  Just don’t give stuff you’re not asked for.

— I’m only 24 and am coming to join my French boyfriend, travel around Europe, and improve my French. Is this going to be a red flag if I write this in my personal statement as I am still young? I worry they will have a hard time believing I won’t be working or trying to find work.

No, I think this is fine.  Remember you are applying as a visitor so they don’t necessarily expect you to be looking for a job.  Remember that it’s illegal for visitors to even think about getting a job so they take you at your word — that you are “visiting,” which dovetails into your last question…

— My “means of income” will be coming from my parents, who are submitting three months of their bank statements along with letters stating their intent to fully support me financially while I am abroad. Is this enough proof?

This should be fine.  Those of us not in such a situation will generally want the funds to be in our own name, but I think for you this will work.

Lauren was actually visiting Paris in December but we weren’t able to meet before my vacation stateside.  I told her by email that based on what she told me she should be fine but here are the specific answers for anyone else who has the same concerns.  (And happy ending: Lauren got it!)

When I was already stateside I got this tweet.

I wrote her back and come to find out that she had some of her own visa travails and some of my articles helped out.  Part of why I wrote some of these articles was precisely to help others as I found the content out there not the most helpful or up-to-date.  It’s really neat to see some of those exact people thanking you for the advice.

Photo courtesy of m43photos, via creative commons.

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Charlie Hebdo

Je ne suis pas Charlie: Why I’m Not Marching in Paris Tomorrow

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This shrine, among others, was set up around Place de République this evening. I had used the spot as a convenient place to meet two friends before dinner at my favorite Cambodian place in Paris. I had completely forgotten République’s status as a shrine for the Left (there is a huge monument to “Liberty” in the middle of the square) and since I had not been avidly following the Charlie Hebdo news, I didn’t realize how decked out it would be: candles, pictures, drawings, graffiti. People had plastered bulletins of Voltaire mouthing the now eponymous, “Je suis Charlie” all around the monument. The devotion reminded me of a much smaller “shrine” in the largest cemetery in Paris, in Père Lachaise, at the grave of Oscar Wilde. When I first gazed at all the lipstick marks at his grave, I felt the same feeling I felt just a few hours ago witnessing all the people milling around the monument, around all the reporters doing stand-up interviews with whomever was around (hopefully you would be holding a child, showing that you were “teaching” your kids how to “stand up” to violence): bemusement.

While I will be the first to admit that I’m not the most empathetic of souls, I did feel the normal disgust at the senseless loss of human life. Any civilized person would. But then there’s what comes after. Would I stand up for or march in “solidarity” with “free speech,” for a disgusting magazine, and for a national security policy that is essentially tone-deaf to the unique and challenging situation that is militant Islam (hopefully France doesn’t call it “workplace violence“)? Quite definitely, non. If I’m going to march it’s not going to be to soak myself in some gooey sentiment of “solidarity,” but because I truly and deeply believe in something. Because I would be willing to be tear-gassed and arrested for it. Was I going to march for people who taunted Muslims with outrageous cartoons? No way. But before we even get to that, I suppose we should address what this is being universally painted as: an attack on capital F, capital S: Free Speech.

The media and governments and many of the “Je suis Charlie” drones (some of whom I count as friends!) push the idea that this was an attack on free speech. I dispute that, but I suppose I should admit at the outset that I don’t accept the notion of free speech, either intellectually or practically. It’s gospel to many people, as certain a value as 2+2 equaling 4 or the sun rising in the east, but to me it’s an abhorrent and dishonest modern fantasy: something that protects the prose of a child molester extolling the virtues of pedophilia in the same manner as that of a nun speaking about outreach to the poor and abused. In a nation (and city) in which egalité is literally carved into stone, the concept of many ideas having “equal value” resonates — but perhaps because it is taken for granted it is never truly scrutinized. “Free Speech” is a lie the West tells itself, and then is shocked when others don’t accept it as gospel truth.

So there’s my first stumbling block to the #jesuischarlie movement: I don’t accept the so-called “Western value” of “free speech.” I think that there are ideas that are dangerous and words that are beyond the most foul and disgusting and rather than buy into a system where I accept that all ideas are equal (something I can barely type!) I accept that some things are beautiful and should be protected and some things are vile and disgusting and should be discarded. The cartoons of Charlie Hebdo fall into the latter category.

That’s the second problem — while I find their cartoons disgusting (I cannot even bring myself to describe the Christian “satire” that this rag of a publication has served up) I do not believe that their pictures should have carried a death sentence. But I do think the editorial staff knew what they were doing and in the French tradition of “brave journalism” were “daring” to do things that upset people, and they knew what might happen. A true “Western value” (read: values derived from Christianity) is respect for life and we try, prosecute, and in some places in the world, execute murderers. We don’t tolerate the wanton murder of people. Yet, saying Je suis Charlie precisely means you are standing up for the disgusting values this magazine propagated (calling the magazine the French version of the American Onion is not just American oversimplification at its worst, it’s simply inaccurate). Saying “Je suis Charlie” extends beyond the borders of empathy for the murdered to solidarity for their work, which was, at its very best, highly questionable, and at its worst despicable and wantonly provocative.

Finally, “Je suis Charlie” insouciantly marches with banners of “we are not afraid” while failing to examine the real problem: militant Islam. NPR Americans whose “Muslim friends” eat bacon will tell you that Islam is a religion of peace, but those who have read history, have actually read the Koran, and know the violent arc that is the founding and ongoing mission that is Islam know otherwise. When someone in New York whose name isn’t even remembered does an art exhibit depicting a crucifix in a jar of urine, does anyone fear reprisals from Christian terror groups? No. Because there aren’t any roaming around or training in special terrorist training camps! There isn’t anything in the Christian New Testament that instructs Christians to convert people by any means necessary, up to and including the threat of murder. This week France, when confronted with an Islamic terrorist attack, reacted the same way that England and Spain did when they experienced their own attacks in their own cities: explained how this had nothing to do with Islam, took no responsibility for military policy in the Middle East that stirred up such hatred and violence, and then pivoted to say this is a “terrorist” issue, without taking the time to point out this is a uniquely ISLAMIC issue.

Something that the West does well, for better or for worse, is tolerance. We may not agree with you and may even disagree with you on fundamental human matters, but we will live in peace with you as long as you observe our laws. The people who committed these murders trained in places where it is a crime to possess a crucifix! Western governments have the opportunity to take a long hard look at this and ask if this is a problem of “religious fundamentalism” (something bland and generic that implies there could be such things as Buddhist terrorists or Hindu terrorists that are operating on even a fraction of the scale of Islamic terrorists) or of “Islam and the West.” Those who’ve read history know that the Muslims tried and failed dozens of times over centuries to militarily invade Western Europe, conquer it, and put it under the Crescent. It failed, perhaps most famously, on a 9/11 few know about, the night in 1683 when Jan Sobieski, King of Poland, arrived at the gates of Vienna to successfully repel the Muslim invasion.

The Muslims are no longer at the gates of Vienna. They don’t need to invade Europe because they are already here and they will simply not permit “free speech” that mocks their religious beliefs. You can say what you want about these men, but they truly believe in what their religion professes in its scriptures. As for the West, it has to decide whether it will keep pretending to be shocked when these things occur or actually start to formulate public policies that take into account the realities of Islam instead of the lies we tell ourselves about that religion. The march tomorrow blithely ignores that reality, preferring instead sentiment and tears. There is a time for such things. Then there is the time to fix public policy so that such things don’t happen again. Je suis Charlie sure is catchy, but it doesn’t even begin to address any of the problems this horrific event has laid bare.

Photo is taken from WikiCommons

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cafe paris

7 Tips for the Paris Café Experience

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One of the most famous aspects of Paris is the café culture.  Keep in mind, this is not the same as a coffee culture (to be discussed in the future).  There are some unwritten rules that you learn over the years.  Here are a few I’ve compiled to help you the next time you find yourself at one of these treasures.

1) Be polite

In the States, as well as Anglo-culture in general, there is a traditional belief that the French are generally stuck up and rude. The reality is exactly the opposite. The French are very polite, provided that you are polite to them to start with. When entering a café, do not get agitated if you are not served right away. Eating is a totally different culture here. It’s not meant to be a time to stuff your face and run on to the next activity. It’s meant to be a passage. An enjoyment, a respite, culminating in good, peaceful digestion. Appreciate this difference and be patient, be sure to be polite to the waiter (who is not your slave, rather he has condescended to assist you… for a price), beginning with “Bonjour.” This auspicious start will help provide good service.

2) Know what you want

Many French cafés do not have menus, since they more or less serve the same thing. Coffee, naturally, bread and cheese, sandwiches, pastries, and small savory offerings. The local café is not a full-service restaurant. You should already know what you want before you go to order, because it is very inconsiderate of you to make your server stand there while you mutter, “Ummmm…. nah. Hmmm… maybe… nah.”

3) Drink what you want

A café in Paris does not only serve coffee. Here in Paris, as in most of Europe, a café serves coffee, mineral water, beer, or wine. The waiter will most likely take your drink order first. Be prepared for what you want (see above).

4) Blend in

Whether you stand or sit, there is a certain level of decorum with which the French conduct themselves in cafés which it would be good to observe. It is cheaper, price-wise, to stand at the bar to eat or drink than to sit down at a table, but if you do sit, you should not sip your coffee loudly, nor chug your beer like you were back in college.  Enjoy your food and concentrate on enjoying it. Chew softly, maybe while reading a book. This is leisure time!

5) Take your time

If you sit down, plan on taking your time. You aren’t just buying food, you are buying an experience, an atmosphere. Plan on hanging around for a while, the staff expects you to take your time. They are not trying to frantically turn tables to get as much money out of the clientele as possible. You are invited and encouraged to take time, read a book, do nothing, people-watch, write out some postcards to family back home, etc.

6) Perpetuate the gentle hum of conversation

It’s best to keep the quiet atmosphere of the café: set the ringer on your phone off, laugh more quietly at jokes. When you are ready to go, the normal signal that the French use here is to place their fork and knife on their plate, or, one can use the symbol which works just about everywhere in Europe, to pretend to write on your palm when/if you can catch the eye of your waiter.  You’ll want to ask for the bill 10-15 minutes before you really want it. 😉

7) Be graceful

Gratuity is already factored in, therefore leaving another 15% tip immediately identifies you as a tourist. A little extra for outstanding service would not be out of place, however.

If you do not speak French very well, the French are appreciative of those who try to use basic polite phrases without asking if they speak English. Once the initial effort is made, more often than not, they will kindly offer to speak to you in English if you begin in French.

The Paris café experience has been memorialized in books, films, poetry, and art.  Take the chance to insert yourself into those narratives in a harmonious way.

Photo by Alex Harmuth on Unsplash

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Rolle

The Summer that Changed My Life, or “Now I Get to Stay”

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I think at any point in a film or a book there is a major crisis point at which the protagonist either succeeds or fails and the rest of the journey rises and falls on that moment.  My moment for my French adventure arrived this summer.  This is the story.

I have now come to believe that naivete can sometimes be a blessing in disguise.  When I made the decision in January 2013 to move to France in 12 months there were dozens of unknowns.  Would the French grant me a visa?  Would I be able to renew it?  How would I get a bank account?  My more detail-oriented friends asked all these sensible questions before I left America.  Some things I knew the answer to.  Other things I had to figure out for myself.  What I couldn’t answer, because I couldn’t possibly know, was whether I would stay beyond my original 12-month visa, even after it was confirmed months after my visit.

In fact, I can say now, after the incredible summer that I had, that when I went to the States for a three-week work trip in June, I was almost certain that I would return to the States.  But it was that very trip, and all that followed, that led to where I am now, certain to stay here in France, happier than I have ever been in my life, and buoyed on a number of fronts.

It all started on LinkedIn, of all places.  The website that still hasn’t figured out what it is managed to function well enough for what I consider it to be, a dynamic online resume, and landed me an unsolicited interview for a project in Florida and Switzerland during Summer 2014.  It was for test prep, something I’ve been doing since 2004 and which ended (so I thought) with the sale in late 2012 of a company I built from scratch.

Anytime you are in an industry for over a decade you inevitably build a long referral line and many potential clients are still willing to work with you, though you may live an ocean away and be many time zones apart.  I figured this demand would taper off over time, and given my management of my other companies, I welcomed that compartmentalization.

Florida

Since I had been teaching in one-on-one or two-on-one formats for years, I had forgotten the sheer joy I felt being in front of a classroom.  I had felt that as recently as 2013, when I had a chance to teach my second MBA-level class on Entrepreneurship at Rockhurst University, my undergraduate alma mater.

The three-week intense SAT prep camp offered by JCT4Education reminded me of how much I enjoyed classroom teaching, and how those roots branched into my other pursuits (writing, tour guiding, interviewing).

Alas, this trip also reminded me that, for the moment, I missed nearly nothing about the USA save my friends and family.  Boca Raton was perhaps not the best representative of the States, but all the regular national themes were present: requirement of a car for basic daily functions, endless strip malls populated by Panera/Starbucks/Target/Outback/Barnes & Noble, and the unending hamster wheel of living to work that so many Americans accept without knowing there is an alternative.

Switzerland

A bigger contrast from Boca Raton could not be found in my four weeks in Rolle, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.  Beautiful vistas.  A sense of life, not work, as the dominating principle, and an efficient and intelligent rail system.

Indeed, it was during a visit to the capital, Bern, as I was taking in this view, that I said to myself, almost reflexively, but audibly, “I’m not leaving this.”

And I began, as any Catholic might, to pray and work towards my goal.  “If you want me to stay, open the windows.  If you want me to return, shut them,” I prayed.  I then proceeded to work on opening those windows myself.  I ran two separate crowdfunders — one for a walking tour business and the other for my media company (both got funded).  I saw a significant uptick in my tutoring practice, which I realized would need to be incorporated as a solopreneur venture.  Indeed, even my blogging and social media firm took on new clients.  And my French attorney assured me that given the things I had in place, that the road to the next step in the visa process would not be overly onerous.

I wrote these words while I was in Scotland for the referendum, watching history unfold.  But I want, if nothing else, to remind my dear readers that you are solely in charge of whether you live a remarkable life — or if not — at least have a wondrous time in the attempt.  While I believe God definitively answered my prayers in June and throughout my summer, I also believe that God helps those who help themselves.

It is always darkest before the dawn.  I re-learned that this summer, and what followed will shape my life for years to come.

Photo by Xavier von Erlach on Unsplash

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arc de triomphe paris

The Paris Museum Pass: Worth it?

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One of the things I’ve come to appreciate about working with accountants and lawyers over the years is their most frequent response to what a layman would consider a fairly innocent and straightforward question: “It depends.”

That “it depends” has many possible follow-ups.  “It depends on what you want your tax exposure to be,” or “It depends what your long terms goals are,” etc.  The “it depends” for the Paris Museum Pass isn’t dependent on how much you like art, but rather on how quickly you like to see your art.

For those who want to see their art “efficiently” (which was me once upon a time), read on for why the Paris Museum Pass is for you.  For those who prefer to see their art slowly, don’t worry, I’ve still got some helpful suggestions for you.

You Get to Skip the Line

For some of the museums there is a special entrance just for pass holders — the one at the Louvre is particularly skip-tacular.  If there’s one thing no traveler really enjoys, it’s standing in long lines to get into places.  Often this is down to poor planning as today so many places offer online booking and so many internet reviews tell people exactly when the lines get ridiculous.

It Covers Monuments and Museums that Are Short Visits

When people hear the word “Museum Pass” they may think of museums, but they don’t think of National Monuments — be they the Arc de Triomphe or Sainte-Chapelle.  Both of those are excellent short visits (your Museum Pass gets you to the top of the Arc, one of the best views of the city) and can be accomplished in under 30 minutes, if you time your entrance well.  Separate admission to these two places alone goes a long way to covering the value of your Pass.

Then there’s a museum like the Orangerie, which has a decent permanent collection but a spectacular “custom-designed” collection of Monets, which you can fully appreciate within half an hour.  There’s also Petit Palais, which does have a magnificent permanent collection, and can be comfortably seen in 2-3 hours, and that’s even with a break in its lovely inner courtyard.

You Save $$$/€€€/£££

The Museum Pass allows you to get into the “biggies” (think Louvre + Orsay + Invalides) but also gets you into dozens of lovely and under-appreciated museums as well.  This is a testament to Paris itself, as a city like New York doesn’t have anything like it, despite having many wonderful museums.  The existence of such a pass in a city known for its territorial curators is almost unbelievable.  Someone herded all the art cats into a room and got them to agree on this idea, to the benefit of all of us.

For locals, the next best thing to the Museum Pass is Free Museum Sunday (the first Sunday of the month).  That’s when we get into almost all the museums for free (the Louvre is seasonally on that list).  Serious value seekers have been known to time their Museum Passes to expire the day before that Sunday and add one more day onto their museum binge.  However, it’s a very crowded day so consider using Free Museum Sunday as a day to circle back to places you might have already seen, or luxuriously use it as a way to go into a place, see one or two things, then leave.

It Doesn’t Commit or Obligate You

When you buy tickets ahead of time for particular days and times at specific museums, you sometimes feel trapped should you feel ill or like doing something else on the appointed day(s).  If you realize the true value of the Paris Museum Pass, plan the three or four visits upon which you will immediately recoup the cost: you will see each additional visit as extra gravy for your Parisian “meal” of culture.

But It Doesn’t Cover Every Place Worth Visiting

Three favorites of mine that are not covered by the Museum Pass are the Musee Marmottan Monet, on the edge of the 16th, the Caillebotte Estates in Yerres, and Monet’s place in Giverny.  This is to say nothing of the Museum of the Liberation of Paris, the newly opened Bourse de Commerce, or the (finally) re-opened Carnavalet Museum in the Marais, one of the very best museums in the city.  And, just like the best things in life, all three of those are free.

Photo by Marcos Pena Jr on Unsplash

Did you enjoy this article? TAIP is 100% reader-supported through tipping. If you want to leave us a tip of any amount it would be highly appreciated. These tips help support our efforts to keep TAIP an ad-free environment. Just as at a cafe, the tips are split evenly among the team.