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Wednesday, July 15, 2009 – Bastille Day in the South of France

Our Man in Paris is Our Man in Paris no more.  Ric Erickson, editor of MetropoleParis, has ended his many years there, and now you can find him in the South of France. He has relocated to Port-Vendres (département of Pyrénées-Orientales, Languedoc-Roussillon région), a fishing village on the Mediterranean, just north of the Spanish border, where the Pyrenees drop into the sea.

And Bastille Day there is rather special.

Bastille Day with 995,000 Fewer Folks than In Paris
Music By the Alioi Beach Bande de Copains

Port Vendres, Wednesday, 14 July – Somebody, possibly phony, has been writing to ask about what folks are wearing in Paris this year. Are the folks wearing shorts? Are they wearing shoes? My answer, if I chose to make one, would be that you can find out by watching the French TV news on channel five. There you will see that the French, the Parisians, are wearing the same low-class togs that you are wearing. Welcome to the international world of rube fashion.

Nobody has written to ask what we do here on Bastille Day. This is a huge oversight, exposing inexcusable ignorance. Bastille Day is not your usual Queen's Birthday, Canada Day - what's it called these days? - or the 4th of July, Independence Day. Bastille Day is about revolution, overthrowing your rotten leaders, and off with their silly heads! It is not for the mambypamby faint of heart.

Yesterday - the Eve of Bastille Day - the excellent tourist office here cleared up the confusion over the scheduled afternoon parade of the lamperos. This involved not night fishing boats with big lights, but a kid's parade with lanterns, starting in the evening at 21:30 from the City Hall. To see the lamperos I will have to wait for another suitable fête.

Concurrently the band started up at the Place de Catalogue, and four couples danced, nominally tangoing, as this is what the band played. Around here, in this small town, it is always amazing that local bands play music you can recognize, hum along with, tap your feet to, or maybe tango a bit. Me, I faked it. After half a strenuous tune we broke it off to seek the parade of the lampions.

These, all 27 of them including parents and aunties, were just by chance arriving at the foot of the stairs below the Catalogne, following a white municipal van. The lampions appeared to be Chinesey lanterns, attached to strings and short sticks. Altogether not so very revolutionary but sweet under the streetlights. They moved off past the roundabout and up the hill towards the Super U supermarket, possibly towards the Catalogne and the music.

Thinking that was that there remained little other than having a revolutionary cocktail, appropriately at the Café du France. There too was surprise in the form of three French rockers, two guitars and a harmonica, maybe a keyboard, loudly performing a medley of Eddy Mitchell hits, none more recent than 1980. And that is not a complaint - we've had enough Michael Jackson recently, and there's ever more Johnny Hallyday to come. Again, the guys were good. If you like Eddy Mitchell.

My goodfoot, still taping got me home, and the music kept wafting on the breezes far into the night. Around one I thought I heard a wailing blues guitar and Janis Joplin. Was it possible?

This morning the radio news mentioned the usual fête mayhem, so I switched on the widescreen TV just as the traditional parade was beginning on the Champs-Elysées in Paris, in rare sunshine. This year's guests - the Indian army, navy and air force. Very brave too and smart marchers. But that wasn't what the military attachés of 123 countries had come to see.

France, a fairly small country of modest but worldwide ambitions, makes a lot of its own gear. Like jet fighters, helicopter gunships, huge tanks, nimble armored scout cars, nifty missiles, smart bombs, the whole modern arsenal with spare parts and friendly after-sales service. What better opportunity to show it off but in front of massed potential buyers on the day commemorating the overthrow of the ancien régime?

And just in case they didn't get it, you show them the leather-aproned bearded Joes in the Foreign Legion, carrying axes and wicked clubs, and voilà, La France gets some serious respect. And the cherry on the gateau, well, paratroopers. Dumped out of one of France's own troop transports flying over Les Invalides, paratroops flying hang-gliders, swooping over the Seine and circling the Place de la Concorde, and landing standing up right in front of the reviewing bleachers, ready to overthrow your average tin-pot dictator. President Sarkozy looked content.

Meanwhile outside my door, the local band made it to the local place of ceremonies below the Obélisque, and the whole town sang La Marseillaise, 'Allons enfants de la Patrie...' more or less in tune, all the words learned by heart in the cradle. What the whole thing is about - revolution!

The afternoon program called for 'Sardinade' and 'Bodegas.' This turned out to be the now routine traffic closure of the Quai Pierre Forgas and its transformation into a dancing-on-the-quay, with discos, churro stand, beer islands and the justly famous marching - er, standing-around - Alioi Beach bande de copains, somewhat after much hanging around their own dedicated beer island. The whole town was out en masse and all the restaurant terraces were full and overflowing.

Meanwhile in Paris Johnny Hallyday was headlining a free show on the Champ de Mars, apparently under the Tour Eiffel. Johnny, as the whole world knows, is either on his ultimate last farewell tour - or is it next year? - and the 14. July traditional revolutionary fireworks at the Tour Eiffel is now officially expropriated, thanks to President Sarko. In fact, TV news made no mention of fireworks. A later check-in revealed a standing room turnout for Johnny and fireworks of one million, according to AP via the police prefecture.

How revolutionary! What high-life! In this town at ten in the evening, temperature 25 degrees - 77 on the F scale - with a slight breeze. Towards the half hour locals and visitors shifted towards the Vieux Port, to perch on the quay or handy ramp for a view of local firecrackers and rockets.

Launch pad was a nearly invisible barge in the harbor, about halfway to the banana dock. Slightly before the announced time a rocket lifted. The considerable crowd applauded and cheered. The big balls of fire exploded over our heads. For fifteen or twenty minutes the taxpayer's hard-earned sous were pulverized, until the multi-thousand euro climax and more standing-room applause. Mostly, I suppose, by folks who happily pay their taxes in Banyuls or Collioure.

With that it only remained for the music to continue, recorded and live, fading in and out according to the whims of the breeze. A final point was made around 01:30 by an opportune lightning storm, somewhat more powerful than the fireworks, but just as free, nearly as revolutionary.

~ Ric

Text and Photos Copyright © 2009 - Ric Erickson

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