Besieged on the French Riviera (still)

GUENADY : Hi, Pat! I promised I'd be back to see how things are going for you, and here I am! Has there been any improvement in your situation? Any good news to report?

EXPAT : Well, the good news is that I'm still here! Despite everything these petty crooks and hoodlums have done to drive me out of business, here I am, still alive, and my restaurant is still alive, too!

GUENADY: So, your troubles are still going on?

PAT: I've been standing up to their low blows and harassment for six years now. And they still operate with impunity, thanks to their little 'networks' of well-placed 'friends' who bend the laws and regulations for them... But in my case, there's a limit, I think, to how far they'll go. Of course I am taking a risk but, can they do much more to me than they've already done, seeing as how I'm an American citizen and what with the attention I've already drawn to what they're doing? Even if it didn't bring me the help I had a right to expect... From the beginning of this sorry tale, I've been abandoned by the authorities who ought to have protected me... And why? Are there well-placed police officers who are part of this network, protecting these criminals? Graham Greene thought so when he wrote his book about the French Mafia [NB: J'accuse, 1982]... And he also said it wasn't just the police. Was he right, that there lawyers and judges they can call upon, too? Still, if anything happens to me, everyone will know why. It won't be so easy to cover up. So these crooks probably won't dare to go much further... They'll probably just keep up their petty harassments, their insults, their vandalisms, the threats of physical violence, and the evil gossip spread against me, to try to break my business. After all, I am a 'dirty foreigner' as they have called me) and let's face it, the majority of French people don't like foreigners any better today than they ever did... As you know, Guenady, since you've written about this fact. And you can explain this so much better than I can...

GUENADY : The French are an oppressed people, they're held in the cage of their rigid medieval class system, even though they can't see it. They've been blinded by brainwashing to believe they live in a free society, although the reality doesn't stack up to freedom... And somewhere, subliminally, they know this, so they resent the freer mindset of people like us Americans. After all, even if they don't understand the mechanisms at work, they know firsthand the limitations of their class, and they know that they are also psychologically unequipped to stand outside the herd. They would expect to be struck down by lightening if they even tried. From birth they are taught to know their place, as were their parents, and their grandparents and their great-grandparents before them. How many are able to think independently, to analyze and judge, to refuse to go along with the dumbed-down majority? And what has happened in your case, Pat, is just one example of what can happen to those who are not submissive. So they think they are being wise to not even try to step out of the place deliniated in which to live their little lives. And then they see you, with your seeminly effortless self-confidence to do what they would never dare to do-- and they are jealous! It's not even the modest success of your business that they're jealous of, but your ability in the first place to be different... And then, your refusal to submit. The fact that you're a foreigner is of course part of the explanation, too, because your mindset is different. But it also serves as another pretext to set people against you. Because, in the eyes of the elite here, God forbid that the jealousy should turn into admiration for your courage to stand up to this corrupt and inhumane system, with all its networks of brutes and bullies, and their well-placed friends aiding and abetting them. What ordinary people are jealous of is that you have dared what they would never dream of daring, and that you are resisting this whole corrupt system, now out to get you.

PAT : Well, of course, I do take the death threats seriously, and I do take precautions.

GUENADY: But you don't really think it will really come to a physical attack?

EXPAT: I don't think mafia-style thugs like this hesitate over anything except the question, 'can we get away with it?' When they want something you have, they probably usually start as they did with me, with insults and intimidations, to set you running. Most people have never been subjected to this kind of harassment, especially women, and they find it devastating. Because it's not just one insult, but over and over, day after day, month after month, year after year, until they wear you down. And of course, you can't give them the good whipping they deserve, because then the police would pounce and say that you're the aggressor! And I think I can guarantee you that while the authorities won't move against these criminals, they certainly would move against me, if I answered in kind! Try to imagine, for just one minute, years of hearing the most vulgar insults shouted at you, in public, every time you step out of your door... five, six times a day. In the beginning you think you'll just ignore it. But as the months and the years go by, it starts getting you down, constantly swallowing these insults and never answering back. And your silence doesn't discourage them at all. It just makes them bolder and bolder, And if you don't let them have what they want, if you still won't get out of their way, the next step is vandalism So it's first the verbal violence, then the physical violence directed at your property. I have had my tires slashed over and over, so I have to hide my car far away when I park. The façade to my restaurant has been vandalized over and over, one of the glass windows in my front door was cracked, and this in broad daylight, when I just stepped out for a 15-minute errand... And then, if you still resist, they threaten you with an aggression. Twice I've had their lackies come into my restaurant when I was alone, just to threaten to attack me. They didn't touch me, just made the threat, which was pretty convincing, let me tell you. .And if you still don't give up, you get death threats. And I don't doubt but that they really would aggress me, even kill me, and try to make it look like an anonymous crime, except that I'm American and not French, and I've made such a fuss about this situation. If anything happens to me, it won't go unnoticed. And I really think that, in their eyes, this is nothing personal, and it's all my own fault, for resisting, for not getting out of their way...

GUENADY : First, let's resume the situation as you described it to me a year ago... You've been operating this business for how long now?

EXPAT : I opened my restaurant in October of 1998, so this is the eleventh year of activity.

GUENADY : And what is your specialty? Because, of course, this may have a bearing on what is happening, if only as another reason for the authorities not to support you....

EXPAT: Yes, my specialty does give them another pretext to set people against me. Mine is the only restaurant in Nice --in fact, on the whole Riviera-- where you can get real vegetarian cooking, not just ethnic dishes without meat. And as far as I know, mine is still the only vegan restaurant in France... And even when, someday, somewhere, another one opens, mine will still be the first to have done it. They said it couldn't be done, that no one in France would go to a vegan restaurant, but I've shown that that isn't true.

GUENADY : Given the manipulation of public opinion in this country in regard to vegetarians, and particularly in regard to vegans, are you sure that this isn't the real reason you have been targeted for harassment and persecution?

EXPAT : Well, anything is possible... Remember, these low-lifes.don't give you their reasons... They've just told me their intention-- to drive me out.

GUENADY : Well, why do you think they're doing this?

EXPAT : You remember that we spoke about the possible real estate speculation angle last time... All this persecution began in the fall of 2003, just shortly before the roadwork started in the center of town, where my restaurant is located, to install the first leg of a new tramway system. At the time, I heard that there were any number of shopkeepers (and a lot of them women, who are notoriously easy targets) who were driven out, one way or another, in order to take over premises that have now become more desirable-- and more valuable. Otherwise, there are laws that impose rent control in France. My rent, for example, was negotiated back in 1998 and was based on the fact that I had to do substantial masonry work to meet safety requirements before I could open my business. The previous restaurant had been closed for years, and the fire regulations had evolved in the meantime. The landlord couldn't find anyone who wanted to rent or buy, so, to make the deal sweeter, and in exchange for the cost of the masonry work that I had to pay for, he proposed a low rent, which has indeed evolved over the years, but according to well-defined limits. So, today I pay perhaps half, maybe only a third, of what is now being asked for a same-sized space in this neighborhood. And of course, my premises are strategically located, near where the tram runs through the financial and shopping district of Nice, a fifteen-minute walk down from the train station, midway to the beach.

GUENADY: So, your landlord wants you out...

PAT: My landlord wants me out, yes.

GUENADY: So, you think he's hired these thugs to act against you?

PAT: Who knows? But what I do think is that these thugs either are or represent someone else... And they are acting, probably on a promise of monitary gain, to drive me out, in order to benefit someone who has plans in which my premises figure. But there's really no use speculating about what those plans might be, because nothing has been officially declared. These people will play a close hand, until they get rid of me... Of course I am willing to leave, but only if I am properly indemnified for my business. Otherwise, I have no intention of leaving.

GUENADY: And they're not willing to indemnify you...

PAT: No. You would think that that would be easier than to continue to harass me, and the time and effort that that costs them. This, of course, is one argument against real estate speculation as the true motive behind the attack on me.

GUENADY: Although it could just be part of an exchange... The powers that be might have said, Get rid of her for your own reasons and we'll cover for you, because it suits them too to have you gone... It's not often one hears about such resistance succeeding... Do you really think you can resist forever?

PAT: If this theory is right about the motivation, then one day the need for my premises will become urgent, if it's part of some bigger scheme. Then, the person or persons behind this will have to deal with me, either by finally proposing to buy my lease, or they'll have to do me in... Which they might have tried once, if I hadn't attracted so much attention to what they're doing. If anything happens to me, there will be suspicions and serious questions will be asked. And the bad publicity will not be good for whatever project is in the works here... In any case, I want as many people as possible to know what is going on. That's my best protection, considering that the police and the lawcourts have abandoned me. The spotlight of public attention keeps these low-lifes at least somewhat in line.

GUENADY: Can you give us some idea of the tactics that have been used against you in the year since our last visit?

PAT: Well, the big tactic since the last time we spoke was construction work. This time they were seriously targeting my customers, because, of course, this work was only done during the lunch and dinner hours, when my restaurant was open. You would have had to see this to believe it. Hammers pounding directly on the flimsy partition which serves as a wall on one side, with electric saws over there cutting metal, just centimeters from where people were trying to eat, other times electric drills would be whining... Not a nice atmosphere in which to try to have a meal! And it did cost me customers... Even sympathetic people see what is being done to me, and they don't come again... Twice, when I had men in the restaurant who were shocked by the outrageousness of this noise, they went with me to ask, politely, for it to stop, because after all there are city ordinances that outlaw construction at lunchtime, and after 6pm. And both times, not only was I violently insulted, but these customers were violently insulted and threatened with physical violence, too! And both times, the customers, being local men, saw the bravado of the thugs and heard that this intimidation has been going on for years, and they concluded that my adversaries have 'long arms', 'les bras longues', which means, to the French, that these thugs belong to one of these 'networks' that include people in high places, putting them above the law. And thus the submissiveness conditioned into the French mentality makes them believe that, in situations like this, with adversaries like that, the only solution is to get out of the way. Because they think you can't win... Although my customers wish me well and support me, at least to some extent, many of them were lost... And you can't blame them, because you go out to eat in a restaurant to have a good time, not to get involved in someone else's fight... And the French don't understand the American mentality of standing up and defending your rights. And they know nothing at all about solidarity. They do know that despite the rhetoric and the fine slogans, they live in a society where the elite rule as they please and for their own benefit. And the common people grumble, even while accepting the way things are, because of their psychological conditioning to their humble status in society, but also because they've been bought off by consumerism. People speak about a two-speed justice system here, one for those on top, which protects them from the brunt of the people's wrath, on those rare occasions when such wrath manifests, and another speed for the common people, which is also used against them, because of course their problems are considered inconsequential. So the majority of French people can't win in this system either, and of course it works against outsiders like me, reminding us that we are, at best, tolerated here, not welcome... When, during that bogus mockery of justice that passed for a trial last year, I reminded the court that both my paternal grandparents fought in the Great War here in France, my grandmother being a nurse with the American Expeditionary Forces at Verdun, it probably gave them the laugh of their lives! And I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they're still laughing over that, over my thinking that that should make a difference to their automatic and blanket hostility to foreigners.

GUENADY: Perhaps your resistence is showing another way to people who are usually submissive?

PAT: Well, as you've pointed out in various pieces you've written, this attitude of submission, and the sense of impotence it breeds, is the source of the famous French arrogance. As an oppressed people, they resent other nationalities, particularly Americans, with their money and their freedom and their self-confidence, which comes from the limitless potential that's part of the Amercian horizon, but which is totally foreign to the French. Of course, things aren't so great in the States anymore, either. But a lot of the old rhetoric still remains, covering over the fact that so many true freedoms of our system have been lost... In contrast, the French learn with their mothers' milk that they are boxed into whatever level of society they are born into. And the worst of it is that these people can't find the words to name what's wrong. How can non-intellectuals tell you that this whole system is other than what it pretends to be? Not many intellectuals will come right out and say it, either... Americans think that France is a democracy and a republic, like America --or at least like America used to be-- and so we think the French must have the same freedom as us to be and do... Liberty, Equality, Fraternity... The truth is, that's only a label pasted on the old class system, the dynamics of which are still alive and as rigid and as stifling as ever. And the French react as any oppressed people reacts, and even more so, because they have not been taught to think critically, and so they can't explain the reality, meaning these invisible bonds that bind them hand, foot, and brain. You know, we learned in history class that the monarchy and the aristocracy of the Middle Ages kept the surfs in line by working them from dawn to dusk, so they would have no time and no energy to think about their situation, about concepts like justice and freedom, which might breed ideas of revolt. Modern French society uses exactly the same tactics, only cloaked in the trappings of democracy, and for exactly the same purpose.

GUENADY: But back to your situation... You are resisting these gangster tactics to drive you out of business. And so far, it's a stalemate. So you think you can keep this up forever?

PAT: How long is forever in business? Four years, five years? Yes, I can still go on resisting. I'm a vegan, after all, and both my general health and my energy level are good. And my mental state is good, too. Even though the injustice of my situation often frankly rankles... Of course, they count on that. It's part of the psychological harassment... But, to answer your question, I can still wait them out, and for as long as it takes.

GUENADY : Well, if they wanted your premises so badly, why wouldn't they just buy you out, to get rid of you, instead of going through all this long drawn out struggle that would be holding up their plans?

PAT : As I said, this is an argument to be considered... Although there may be factors I'm not aware of. Still, it doesn't seem to add up, does it? Which is why I also consider other possible motivations...

GUENADY : Such as?

PAT : Well, there are my animal defense activities... Perhaps these thugs have been sent to break me personally. After all, I stick my head up above the parapet and dare to speak out, so I'm a target. Perhaps their object is simply to silence my lone voice.

GUENADY : Yes... Fair enough as a speculation, since you've made enemies on that score, haven't you? And as a vegan, you're a nuisance to French industries that use animal products... But we were discussing another possibility, too.

PAT : The other possibility is much more worrisome... It has to do with my first mentor in animal defense, the godmother of my association, whose the murder was deliberately and determinedly covered up.

GUENADY : That's a strong accusation!

PAT : Her activities made her enemies, her enemies threaten her, she didn't pay attention to their threats, and so they killed her.... And they got away with covering the murder up. The first hallmark in this case is that the police refused to investigate the possibility of assassination. They even had to be forced to listen to my recital of the incoherencies of their explanation for the murder. This dear and brave lady, at 76 years of age, was discovered with her head almost completely severed from her body, and with a veterinary drug used for euthanasia in her system. Instead, of looking for a murderer, they put forward a ridiculous explanation designed to discredit not only my godmother, but also her foundation, and all her 32 years of work in animal defense. Her daughter, who went missing at the same time, and who is still officially missing, was blamed for the death. It was claimed to be euthanasia to spare her mother suffering after a stroke.

GUENADY : Which is not a story that you buy.

PAT : No, I don't buy it. Because there is that severed head that doesn't add up in the equation. Why were the police so determined to impose this grotesque explanation?

GUENADY : The question that's usually asked in murder investigations is, who stood to benefit from the crime? And you have your ideas about that, don't you?

PAT : Yes, I do... And I'm in the process, with your help, of presenting this whole sorry story to the public. Of course, I can't accuse anyone directly, so I have to present my speculations as a work of fiction, as a novel. The first part of this story has now been published, and we, you and I, are working on the second part. This second volume will portray the harassment that's been going on against me for six years now and which may be motivated by an intention to silence my voice speaking out against the official version of this murder.

GUENADY: And we might point out that your objection to this version was supported by your second mentor in animal defense.

PAT: Yes, Hans Ruesch... He told me he had met Andrée Valadier, my association's godmother. And he agreed that the harassment I am suffering might be due to my agitation against the official version of her murder. And I might point out as well that this second volume also includes insights into my friendship with Hans Ruesch, during the last years of his life.

GUENADY : And for the benefit of those who don't know, who was Hans Ruesch?

PAT : Hans was famous for many things... He's been referred to as a true Renaissance Man... In his youth, he was a champion race car driver on the Forumla One circuit, then a best-selling author whose books are still not only read, but studied in university literature classes. And he was, as well, a medical historian who, from the age of sixty on, became the world's most outspoken opponent of vivisection... Hans not only became my second mentor, but he also personally tutored me in the scientific evidence against vivisection and in the whole struggle of the pharmaceutical companies to keep this information suppressed. After all, they want the public to go on being duped into thinking that experimenting on animals guarantees the safety of pharmaceutical drugs. It's all false, of course, since no animal species is a reliable model for how humans will react to these drugs. In fact, no individual in any species can be a reliable model for any other individual in the same species! Each 'subject', as the vivisectors like to call us, is just too different from every other.

GUENADY : Without going into all the arguments against vivisection, what is the alternative? What did Hans Ruesch have to say?

PAT : Hans's books on vivisection and modern medicine demonstrate that animal tests are misleading for science, with too often fatal results for human health... And vivisection is also corruptive for the morals of those who practice it. Because of these two points, Hans's position was that tests on animals must therefore be abolished by law. Other and better approaches to health have always existed, and as a medical historian he wrote in detail about this, particularly in his watershed book, Slaughter of the Innocent. And today, the fact is that far superior replacement methods exist, using cultures of live human cells taken from accident victims, or aborted fetuses. If medical research had not taken the wrong path of using live animals in experiments, these progressive technics would have been developed and adopted much sooner, and humanity would have been spared the tragedies of so many deaths and injuries due to the use of unsafe pharmaceutical drugs, despite being tested on animals.

GUENADY : Can you give us an example?

PAT : There are many. Dr Moneim Fadali's book, 'Vivisection, a Harvest of Shame', gives a partial list. And you can see this list on the internet, on the site of 'Nurses Movement for Responsible Medicine', NMRM, in the file 'The Biggest Drug Disasters'. Hans liked to point to Turkey, where a bright virologist at the University of Ankara demonstrated the superiority of replacement methods when he used chicken embryos in his laboratory to test Thalidomide, and quickly discovered the danger to fetuses. As a result, he prevented the drug from being licensed for sale in Turkey, although it was being widely marketed elsewhere. Before it was recalled, Thalidomide caused more than 10,000 monstrously deformed babies to be born around the world to women who had used the drug, on doctor prescription, during pregnancy... The manufacturer of Thalidomide, by the way, never paid a cent in damages to the victims and their familes. This pharmaceutical laboratory defended itself in court saying that all the legally required safety tests on animals had been carried out, and that it could therefore not be held liable for unforeseen results! Which, of course, is a blatant admission that testing on animals doesn't work! And yet, these unreliable tests go on providing lucrative jobs and status and prestige to researchers, because the public continues to be led to believe that such testing guarantees the safety of new drugs. In fact, no one knows if a new drug can be used safely or not... Just look at the gigantic number of lawsuits today against drug manufacturers for death and injury! And many consumer defense associations recommend not using new drugs for at least five years after their launch, and to wait instead to see if things go wrong.

GUENADY : So this was Hans Ruesch's field of activity...

PAT : Yes, the last 34 years of his life were dedicated to exposing to the public the fraud of vivisection and its devastating consequences for human health... One of our aims, in collaborating on this book, is to present a vision of Hans in novel form, to show the complexities of this brillant man, his personal torments and trials, all through which he remained unflinchingly loyal to the cause he had taken up.

GUENADY : And when do you expect this book to be available?

PAT : Well, unfortunately, the difficulties of my situation often eat up my time, making progress on the project slow... But the harassment I'm subjected to is nothing compared to the harassment Hans was subjected to. The cause of the harassment may be the same, that is to shut us up. More than 70 lawsuits were prosecuted against Hans, over his years of anti-vivisection work, in order to leave him with no time for his scholarship... But our novel is well-advanced now, so hopefully sometime in 2010 we can have it on the shelves... It is the second volume in the projected three-volume series titled, Don't Defend Animals.

GUENADY : Which is available?

PAT : From Amazon... And also from the publisher, Trafford.

GUENADY : Thank you, Pat.

AUTHOR'S NOTE : The case of Séverine Gérard (see my article 'Urgent Travel Warning: Vegans Travelling to France, Beware') only came to public attention after this interview. Considering the implications of the apparent vendetta of French authorities against veganism, I contacted Pat in order to add a comment about Séverine's case. Here is what Pat had to say :

The French media is beholding to powerful agro-industry lobbies and forms public opinion against vegetarians and particularly against vegans. What would happen to these industries if people stopped buying their products? And with the particular zeal of French burocrats, persecution is the result. Sévérine Gérard had her son taken from her by French authorities, even though she and her son are Belgian citizens. She says it is because she is vegan. I can easily believe it. And it may yet turn out that my restaurant is under attack because it stands up to the misinformation fed to the public here about veganism. And France boasts of being the country that invented the concept of Human Rights! I can only hope, for Séverine's sake and for my own sake, that the French public wakes up to how it is being manipulated... For it is likely that what has been done to her will give fuel to those who are trying to destroy me and my vegan restaurant.