Some Observations on French Society from the Point of View of an American Expat Animal Defender

Extracts from Guenady's book, Don't Defend Animals, due out in April 2008

Life goes relentlessly on in the villes and patelins [the cities and villages], with pigeons continually gassed, rats poisoned, stray dogs caught and put down, and cats, former cute little kittens with homes, becoming strays when put out, as young adults, onto the streets, where they are run over by cars, torn apart by unleashed dogs, or simply expire from privations and disease, as they forage, hungry and sick, from one set of garbage containers to the next. Dangerous dogs gallop in public, their irresponsible owners disregarding the laws that oblige leash and muzzle, while police patrols, few and far between, mostly turn a blind eye...

The widespread refusal, in Nice, to keep dogs on leashes is usually attributed, by the French themselves, to a trait of 'independence', by which they mean a generalized resistance to authority. In fact, this attitude is simply arrogance, an expression of willfullness and contempt for others, and springs from a deep-seated resentment that percolates through the French psyche. For the French seethe at being bound and shackled inside their society, where almost all avenues to personal advancement are the private reserve of a privileged few. Americans, by comparison, have the freedom to work to get ahead, a situation which is so normal to them that they imagine their sister republic is the same. It isn't. In France, as a general rule, merit does not decide who gets a job, nor does competence decide if that person keeps it or not. Being unaware of the invisible barriers of class naturally results in much American confusion and many misjudgments of the French.

That Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité have yet to see the light of day anywhere on earth is no secret to the French, although they, like Americans, are not used to hearing this fact stated plainly, right out loud. Referring to the contradiction between what French society is and what it pretends to be is taboo. Like the people in The Emperor's New Clothes, the French do not register the evidence of their eyes, or even if they do, they do not react to the contradictions they observe. Perhaps they chalk these up to an inevitable difference between theory and practice. Perhaps they are merely conditioned to a certain outlook, to accepting the realities of life in their hardened class system, the only realities they and their parents and their grandparents have ever known, and so no one poses questions. For the truth is that the Revolution of 1789 merely shifted privilege and power from the bloodlines of the king and the aristocracy to the petite bourgeoisie, the relatively educated, newly forming middle class of successful merchants and working intellectuals. Human nature, largely unfettered by the principles of enlightened rule, or by checks and balances built into the system, merely established a new hierarchy of graded privilege and power, this time based purely on money and influence, not blood. Today, in every domain, réseaux [networks], or 'mafias' have formed, which grasp and hold the money and influence for themselves, for their friends, and for their posterity. To all others, and to foreigners (unless they are rich), the walls are up and the doors are locked.

Thus, the 'common' people in France simply switched the set of masters for whom they continue to toil like serfs, noses to the grindstone, paying heavy taxes and other tributes, but with no practical consciousness of participating in the running of the country. And so, despite this theoretical possibility, the working class remains a spectator at politics, a situation reinforced by the lack of civic education in schools. The French leave their ruling class, or caste, free to get on with ruling, believing that, being educated and trained, it is thus somehow magically apt to do the job, all the scandals of personal gain and greed notwithstanding. This situation, according to well-informed and courageous investigative journalists, affords French politicians the leeway to plunder the country's wealth, a priority to which, they say, all France's elected leaders, whatever their party, apply themselves while in office. That these journalists can write so frankly shows how few people read what they write.

According to one notable report, Chirac arrived in power only to discover that Mitterrand had completely emptied the national treasury-- plus un rond |not a cent left]. The story goes that the new President was shocked speechless for days at his predecessor's audacity, before finally taking the only course open to him... He went on national television, imploring the French to tighten their belts and to apply themselves patriotically to hard work and industrial productivity... Of course-- as long as the system continues to function, taxes will come pouring in, and thus there will soon again be money (to plunder?). Working class children acceding to higher education is a recent phenomenon, and might finally bring this whole rotting structure down, with future more-savvy voters and true democratically chosen candidates finally obliging society to sweep away privilege and corruption, and to live up to the Revolutionary slogan. For the young of modest station will not tolerate forever a situation in which they can finally prepare themselves for responsibilities, only to find the practical possibilities closed to them, on the unmentionable basis of class.

After De Gaulle, generations of French men and women complacently tolerated being held down in society, in exchange for increased consumption and comfort. All baratin [sweet talk] to the contrary, each Frenchman instinctively knows what his social status is, and he does not expect to rise, or if he does rise, not far. The world considers French workers lazy, but the truth is that, trapped in this system, with the deck stacked against them, they prefer to give the minimum to their highly protected, but routine jobs, where promotion is all but impossible, and where so many managers are in place not because of competence, but because of the right connections to those higher up. So-called 'ordinary' people prefer to invest their time and energy, to give the best of themselves, to their private lives and their families. Yet, inevitably, this situation results in much personal stagnation, which in turn breeds the acrid resentment which then manifests as the famous French arrogance, particularly directed towards those whose wings have not been clipped, like theirs.

Meanwhile, in a social context, French industry remained predominantly based on agriculture up until the1960s. Then, under the great nationalist, de Gaulle, and using the riches pumped out of its African colonies, France began to invest massively in manufacturing, so as to snatch a top place among the nations vying for power in Europe after the second Great War. And yet, it was possible, in October of 1961, for Paris police, under Maurice Papon (later to be disgraced and convicted of being a wartime collaborator, responsible for thousands of deportations to the German death camps) to go on a programmed rampage against Magrébin [Arab] immigrants, who were then demonstrating for equal treatment with the French. The police tortured an untold number, the dead alone estimated to be at least 327, and many of the bodies were dumped into the Seine, to serve as a warning to 'uppity Arabs'. Everyone, at least in Paris, knew that this event had occurred, although the official media, like the government, refused to mention it. This denial by silence has only recently been undone, when a public admission of the truth was finally made by Chirac, at the time of the war crimes trial of Papon, and under pressure from French Magrébin elements. Papon, by the way, claimed that then, as during the Occupation, he had just been following orders...

Another glimpse at the dark workings of French democracy occurred with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior. In July of 1985, Greenpeace's ship, sent to protest France's nuclear testing in the South Pacific, was blown up in Auckland harbor by a team of French undercover agents, leading to the death of one person aboard. Two of the team responsible for the bombing (one of whom was related to erstwhile presidential candidate Segolène Royal) were captured and obliged to confess, in view of the evidence, and despite early denials of involvement by the Mitterrand government. The two agents were convicted and sent to prison in New Zealand for a short time. When the dust had largely settled, they were transferred back to France, officially to serve the remainder of their sentences, but once home they were promptly set free.

Memories are short, and whatever French undercover agents might be up to these days, they have, it would seem, learned to be more careful about attracting attention, let alone being found out. Still, they are around and, one suspects, everywhere, at home as well as abroad, along with their lackeys and paid informers. One can usually know the latter by their efforts, a touch too determined, to attach themselves, in seeming friendship, to targeted individuals. Once this is accomplished, they can then pump that individual for information, or isolate him by causing conflicts with others, or, alternatively, they can turn on the person with false exposés intended first to vilify, then to cause the victim to be shunned, thereby breaking budding ties between groups, and destroying individuals. For even the most innocent militants [activists], those genuinely trying to better society, are threatening to the few who profit from social injustices and imbalances, for whom no change is welcome. Making a desire to improve society appear suspicious, even subversive, is a big part of the work these agents do...

Whatever the many financial scandals of the Chirac era, reported in the press (and for which, if necessary, the former president will certainly one day receive a pardon from whomever is then president), a potentially still more ominous threat to the mystique of French democracy is posed by the widow of Judge Bernard Borrel. Herself a judge in France, Madame Borrel has made it her mission to uncover the truth about her husband's death. For, in 1995, not long after being sent to Djibouti as a technical advisor to the Djiboutian justice system, Borrel's half-burned body was found at the foot of a cliff. French authorities rapidly concurred with their Djiboutian counterparts that Borrel had committed suicide. And yet, thanks to Madame Borrel's determination, and in the face of stories that circulated (or were circulated?) pretending that the motive for the suicide was personal, concerning his involvement with other women, and even an intention, at the time of death, to divorce his wife, Madame Borrel bravely soldiered on. After eight long years of struggle, she finally succeeded in obliging the French government, via the courts, to recognize that her husband had not committed suicide, but rather was assassinated. Madame Borrel then announced to the press, in a tone that left no room for doubt, that she had not come that far to stop there. She continues to push the judicial investigation to find her husband's killers, and it was she who attracted media attention to the fact that, in 2007, when the investigating judges came to call at the Elysées Palace with a warrant to access Chirac's files on the subject, they were met with the resistence of his staff, invoking presidential immunity to justify an absolute refusal to cooperate. The public, at least the part that is not asleep, is left to draw its own conclusions. But let us hope, and also for France's sake, that there is sufficient integrity in government for Madame Borrel to finally achieve her objective. Whatever the case may be on that score, we can also wonder if she could have come so far had she not been a judge herself and thus personally aware of how to work the justice system. Not all the widows of official French suicides are so well-equipped to fight for the truth...

N.B. Just as this text is going to press, it has been announced that the government of Djibouti, in a petition to the International Court of Justice in the Hague, wants to obtain possession of the Borrel file, after which the affair would undoubtedly be definitively buried. According to the Djiboutian ambassador to France, representing his country before the Court, the idea for this petition came from Chirac, while still president, and represents the only way to reestablish good relations between the two countries. Let us not forget that France maintains its largest military base off French soil in Djibouti. And according to Madame Borrel, her husband was investigating, at the time of his death, arms trafficking and terrorist attacks in which, it is claimed, the president of Djibouti was implicated...]

The new president, Sarkozy, would seem, on a superficial level, to bring a breath of fresh air to French politics. Relatively young, seemingly dynamic (or perhaps merely hyperactive), he himself being a first-generation product of immigration (but 'selective immigration', meaning the cream only...), and, strangely enough, in the eyes of many, handsome, he might seem a leader in a new mold, a French Kennedy promising a new Camelot... But let us look more closely... Beginning his career as a lawyer, meaning that he started off already among the privileged few, he quickly gravitated towards politics and power, becoming, in 1983, at the age of 28, the youngest mayor in France, at Neuilly-sur-Seine, the Capital's posh western suburb. A tangled web of suspicions about personal gains still clings to the new president from this period, and has yet to be subjected to the scrutiny of the courts. But, as is enshrined in French law, the day of reckoning was postponed due to his ministerial, and now his presidential, mandate.

Notable among other interesting points in Sarkozy's background, was his early status as a protégé of Charles Pasqua, a former union leader and reputed mafia boss from Marseilles, who was, surprisingly, Minister of the Interior (that is, head of the different French police and secret services) for a while under Chirac. Those courageous journalists previously mentioned contend that this gave him additional freedom for his alleged arms trafficking and money laundering between the Hexagon and the former African colonies (reputedly using the Solar Temple sect as a vehicle). They also say that whatever he does, Pasqua is untouchable, since, after more than fifty years in politics, he has the goods on everyone else. Should he fall, he would take the whole political class along with him.

What the young lawyer/mayor of Neuilly learned from Pasqua can only be imagined, although we do have one story that might give us an inkling... It is reported by the Réseau Voltaire, an alternative French news service, and concerns a hostage-taking in a nursery school in Neuilly, in May of 1993, perpetrated by a disgruntled and emotionally disturbed businessman from Nice who had recently gone bankrupt. The ruined businessman walked into the school with a handgun and dynamite strapped to his body, a 'human bomb', taking the children and a teacher hostage, in order to demand a fabulous ransom. This situation afforded Pasqua, then Minister of the Interior, an opportunity to turn the public spotlight on his Neuilly protégé. The police set up security barriers around the school, but allowed reporters and the mayor to pass, as if they knew that there was little real danger. The mayor of Neuilly then negotiated with the hostage-taker in front of the cameras, playing his rôle to the hilt, at one point being filmed heroically carrying a child out of the school in his arms. When the hostage-taker, after several days, accepted food and drink from outside, he was drugged, whereupon the RAID (the highly-trained, elite, national intervention squad) was sent in. One of them put three bullets into the head of the drugged, sleeping bandit, it being claimed that he was waking up, and might have set off his explosives. In the meantime, however, the Mayor of Neuilly, coincidentally also, since March of that year, Minister of the Budget, had used ministerial privilege to withdraw a reputed 700,000 francs from the national treasury, to pay ransom to the hostage-taker. In the confusion and controversy immediately surrounding the latter's death, as ever since, questions raised by some reporters as to where this money went were outshouted or ignored. In any case, according to Voltaire, the money was not used for the purpose intended, nor was it ever returned to the public treasury...

We can also note, with ever an eye on attitudes towards animals, that the new president of France has recently reopened the official presidential hunting reserve near Versailles, closed by Chirac, where foreign dignitaries on visit can bag domestically raised 'wild' animals, as has also become the fashion on certain African safaris. No one, it seems, remembers the model of Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, who refused to shoot the first 'Teddy' bear in similar circumstances... Sarkozy has also refused to support an initiative to ban children under 15 assisting at bullfights.

In such a context, whether in the immigrant cités |ghettos], or in the bourgeois centre villes, the plight of animals in society is not on the French political agenda. 'We have important problems to think about!' elected leaders like to retort when the condition of animals is evoked. After all, why defend the interests of those who do not vote? And besides, those lobbies that defend animal exploitation are hard at work, justifying this as an economic necessity. Certainly those who bring the subject up are treated as crazy, or worse ('Are you a traitor to your species?'), in highly effective 'vilify and shun' campaigns, which isolate and negate the influence of those who would stubbornly make waves. At the same time, herding the lower classes behind the nation's leaders has always been facilitated by giving people some other class or race, or, in this case, species, to absorb the blows and humiliations the people want to pass along, so as not to have to admit that they themselves are on the bottom.

Animals perfectly fill this scapegoat role, since they absorb abuse, but, by their natures, cannot organize to fight against it, or to improve their status. Those who defend animals become scapegoats, too, by association and, contributing to this process, doubtful elements encourage eccentric and anti-social behavior which can then be used to ridicule, to condemn, and to neutralize all those who would defend animals. And yet, some rare souls remain impervious to the herd mentality and, whatever the weight of public opinion, are unable to stand silently by in the face of brutality and exploitation, even when these are not directed at themselves. These enlightened few understand that human dignity itself is compromised by abusing the weak and the defenseless, whether the victims are human, or non-human...

In the cités, or high-rise public housing districts, where mostly the Magrébins, or North African Arabs, but also black immigrants live, dogs are trained for lucrative fights, or, it is said, set loose in basements to ravage stolen pets for the amusement of the illicit crowds that pay to watch the spectacle. Letting your dog or cat roam the streets is unsafe for this reason, and also because some steal young animals for resale, while shady laboratories will always pay a pittance, no questions asked, for animals of any age to use in experiments. And these dangers are over and above the risk of common accidents. Yet, many people still refuse to take precautions that interfere with their pet's freedom to roam, whatever the dangers. After all, a dog is a dog, and a cat is a cat, and replaceable, even with pure-races, for a dime a dozen at local shelters, n'est-ce pas?

One night in one cité, at the northeast outskirts of Nice, a small dog had the misfortune to fall into the hands of a band of young toughs who used it, on a playing field, as a football. The unfortunate creature's howls were clearly heard throughout the quarter, but no one, least of all the police, in their walled-in, bunker-like Commissariat, built to withstand an eventual siege, dared to venture out to its rescue. The battered remains were disposed of early the next morning by municipal street sweepers making their usual rounds. A few brave social workers picked the story up and made it a controversy in the schools for as long as they could, violence being violence, and not to be tolerated in children. Young minds are particularly impressionable and can develop a taste for blood and cruelty which could, in turn, eventually lead to further and greater violence, possibly even directed against defenseless humans (other children, women, the elderly, the handicapped...). But, in the end, shoulders were shrugged and life went on, with none of the guilty punished. The next victim of these young delinquents was a pet monkey, acquired from who knew where, but made to suffer the same fate, although precautions were taken this time to dispose of the remains, and thus no fuss was ever made...

The cités in Nice, despite their ghetto status, are communities made up of a majority of proud immigrants from the former Magrébin colonies (Moroccans, Tunisians, and Algerians), among whom family influence is strong, and where most of the small shops and businesses are locally owned, so that there is an interest in keeping the young in line. While most Magrébins find animal cruelty abhorent, and would never approve it, they are nonetheless products of a harsh culture which traditionally gives little consideration to animals. The people this culture has produced are necessarily able to withstand the desert's rude conditions, the heat, the thirst, and other hardships, their own survival requiring that they meet the camel's needs, so it would bear the burden of transporting heavy provisions over the desert sands. And when the water provisions were gone, the camel provided 'camel water' to drink. Even so, when the figs and almonds and jerky were gone, there was no hesitation about turning the faithful camel into fresh meat to keep themselves alive. Only the most stoic spirits could have survived in such conditions, this being, naturally, the priority. Today, conditions are different, and the camel's sacrifice is no longer necessary. Even so, humans go on in the old vein, stubbornly comfortable in their habits, the conditions of yesteryear still determining today's behavior. And although the Prophet decreed gentle consideration towards animals, common men, whatever their race or nation, too often equate might and superiority with unnecessary brutality. Having understood nothing of the teachings of humanity's wise men, like Mohammed and Jesus, but believing implicitly that Might Makes Right, humans, as a species, have always found ways to justify their basest behavior, when that suits them.

The corrida in France is an example of how Man can suspend logic and integrity, to justify the unjustifiable. For French law wisely prohibits cruelty to animals (and, incredibly, not all European countries can make this claim). On the other hand, it also authorizes an exception for 'uninterrupted local traditions'. This is the legal term covering bullfights and other local customs, such as wielding a scythe, while blindfolded, to try to behead a squawking goose strung up by its legs from a tree, or the harsh treatment of calves and young bulls at the courses de vachettes, like rodeos, for the amusement of the crowds in village fêtes. Efforts have even been made to bring bullfights to Paris, to the Stade de France sports stadium. Only a massive public outcry prevented this cashing in on the bloodthirst of a few and the ignorance of so many more, particularly tourists, who will go to bullfights without realizing what they are paying to see...

In a sprawling coastal town, a short drive west from Nice on the high-speed autoroute, independent polls show that the vast majority of residents reject the corrida, yet the tradition is supported by the mayor, who uses the spectacle to attract tourists to what he grandiosely calls la Fête de la Riviera. Local tradition, according to the mayor, requires two corridas, at least, every year-- on Bastille Day, July 14, and on the feast of the Assumption, August 15 (France is no longer a Catholic country, but still clings to certain religious feast days, become national holidays, agreeably swelling the mandatory minimum five weeks paid vacation enjoyed by all workers). These two public holidays fall during the summer season, when, particularly along the coasts, communities vie for tourists by spending large sums on fireworks, parades, and municipal balls. These amusements also appease the common folk, who need to feel that they, too, profit from the country's wealth, and thus that all is more or less well in the country, whatever the reasons to grumble...

The bulls await the moment of their public execution in the town's corral, after a long transport by road, usually from Spain, during which they are thrown about by the stopping, starting and turning of the truck, frightened, sometimes injured, their limbs stiffening from standing immobile for so long... One can easily see that these are domestic animals, docile and sleepy, used to the proximity of people, swishing away the flies with their tails, waiting to be carted in from the corral to the arena by cattle truck, then kept in a dark inside stall (the toril), their balance destabilized by filing the tips of their horns, and by the purges mixed into their last meal, to raise some excitement in them with the pain of contracting intestines, all this before being shoved into the glare of the afternoon sun, blinded by the sudden light and by the vaseline deliberately rubbed into their eyes, with the roar of the crowd maddening them, to feel the picadors slice the tender flesh of their shoulders with their piques. Frightened and bewildered, they will, almost to a one, turn to run, seeking an exit from this incomprehensible betrayal on the part of humans, who up to then had fed and provided for them... But escape, whatever the efforts or intelligence of individual beasts, is impossible, and eventually each is cornered, bleeding and weakened by loss of blood and the systematic severing of neck muscles, and in particular those that allow the raising of horns, and thus any effort at self-defense. And so the bull will finally fall, still uncomprehending, to suffer the final indignity of the matador's dagger plunged into the base of his skull, turning first one direction, then the other, scrambling his brains and supposedly hastening his death, as he cries and helplessly flails the air with his hooves... Each dead or dying bull is then dragged over the bloodsoaked dirt surface of the arena, unchanged since Roman times, when other such blood spectacles were provided in that same place for the amusement of the common folk. Six bulls make up a 'corrida', each one counting for approximately twenty minutes of 'entertainment', the total show being thus an estimated minimum of two hours... The dead bulls are stacked, one by one, and left to bleed in the back of the dirty pickup truck usually used by municipal employees for collecting large objects to be disposed of as trash... There are those who say that the dead bulls are not carted off to the rendering plant after the spectacle, as officially proclaimed, but that they go instead to clandestine butchers who prepare their dead flesh, despite its being slaughtered outside European Union standards, for black market sale and consumption as meat from 'toros de combat'...