BESEIGED ON THE FRENCH RIVIERA - Guenady interviews an American Expatriate in Nice

Dateline Nice, France, March 8, 2008

EXPAT : Thanks, Guenady, for this opportunity to tell my story.

GUENADY : You're welcome. It's an incredible story and people should know about it..

EXPAT : Yes, well, I feel I'm living a sequel to Graham Greene's 'J'Accuse', the book he published in 1981 about his confrontation with a local 'network'. After my humble but similar experience, I have to say that I don't think Nice is much different today, in 2008.

GUENADY : I've heard Greene slept with a gun under his pillow, after his book came out.

EXPAT : Well, I can believe that. And it's because I can believe it that I've asked to remain anonymous. But I will feel safer if my story is known, as far and wide as possible...

GUENADY : So, tell me about your present situation and how it came about.

EXPAT : Well, back in 1998, just as I was signing the lease on the premises for the little restaurant I wanted to open in Nice, my last hesitation was about the Mafia. I asked my landlord-to-be if they would bother me. He was emphatic. For twenty years he had run a restaurant where I was now going to reopen, so I figured he ought to know, and I had no reason not to believe him. «  You're not in the Old Town, » he told me. « And you don't plan to stay open late at night, or to serve lots of alcohol. They won't bother you. » But one can't always foresee what sharks and other predators will do. Besides, at the time I didn't realize that there are about as many Mafias in Nice as you and I have fingers and toes between us... One, it seems, for every sector of activity where money is to be made.

GUENADY : Had you already had contact with the local Mafias?

EXPAT : I had already acquired a pretty good notion of how things work here. You see, after arriving on the Riviera, I had trouble finding employment, as most foreigners do. So, I concluded that I would have to create my own job, or else return to Paris, where I had successfully free-lanced for more than 10 years. In fact, the Riviera has a reputation for having the greatest number of unemployed PhDs in the world. So, my humble BA from Berkeley didn't count for much. And I came here despite the warnings of my French friends in Paris, who told me that this place is 'very special', meaning peculiar. The French will tell you that people from Nice, the Niçois, have a reputation for laziness and corruption. In fact, it's only a few of the locals who deserve this, but the reputation sticks because things are so flagrant here. For example, Jacques Medecin, the former mayor, is said to have stolen around 70,000F (close to 11,000 €) per day from the city treasury, while in office, before fleeing to Uruguay to escape justice. It seems likely that Greene's book set off a reaction which led, a few years later, to the present Procureur [something equivalent to a District Attorney, but even more powerful] being sent down from Paris to clean things up.. Be that as it may, the Niçois still speak fondly of 'Jacquou ' and all he did for Nice. The feeling is that his corruption was a fair trade, since he built up the tourism that has made this city rich. Fifty years ago, after the War, Nice was dirt poor and had few prospects.

GUENADY : The whole area once belonged to Italy, didn't it?

EXPAT : Yes, and you can still see the strong Italian influence, particularly in the language.

GUENADY : Is that where the mafia culture comes from?

EXPAT : Actually, I understand that the tradition of corruption here can be traced all the way back 2000 years to Roman times. Then, the local population had to pay the senators, if they wanted anything done. And so it has been ever since, even if it isn't anymore Roman senators who are taking the payoffs. And, of course, the consequence of this system is that if you have no money and no connections, you are totally insignificant and you are expected to keep a low profile, from birth to death... The only way out, if this doesn't suit you, is to become corrupt, too, or to immigrate to some other place. Otherwise, you have to be content with your lot... So, the local people know not to make waves, at least not waves that disturb the fat cats of the region... And if you do have a problem, and your adversary has what is called 'a long arm', you normally have to give up. Otherwise, you might find yourself six feet under, figuratively or literally. And there are plenty of stories to illustrate this...

GUENADY : But, to be fair, the Mafia here isn't like the one in Sicily, with frequent shoot-ups. The French Mafia only disposes of people, and usually discreetly, when other strong-arm tactics don't succeed.

EXPAT : Yes. Anyway, I began to understand how these 'tightknit local arrangements' work when I started up a small business in my usual profession. Amazingly, I realize now, given the context, my little business did modestly well. But the opposition was such that I finally understood that most of the doors I was knocking on, looking for contracts, were firmly shut and weren't about to open. At first, I took it personally. I wasn't doing things right. But little by little, seeing French people face up to the same situation and go under, I realized that these 'networks of influence', what many call Mafias, had every possible money-making situation already sewn up. And they keep the work to themselves and to their friends, exclusively. And whether they can do a good job or not makes no difference. Outsiders like me weren't going to get a foothold... Some foreigners here do manage to do business by dealing exclusively with other foreigners, but I was in Nice, so my struggle was with the local French networks. And that really opened my eyes...

GUENADY : So, where does your restaurant fit into this?

EXPAT : Well, although my business was doing modestly well, given the difficult context, it still wasn't able to support me as I would have liked. So, in order to increase my income, I wanted a second activity. Doing a restaurant seemed a good choice.

GUENADY : And how did things go?

EXPAT : Things went modestly well for more than 5 years...

GUENADY : And when did it start to go wrong?

EXPAT : Well, the restaurant I reopened had been closed for a number of years, when I moved in. And I built up a nice little business, from scratch, before the tramway roadworks started. Where I'm located, in the town center, a large, already-existing pedestrian zone seems slated to expand, to cut down on car pollution and to encourage people to use the new tram. For four years, the businesses here had to survive while the tram construction turned the city center into something like a war zone. The authorities claimed the tram would bring new business in, once it was running. And in anticipation of all the new business the tram would bring, shops standing empty started getting snapped up, and at inflated prices. At the same time, local taxes took a flying leap up. Of course, it has yet to be proven that the tram really will bring new business. It's been operating now since last November, and no one has seen any improvement. Previous customers got used to going elsewhere. Still, property agents and other speculators are very busy here, in the center of Nice.

GUENADY : So there are people who want your premises?

EXPAT : Apparently.. My troubles started when the shop that had stood empty next door even longer than mine, suddenly became occupied. In fact, as my landlord's premises are tiny, he had rented the next-door space as well, in his time, to make a proper, medium-sized restaurant. Between the two spaces, he managed to do a good business for more than 20 years. Next-door was also too small alone for a restaurant, and besides the kitchen is on my side, so the place stood empty. And the owner wanted to sell, not rent. But that didn't bother me, as I was glad to have a small, manageable space in which to learn my new activity. My landlord was glad to find me and, when I moved in, he had a partition erected, to separate the two premises. But the new neighbor was particularly noisy and so the partition proved totally inadequate. I quickly saw that I was going to have to speak up about the noise. However, my efforts to establish a good understanding served no purpose. I was met by a gross, vulgar, xeonophobic insult. Then, he also told me to go back to England where everyone is homosexual like me! Fortunately, this is a type of Niçois that one doesn't see too often... And he said, The regulations are made for foreigners, not for the Niçois! As he's a very short man, mixed in with these macho, latin attitudes, he likely feels intimidated, because I'm tall. Anyway, it was all downhill from the beginning with him.

GUENADY : What kind of noise did he make?

EXPAT : At first, I was treated to the fights and insults between him and his wife, while he was moving in. But once he turned against me, a favorites trick was to cut metal with an electric saw, keeping it up for the full three hours my restaurant was open at lunchtime. You can imagine how people like to listen to such noise while they're eating... And another trick was to turn a radio up, full blast, on a football match, or something similar, with the bass up full and reverberating, shaking the partition. Then he would move this radio, holding it against the partition, from one end to the other and back again. He only did this, of course, at the times when my restaurant was open.

GUENADY : So, you think he was trying to annoy your customers and harm your business?

EXPAT : I have no doubt about it. He seemed determined to drive my customers away. Why, he would stand outside on the sidewalk after each incident, and even while my restaurant was still open, gloating with his friends, trying to provoke me. There was clearly no hope of reasoning with him, so I went to the mediator who works for the city of Nice.

GUENADY : And that didn't help?

EXPAT : The mediator told me he would call the neighbor in and tell him he had no right to bother my business. But strangely, when the day of the convocation came, the mediator had changed sides! Meanwhile, the neighbor had been bragging that he had connections around town, so that nothing would come of my effort. He showed me that he could call on local officials and even the police, to protect himself against my complaints. I suppose that in his line of work (which you have advised me not to talk about), he not only belongs to a network or system, but that he also does people favors, so that favors are owed back to him. That's how these systems work. And they all end up overlapping. Because not even more gross insults from him, nor more irritating noise, deliberately done to disturb my customers, could ever elicit any help from the police.

GUENADY : How did they treat you?

EXPAT : From the beginning, the police told me, 'Don't come to us. We can't do anything for you. You want to make a complaint? Write directly to the Procureur. Don't come to us.' I wasn't able to reason with the neighbor myself, and the mediator had been a waste of time, so where else was I going to go? Legally, the neighbor had no right to insult me, nor to bother my customers, so I had no choice but to insist with the police.

GUENADY : So, the neighbor made deliberate noise and insulted you. Anything else?

EXPAT : Well, first you have to know that insulting someone in France, particularly if it's done in public, is against the law. After the failure of the mediation attempt, I thought that by keeping silent the neighbor would finally give up and stop. I never answered him, ever. To this day, I have not spoken to him since that failed mediation five years ago. But my silence doesn't discourage him at all. On the contrary, the assault became even more vehement and violent and xenophobic. And about then, I noticed that he was being egged on and encouraged by people from outside the neighborhood. They were all so certain of their impunity, as local people, that they would consult each other about how the harassment was progressing right outside my door, and even in front of me! You get the picture? Soon, each time I went out to do an errand, or to walk my dog, I was met with an insult. 'Dirty foreigner! Go home!' and all kinds of bad names. Even the possibility of witnesses didn't stop this neighbor. He seemed to figure that since I was a foreigner and a woman alone, no one would ever help me. And of course, no one did, at first. But when my regular customers saw that this had been going on for more than a year, and that there was no sign of it stopping, some of them finally got up their courage, certainly because they didn't want me driven off, and they gave me their testimonies to take to the police.

GUENADY : And with that, the police finally gave you some help?

EXPAT : Not at all! They laughed in my face and continued to tell me not to bother them. Once, when the woman officer at the precinct desk saw me coming up the stairs, for the umpteenth time, she said to me, 'You have so many problems here, don't you want to go home?' Meaning back to the USA. Great moral support! No one who should have helped me wanted to get involved. My landlord told me it was my problem, and not to bother him with it, although the trouble started because of the inadequate job he had done separating the two premises. And problems with the walls are legally his responsibility, as the owner, not mine. Also, in my lease it is stipulated that he owes me the tranquil use of the space I pay him a rent to occupy. But what could I do, in the face of all these refusals to help me? Accepting the situation was impossible. And by then, my adversary had moved on to the next stage of classic intimidation, which is vandalism. When I saw the first vandalism on my façade, marks dug into one of my wooden plaques, and just in front of the spot where the neighbor had insulted me the day before, I told myself that if he could do that, he wasn't going to stop there, and that one morning I would surely come to find my whole restaurant ransacked and ruined. That kind of thing happens in Nice... Not often, but it happens. So, my solution was to play the rôle of security guard, remaining present round the clock, with my dog sleeping in front of the street door at night, ready to bark if anyone lingered there. Just knowing I'm here is dissuasive. Yet, the petty vandalism intensified during the day, with cigarette burns in the wooden parts of my façade, marks gouged in the wood, and even, once, after an errand that took 15 minutes in the middle of the afternoon, I came back to find the thick window of my street door had been cracked! Another time, at 4:30 in the morning, I had to go outside to take back one of my wooden plaques that two men, using a large knife, had just pried off my façade! It didn't occur to me until later that I had put myself in danger by going out there to confront them. At the moment, I was too angry! And although I was usually careful to park my car in places where I didn't think the neighbor would see it, one day I was pressed for time and parked nearby. Later, I found my tires slashed! And all the while, the neighbor is standing outside on the sidewalk, gloating, giving me opportunities to pick a fight with him, which I think shows how much he wants to provoke me. At the same time, he was trying to stir up other shopkeepers and people in the neighborhood against me. In this regard, you have to remember, very many French people don't like foreigners.

GUENADY : Yes...

EXPAT : And a lot of that kind seem to have settled in my neighborhood... People without much culture or education, who favored him immediately, because he's Niçois. Not one of them ever came to me and asked me for my version of things, even though I'd been in the neighborhood for 5 years before the neighbor, and had never had a problem with any of them. Fortunately, most of my customers are a better class of French people. But narrow-minded types are easily manipulated. One poor woman, your typical consierge gossip who, on top of everything, has a problem with drink, watched the neighbor insult me publicly for more than a year and get away with it, so she decided she ought to be able to do it, too. In all the 5 years before the nasty neighbor moved in, she never would have dared to insult me, however much she may have resented me, an independent woman running her own business alone. And then, on top of the concierge's insults, three years ago, one night, after drinking too much, she crossed over the road and doused my façade with a corrosive cleaning product, shouting that she was going to chase out the dirty foreigner.

GUENADY : Did you try contacting the American Consulate?

EXPAT : Of course! More than once! But they told me there was no proof that what was happening was because I was an American. So, they said they couldn't get involved either. They also told me that the French police certainly had more important things to do than take care of my little problem! To be fair, eventually someone from the Consulate did call the police and asked them to help me, but not much effort was made. And so, predictably, after the vandalisms, came the next stage of intimidation-- threats of physical violence.

GUENADY : Is there anything you were doing that could have provoked this?

EXPAT : Nothing! Except that I wasn't leaving, which is apparently the only thing that would satisfy the neighbor and the people who were pushing him on against me. Why, to this day I have not spoken to him since that first failed mediation attempt... And by the time he moved on to threatening to kill me, it was already three years later.

GUENADY : Three years!

EXPAT : That sounds like a lot, but remember, today it's been five years! Five years that I've had to try to manage in this situation! Can anyone realize what it's like, if they haven't lived through something similar? You have to keep up your courage, to do your business with a smile for your customers, which is already hard enough, even without all the fear and stress on top. And since the other intimidations didn't get me to leave, the threats began. He told me he was going to kill me, two times, two years ago. These threats weren't formulated, as you would expect, in ordinary language. No, he stood in front of my door, late at night, and calmly said, 'Your father is dead! Your mother is dead! You're dead!' Three times he repeated this, then he added, 'I'm going to kill you!' At the same time, I was screaming for him to go away. Some people passing in the street looked at us, so he told them, 'She's an Englishwoman, she's crazy!' And they nodded and went on their way.

GUENADY : So, you think this was a ritual that indicates more sinister involvement?

EXPAT : I don't know, but it did seem to me that for my own protection I couldn't go on tolerating the situation anymore. At the very least, even supposing the neighbor didn't really mean to kill me, he was trying to break my business and break my morale. And how was he able to get away with doing it?. So, I decided, for my own protection, to make as much fuss about what was happening as possible, to keep from being physically attacked. I wrote to the Interior Ministry to complain. I also wrote to the US Embassy in Paris. A new contact was made on my behalf with the Nice police. A woman officer, whose husband was in the Renseignements Généraux (the equivalent of the CIA), a man with whom I had already had contact, proposed herself to help me. But her help was not helpful. First, she suggested, even insisted, that I should call the police and ask for a squad car every time the neighbor made deliberately excessive noise. But he seemed to know we were 'out to catch him', and instead of leaving the radio permanently on loud, he changed the volume every few minutes. Then, when the squad car arrived, the three times I called, the odds were against the volume being at full, and the police got angry with me for calling them out 'for nothing'. So I had to ask myself if this was some kind of set-up, to discredit me. How could I possibly know? After the third failure, I gave up calling for a squad car, although the lady officer continued to insist that I should. And then, after the death threats, she told me the neighbor had been convoked and interviewed, and that he had admitted everything. She said the file had gone to the Procureur's office for prosecuting. Later, I found out that this was all completely false. And when I asked her for an explanation, she told me, 'I can't remember...'

GUENADY : But why would she have wanted to sabotage you?

EXPAT : Well, as I said, I had had some contact already, before the harassment started, with her husband. He had come to see me, out of the blue. You see, the local authorities had already tried once to shut down my restaurant, so I guess they had an eye on me.

GUENADY : What did you do to deserve that?

EXPAT : They didn't like the consumer protection association that I had started up.

GUENADY : What kind of consumer protection?

EXPAT : For consumers of veterinary services.

GUENADY : Which is how we first met.

EXPAT : Yes.

GUENADY : But why would that cause such a backlash?

EXPAT : Well, you and I are both Americans, so we're not shocked by the idea of evaluating veterinary services. That kind of freedom to express opinions, reasonably exercised, is a good aspect of democracy. And there are any number of such sites on the internet for vet services in the States... The majority of the French I talked to congratulated me for doing it here. But they also told me, 'A French person would never dare...'

GUENADY : Why not?

EXPAT : Well, the vets in France, like doctors, have a professional association they belong to, which gives them their licence to practice, and that organization is very powerful. In the local context, with all these networks of influence, you can imagine the kind of contacts that probably exist with the local authorities... And in all these networks, the influences probably overlap, with the members exchanging favors with each other... I guess there were some people who wanted to see the last of me in Nice... I had had a sociology grad carry out a serious survey concerning public opinion on the vets practicing in Nice. From that, I drew up a listing of the recommendable ones, which I made available on internet.

GUENADY : That doesn't sound so bad...

EXPAT : Well, it isn't. In my listing, the bad vets aren't even mentioned.

GUENADY : What do you mean, bad vets?

EXPAT : I mean the ones who want you to take treatments for your pet that aren't necessary, or who overcharge, or those who are just plain incompetent. There are quite a lot of these last... And they might as well not even exist, as far as my list goes, because we only talk about the good ones, the recommendable ones... We encourage people to try several vets, until they find someone they can trust. And we recommend doing this before an emergency strikes... Of course, I checked with lawyers first, before putting my list online. I had four different opinions, and each one said that my listing was perfectly legal. At the consumers' association I belong to, they told me that they had suffered the same kind of harassment when they first started up, fifty years ago. But they didn't want to get involved with vets. They were already too busy with non-medical consumer work. Besides, the professional medical associations are powerful and intimidating.

GUENADY : Didn't you expect some backlash over your listing?

EXPAT : Of course I knew the vets' association wasn't going to be happy about it, but I do think the good vets were glad to get separated from their unworthy colleagues. They just couldn't say so. After all, the vets' association should have been doing something about certain vets, and they weren't. If they had been keeping their members in line, a consumer protection association wouldn't have been necessary. And if their disapproval gets translated into unfair harassment from municipal authorities, something is wrong... This is supposed to be a free society, based on law. Why, I've even wondered if the neighbor could have been sent in deliberately to destroy my business, so as to make that troublesome foreign woman leave! Or perhaps those who wanted me gone just took advantage of his obnoxious personality, and gave him protection, encouraging him to attack me...

GUENADY : And so, where do things stand now?

EXPAT : Well, by appealing to the honest Procureur, three more attempts at mediation occurred. But, of course, the Procureur's got his hands full with corruption cases much more important than mine, so I didn't get a lot of attention. Still, what can I do?. I have money tied up in my business. If I walk away, I lose it all. Still, the situation is so difficult, I can see how some people would give up. But there's something in my character that won't accept to let some low-life, as the song goes, run me out of town. Several times, people came to my restaurant who pretended to be customers, and then, once inside, they were in a better position to cause trouble. And after all these years of not succeeding in driving me out, the neighbor now has other thugs, come to help him. One of them even pretended to be a policeman, the first time he came to my door. At least the police tell me he was pretending... He said he knows lots of important people in Nice, and that he would make me lose my court case, although at the time there was no court case. This so-called policeman told me that he was going to send the Hygene Department out to cause me trouble. And two days later, I had them at my door.

GUENADY : And was that a problem?

EXPAT : No. Just more intimidation. After all, I'm in respect of all the local rules and regulations. But of course, it was a warning, meaning that the neighbor's thugs really can mobilize the municipal services to cause me trouble. And I have been spot-checked by the police a number of times. Two or three officers in uniform sashay in, like they own my restaurant, while there are still customers eating, and they treat me like a suspicious person, demanding to see all my permits and licenses, immediately. So, I have to stop serving my customers to do what they ask. What kind of impression do you think that makes?

GUENADY : Have you had more insults and vandalisms?

EXPAT : Of course. Although everything calmed down about 4 months ago, because the Procureur finally decided to pursue my neighbor in the Nice penal court for his harassment of me. I thought that at last something was going to be done. Also, an investigation was opened into the thug who had pretended to be a policeman and threatened me. I had great hopes that at last there would be some punishment, even just a small one, which is the only way to discourage these people, I think, and to stop their attacks on me. Thank goodness I know some wonderful French people, otherwise I'd have a pretty low opinion of them. In America, these kinds of problems would get resolved between shopkeepers. People would see what was happening, put the guy in his place, and tell him to leave me alone.

GUENADY : So, you went to Court.

EXPAT : Yes, I went to Court. And in order to have access to my file, I had to find some money to pay a lawyer. But even with a lawyer, I didn't get to see my file! The courthouse claimed the file couldn't be found! Of course, such a thing makes you wonder! Was there something in the police reports that would have been unfavorable to the neighbor? Anyway, his part of the file just disappeared. No explanation. I asked to have the missing police reports re-printed out of the police computer, but no notice was taken of my request. And my lawyer said not to worry, that I was in the position of strength.

GUENADY : And what happened when you got to Court?

EXPAT : Well, it took about five minutes for me to realize that I had been given a rôle in a farce. You have to see such a thing to believe it. I was treated by the judge, a woman, as if I were the guilty party, and my adversary was just a poor local man who was being victimized by me! And if I had witnesses to his bad behavior, well, I had provoked him, so it was still my fault. And in all the hundreds, or thousands, of gross insults and vandalisms, the death threats and other threats, none of which I ever answered in kind, there were also many petty incivilities that I had reported, the kind of things that aren't illegal but which poison life between neighbors. The one next to me knows all the tricks, and that was part of the harassmant. So the judge concentrated her comments on those petty incivilities, never talking about the rest of it. And when I tried to state the progression from insults to vandalisms to threats of aggression against me, she cut me off and wouldn't let me continue! But what shocked me the most was hearing it said that I had a share of the blame for the situation. How? The court didn't say how, it just stated this as a given fact! Which, when you're innocent, seems like another blow, to break your morale. So the judge reduced the whole five years of harassment to petty squabbles between neighbors. And the lawyer I had hired, so as to have access to my file, just stood by and didn't make even one objection ! In fact, he had already tried to get more money out of me, two days before the case came up, although we had agreed, when I gave him a first sizeable sum, that we would talk about more money for him once we had the judgement. It would seem he had been informed in advance that the case was going to be dismissed, so he tried to get more money from me before I found out. Suspicious. And normally, if the Procureur decided to pursue the guy in the first place, there should have been enough evidence to convict... I also found out that the investigation into the false-policeman friend, opened last November, was suspended in December!. Strange, indeed!

GUENADY : The so-called Mafia influence?

EXPAT : How can anything be proven? And this may be an indication that the Procureur is finally on his way out. Remember, he was sent in to clean up corruption here, so a lot of people would like to see the last of him... And a few years back, he went on local television saying there were four files on his desk that he was particularly determined to pursue. One of these, he said, had to do with Christian Estrosi.

GUENADY : The Deputy who is now a right-hand man of Sarkozy, and Minister for Overseas Affairs... As well as the likely next mayor of Nice.

EXPAT : Yes. Well, all the local networks of influence have long been out to get rid of the Procureur. The present mayor even went so far as to announce, a few years ago, in the local newspaper, that the Procureur was being transferred back to Paris! Of course, it was just wishful thinking. Then. But now, with Estrosi so close to Sarkozy, and the new justice minister also an appointee of Sarkozy, it would not be impossible to imagine that everything is being done behind the scenes to get the honest Procureur removed.

GUENADY : What is in the file on Estrosi?

EXPAT : Well, it seems that Estrosi, while still a local Deputy, the equivalent of our state representatives, once took a large sum from the municipal treasury without justifying it, or ever repaying it. The Procureur wants an explanation. None has been forthcoming. And of course, as long as Estrosi is a minister, he enjoys immunity under French law. He is untouchable. And even if that were not so, after my experience in Court, I guess things can be arranged so that nothing comes of this, even if he does have to face a judge someday.

GUENADY : So, if we draw this story to a close, what is the moral, in your opinion. What advice would you give to foreigners thinking of opening a business here?

EXPAT : Well, I'm probably going to surprise you... I'm not going to be discouraging. I just recommend that people come with their eyes open. And they'd better have the backbone to defend themselves, in case they get attacked, like I've been.

GUENADY : What solution do you see for your own problems?

EXPAT : I don't know how this is going to be resolved. It's for sure my problems will probably all start up again, since the neighbor has now been before a judge and once again escaped punishment. Worse-- he's been exonerated and the fault has been put on me! He'll wait a while, maybe not long, and then he'll start again. Already his friend, the false policeman, has been around, chanting, 'We're going to chase you out! We're going to chase you out!' And when it starts up again, where will I go? Everything has failed. The judge made quite a point of saying that I had harassed the police with all my requests for help! That seems designed to keep me from ever asking again. And if I meet the neighbor with his own tactics, well his network of influence extends much farther than my poor little honest one... Still, I'm not about to give up. I'll continue to defend my business and myself, as best I can. And that's why I've asked you to write about my story. Hopefully it will make the next stage after intimidation less likely. Because usually, if you don't submit to the threats, then you really do get physically attacked. Beaten up. Or worse.

GUENADY : Yes.

EXPAT : But all this corruption exists underground, hidden, and the best way people can fight it, I think, is to do what Graham Greene did, and shine a light on it. And that's how I'm hoping you can help me. Perhaps one day, a different Nice will thank me for having stood up to these people, which is how, finally, one day, their influence will end. I don't think the local people will fight this fight. They're too conditioned to think the situation is normal. It's the foreigners coming to live here, who aren't used to these tactics, who won't accept them, and who will resist... So finally, all these networks and their plots will have to break down...

GUENADY : Do you ever feel resentful about the submissiveness of the honest French?

EXPAT : During the 31 years I have lived as an expatriate in this country, I have often had nice French people tell me, when they discover I'm American, that they have a son, a cousin, or a sister in the States and 'They love it! They are so well treated! They wouldn't come back for anything!' No one has ever told me the opposite. And I have never distressed these good people, although I have often been tempted, by telling them that it would be fitting for the French to be even half as welcoming to foreigners here, in return. Being white and well-educated, I've made my way in France without the usual brunt of French xenophobia against me, as it is for so many other nationalities.

GUENADY : Why aren't you more angry with the French?

EXPAT : Because I know too many wonderful French people! And, as I already said, the little people here are just as much victims of these networks as we, the foreigners, are. Even if they don't always see it... And also, being an American, in my family's mixed origins there is some French, on my mother's side. And on my father's side, my grandmother was a nurse in the first Great War, with the American Expeditionary Forces at Verdun. One of her jobs was to go out on the battlefield, to sort out the wounded from the dead. And her future husband, my paternal grandfather, was also an American soldier fighting in France... So, I don't feel that any xenophobic low-life has anything to reproach me for. I have the right to be here, and not just a legal right...

GUENADY : Thank you and good luck. I'll ask you for updates on your situation from time to time. I'm sure international public opinion will be concerned over your continuing struggle to defend your interests, as a foreigner operating a business in Nice...