Keeping a chateau in the family

In the 14th century Jean de Bonneville was chamberlain to the king and then it all began. The current Chateau de Bonneville in Normandy near Broglie is mostly 17th century, on a limestone base, built in brick, with a slate Mansard roof (added under Louis XIV). The property has stayed in the family but mostly transferred via the distal side. It's rare in that it has never, ever been sold.

It's more famous for being the home of writer Jean de La Varende (1887-1959). He was indeed a relative who had been born in Normandy but rarely saw the chateau during his childhood. Still, he had a great nostalia for it and took up his abode in 1919.

This writer was also a passionate boat modeller, and artist and that's very evident when you make a little tour of parts of the property. It's still owned within the family and the current owners live there so it's a private residence where they've created a small museum to the writer (created in 2000).

The owners gave us a personal tour and commentary which was pleasant and informative. It must be quite something to live amongst the portraits of one's ancestors each day, sitting on their furniture and weeding their garden. There's a working farm containing cows and what's left of the box hedging decor.


There are a lot of  'collectables' in the rooms we viewed, including ceramics. A staircase had been removed to make the dining room larger. Fireplaces still work, thank goodness as the weather was very cold the day we came to view. Out of respect to the owners I kept my interior photos to only the museum and did not photograph their private living space.


The current owner is Princesse C.-E. de Broglie, born L. Mallard de La Varende. She is married to a Broglie. Their dog has total run of the place, including the furniture so don't be surprised if he jumps around on everything you're looking at.

It was a shame the weather was so inclement as I'd have liked to have wandered around the grounds. There's a little lake and an orangerie.

Right at the end we were given the opportunity to buy some of La Varende's writings. Each book priced at 5€. Not expensive but rather old and musty in reality as they seemed to be stored in an old cellar collecting dust. I imagine it's quite expensive to pay the upkeep of the property so no wonder the owners are doing tours and selling books. You can find this private chateau next to  (300m from) the church Notre-Dame du Chamblac. It's off the usual tourist routes so most visitors would be French.

When French locals get their tourism wrong.

I was in a bus filled with retired folks, fellow members of the Association Patrimoine d'Epernon et alentours heading through damp countryside into Normandy. We are all interested in history and culture but I was the only non-French person on the trip; the annual bus trip for members of this heritage group who usually only meet each other once a year on a trip, unless they are on the organising committee.

The trip took a couple of hours to get to our first stop; slightly longer than it should have because our bus driver got lost. I wondered why he didn't use GPS. We sat patiently in the bus, on the side of a quiet country road just waking up to Spring. Temperatures were chilly but I'd come prepared with gloves, scarf, warm coat and a flask of hot chocolate. JC scoffed at that but I was determined not to get 'caught out' with nothing to drink or warm me up.

Back on track we discovered ourselves trundling slowly along a very narrow trail with the trees so close they scratched the sides of the bus. There was an unkempt air to the place. The road opened up to a grassy space and there was the old mill, the Moulin de Prey at Broglie.

JC and I looked at it and ourselves, thinking  hmm, let's hope it's better than it looks. It wasn't. France does tourist visits really well, usually, but I was about to experience a visit designed for locals by folks of an amateurish and lackadaisical  persuasion.

We split into two groups and queued a long time for the one toilet. The first thing I saw in the mill was a lot of old cheese packages stuck on a board. This mill may have started its life grinding grain but there was no evidence of that. Instead, it seems the mill had been used for many other industries. It had processed many brands of cheese and also been a jam factory.

We saw the pots where the jam was heated. Workers wore special aprons to protect them from nasty burns from hot jam spitting out. The pots had handles for tipping them.

We also saw ancient autoclaves used for sterilising jars and other things but over everything was a reek of decay and dust, dust, dust. There was no professional signage. I wasn't expecting anything in English but this place charges money for entry and a small guided tour so I thought there might have been a better standard of presentation. Clearly everything just sits there from year to year hoping you'll be impressed. No, it's amateurish and filthy.

It calls itself an ecomuseum but anglophones beware, there's nothing ecological about it. Apparently this means it's a mishmash of different things. I just couldn't see why the French would add eco to something that had nothing to do with ecology or economics. There was a facsimile of an old schoolroom but the plastic dolls and general rundown-attic ambiance didn't really fire my interest.

Upstairs we were told we were in for a treat; viewing hundreds of bugs and butterflies impaled and displayed on boards. Someone's hobby. Photos were forbidden but I've no idea why. In an alcove was a collection of stuff from pharmacies gone by. Rundown, dusty, no signage. It looked like a forgotten garage sale. In the final adjoining room we could look at lots of boring, rusty and dusty tools once used in carpentry or other similar trades. After looking at 50 hammers or chisels it all gets a bit ho-hum. JC wasn't impressed either and he's a  handyman DIYer.

For light relief I looked out the window. The stream leading to the mill was so polluted you couldn't see the water. It gave the impression you could walk on it. Brown, swirly streaky stationary water. Feeling a bit irritated and frustrated by the state of things I asked why the stream was polluted. I was told, nonchalantly, it was because of runoff from houses' sewage up steam. But why is it allowed? Why doesn't the Mairie do something about this? It's bad for the animals and insects, I said.

He just shrugged and said, yeah it wasn't good. I added that it didn't make for a good image of the mill, but my observations fell on deaf ears. A very unsatisfying and scarcely interesting visit.

After lunch in a neighbouring restaurant we climbed back on the bus where I desperately opened my flask for some warming liquid calories. I'm all for encouraging local tourism and pride in heritage but it should be of  a standard that respects the visitor. This one doesn't and is not worth the time and money. It may not be very profitable and suffering from lack of money (i don't know) but I think it would be better to have less stuff in a better condition than the musty magpie effect it currently has.

If you want to read more about this property and see pictures of poor beasties stabbed on boards go to http://www.le-moulin-de-prey.org/http://www.le-moulin-de-prey.org/

Into the void: searching for a hen's tooth

It's not like me to write my blog so infrequently and regular readers may be wondering what has happened? Well, life has become rather tedious because everyday is consumed with work or searching for a way to save myself in France. No jaunts to Paris, no money to do anything because every centime must be guarded for what blackness may arrive this year. Get a grip Frances, you say, just keep persisting. But a little voice says... haven't I persisted enough yet?

I recognise this feeling. I suffered it for too many months in my last employment in New Zealand, when I knew I was losing my job yet couldn't find another one. That sense that things would change and not as I wanted them to, but I had no idea what effort on my behalf would result in a positive result. That sense that everything was unravelling and a large amount of loss was on the way. It's back!

It's a feeling of emptiness with no sense of direction. Sure I know what I want but it seems I can't have it, and all alternatives have a significant dark side.

There are days when I feel paralysed by this feeling, desperate to take action to move myself forward but where is forward? What we do usually depends to a large extent on what someone else does. Will a person give me a job? It's as simple as that. Unemployment is not an option for me here in France, even if I'm legally entitled to a few months of it, because without a good enough contract I won't be allowed residency for another year and I certainly won't be able to go through the nerve-wracking, expensive and time-consuming process of applying to become a French citizen - an opportunity tantalisingly close now (end of September) but given my current carte de sejour (expires mid August), and contract situation (also August) - no cigar.

I'd love a CDI contract, the holy grail in France. It gives you a permanent position: regular income and stability and the right to continue living in France and become naturalised. Getting this is unlikely though miracles could happen. Dream job? Doing PR and Communications in English in France. Super-dream job? Making a positive difference to (non-rich) people's lives while giving myself a financially stable future.

The only other option for me is a CDD. This is a short term contract, usually for a year, which can sometimes be renewed on a yearly basis, and is what I've been labouring under since I arrived. For a non-EU resident like me they are guaranteed to give you permanent anxiety with a dash of hope that you might find another somewhere. Well, my CDD has come to a permanent end.

Under my visa category I can only be a salaried employee. I cannot be self-employed or anything else. In France jobs are given by order of priority to French citizens, then EU citizens and then, if they can't fill the job, to non-EU seekers of employment. This usually mean zero chance. Under the National Education limitations, for someone like me I cannot work in most educational institutions in France because I'm not French and I haven't won a competition (the CAPES) for a right to teach English by writing hours of exams in formal French. Most French contestants don't succeed. I don't even have the right to try and why would I? There are limits to even my masochism.


Another option would require me to get a CDD and then work additional hours as a vacataire (in order to meet minimum income requirements for naturalisation) at a university - even the one I'm currently working at, but I'd need a primary job of at least 900 hours per year and an agreement from the employer to let me work as a teacher elsewhere during the week for some hours. A vacataire can be dispensed with at any time, has no contract, doesn't get paid for travel or lesson preparation (class contact hours only) and usually has to wait 6 months to get paid. As the uni's vacataires complain to me - they feel like slaves. But I'd take that if I could get the right CDD. Being a French citizen would give me the right to take any sort of work I wanted, that's what I want.

Right now I am forced to consider the likelihood I may lose my apartment and my possessions as a minimum, even if I find a little job. Further, with no job at all I would be kicked out of France with no possessions other than key personal items, no job anywhere and nowhere to live. It's scary. It's paralysing. Next month I turn 60. Last time I spoke to the unemployment office here, they said I was too old to be employable. I ask myself where paying taxes for more than 40 years in one country, taxes for 5 years in another and 9 years of tertiary study have got me? And before you tell me to go back to NZ, it's not that simple.

I've had some rich experiences here in France but you can't live for the rest of your life on those, or pretty scenery in NZ. Will I find a way to survive subsistence-wise somewhere? If I must. I'll do what it takes even if I'm unlikely to like my choices. None of my current choices offer any kind of permanence or long-term financial stability. And there's a voice inside me that says I deserve better than poverty somewhere.

I was trying to explain NZ's introduction of zero-hour contracts to my economics students this week. They looked aghast, such a cruelty would be unthinkable here. Even McDonalds can't do that here and they seem to get by OK. I'm shocked at how difficult governments can make life for folks just trying to make a life for themselves. Honest, hard-working folks. I'm grateful I don't have one of those sorts of contract and I'm ashamed of the employers in NZ who use them. Worse than being a vacataire, it seems. Yes, there's always someone worse off in that moment... but that doesn't help. I prefer to focus on more positive possibilities even if they turn out only to be dreams. And hope like hell!

I'll keep you posted on my efforts to extricate myself from the void.
Graph shows unemployment in France.

http://lesactualitesdudroit.20minutes-blogs.fr/archive/2012/01/31/cdd-il-faut-un-motif-precis.html

The Mole

Despite living in France for nearly five years I had never seen a mole. I'd seen plenty of evidence of them but never a live animal. I was curious but unfortunately didn't get to meet one under happy circumstances. JC was trapping them.

They've been trapped for centuries. In the past, gloves and men's top hats were made from moleskin. It's a dense, soft, luxury fur. I haven't seen any moleskin products around though. I suppose the poor dead critters are just thrown on compost heaps or rubbish bins these days. Why do people trap them these days? Because they spoil the look of backyards and lawns and farmers' fields.

Moles are insectivores with a diet predominantly that of earthworms. Their saliva contains a toxin that can paralyse earthworms so they can be stored in the moles' underground larders for later munching. Polydactyl (extra thumbs) they have powerful shovel-like front paws rather out of proportion to the rest of them. Their eyes are mostly hidden by fur and they have no external ears. They don't hibernate and mate only once a year.

Moles are solitary creatures that need to eat regularly. They can die of starvation after 12 hours. The females have ovotestes which produce a lot of testosterone making them aggressively protective of their young.
JC called me over to see a mole he had trapped. It had been caught by the shoulder which was probably crushed, but the powerful energy in the little beast was evident. It's not a cuddly critter and with its eyes hidden seems rather odd but I still felt compassion. I don't like hurting and killing things, especially mammals (though snails and slugs don't get any mercy from me). After satisfying my curiosity JC put it on the ground. Too slowly I turned away. JC put his boot on its head. No, no I said, though I knew it was no use to plead for it.

I couldn't watch that. He left it there for his dog, blood smears and all. I didn't like that either. The dog didn't find it so JC told me to bring the little rubbish bin from the kitchen. What? He was OK with the little dead body sitting in the rubbish bin by the bench. I was not. Once a hunter and trapper always a hunter and trapper I suppose, but I'll keep my sensitivity thanks. I hope the earthworms in my future vegetable garden will be relieved by the demise of the mole but I know there will be moles imprudent enough to build molehills like erupting volcanoes all over JC's property in the future. There are no effective removal strategies other than trapping. JC used mole deterrent vibration-makers in the past to no effect.

Here are two videos. The one in French is worth watching as it's comprehensive and fascinating even if you don't understand French. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov5j-GCEh14 The other video is less informative but is in English.  Follow this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-7lxvhr_Wg 

 

French hospital encore

Four years to the month since I had first been admitted to the emergency department of Rambouillet hospital, I found myself there again, twice in one week.

I'd been sick for over 5 weeks. Caught in a doctor's waiting room over a 3 hour wait for treatment, it seemed to start with a sore throat and cough, earache and sundry other symptoms one can expect during winter but those symptoms just wouldn't get better. A trip to find a doctor resulted in antibiotics to protect my bronchial lungs, steroids and paracetamol. As a couple of weeks went by I improved but never got well. Jean-Claude suffered many of the same symptoms but to a lesser degree than me. Then things took a turn for the worst. I was incapable of doing anything except lying as still as possible and drinking liquids. My coughing was seismic and meant I became incontinent from a urinary perspective. How on earth was I supposed to work? After no improvement for three days, a temperature up and down, and unable to eat I decided to take off for the hospital. This is not a decision made lightly as the experience is invariably unpleasant and the wait... well... torture.

It was a Sunday night, relatively quiet but with a lengthy waiting time. We waited five hours in the waiting room from 8pm til 1am. I was then transferred to Box 3 (room) where I was given a chest xray, blood test, and tortured by inexperienced and incompetent nursing staff unable to insert lures into veins without damaging them and inflicting a lot of pain. I was shivering with cold/fever but given no blanket. The intern, when she finally arrived after 7 hours, was a kind and lovely person (most unusual, she had caring eyes). She felt the antibiotic I'd originally been given by my doctor had been too general and thus ineffectual. She changed it and prescribed an anti-inflammatory for my sinuses and ears. I was sent home with permission to take two more days off work (a total of 3, so generous). I had to wait more hours until JC could find a pharmacy open during normal hours. Many are closed on Mondays or at least Monday mornings. If you get a prescription from a hospital you have to search for a pharmacy that might come and open it's doors to you after hours. Nothing is obvious so you usually suffer until the next day. If like me you are incapable of standing or driving you are pretty much screwed.

The next day I was even worse. My temperature became more militant, I was vomiting and unable to eat or keep my medicine down. Unable to sleep because of the violent coughing and nausea, having eaten little for nearly a week I didn't know what to do to help myself; neither did JC who was becoming alarmed. There weren't any neighbourhood medical centres with 24/7 service including a pharmacy, such as I used to have access to in NZ. In France such things are rare.  I'd already lost a day of work and JC had been obliged to fill out and post all sorts of paperwork to my employer within 24 hours of my receiving the OK to not work for 3 days. No such thing as waiting until you are well enough to sit up and do it or go out to a post office. Thank goodness JC was there.

I'm a contractor and so if I don't show up to work I don't get paid. If I don't get paid I can't pay rent on my apartment. Do I have any sickness rights? I don't know because clear, direct and transparent work contracts don't exist in my sector. All my contract states is refer to law xyz or abc etc from back in the 1980s. These laws are incomprehensible to most people and still don't say anything. What's more they are in French legalese. There are no clear communication lines to HR to ask questions-it's as if staff don't want to be found.

After 36 hours of getting even weaker I felt I had no choice but to go back to the hospital, lying down in the back of the car as we travelled the 27km to Rambouillet, hair plastered to my face from sweat. I was incapable of sitting upright. This time, clearly ill, I was transferred to a trolley in the corridor and left there for 8 hours. They checked my blood pressure and oxygen at the beginning and then I became invisible. Several times over the hours I pleaded with staff to let me have a drink of water. I was ignored or told it wasn't their job to do that. There was a total lack of caring. It may have been the emergency department but there was no sense of urgency anywhere. Extremely quiet, calm, staff wandering about doing things but certainly not overworked.

Not one person in A&E, despite years of their higher education, seemed able to speak English. I felt desperate, unable to communicate effectively due to illness and stress, isolated, alone. JC had gone home this time after 4 hours of waiting and no communication from hospital staff. I was to wait a total of 8 hours only to be told I could go home, it was a second virus but keep on with the antibiotics anyway. The intern on duty that day said it wasn't technically possible to give me any more days off. JC later informed me this is rubbish; she simply couldn't be bothered completing the pre-prepared paperwork. I explained to this intern I'd needed a drink of water. She did not bother to reply or act on it. On my way out I had to knock on the door and ask for a drink. She seemed highly put out as she reached for a cup and bottle above her. I was not impressed. Where was the basic nursing and caring?

What were the positives this time? I had Jean-Claude instead of an ambulance. I didn't have to pay hundreds of euros on my way out of the hospital because this time I had medical insurance. I had JC to come and collect me so I didn't have to walk home alone sick in the freezing winter weather. The hospital didn't bother with a lure the second admission this time so my bruised veins were left alone. They didn't insist I wear a mask the second time I was admitted last week so I don't know if I'm contagious or not.

Am I well? No. I'm improving incredibly slowly but still extremely weak, with all the original symptoms and pain so I don't know if I'll have another relapse. I'm trying to arrange to teach replacement classes for some of my students so I will get some pay in a few months time but some classes cannot be rescheduled, I'm told. It's all very worrying. I really don't feel well enough to work but there's no choice.

There are some nasty microbes out there that just won't let go. Take care and even if your partner is very concerned for your health, hospital might prove a waste of time. I have no alternative I can recommend.

Can a piece of tape make us safe from terrorism?

Last week I arrived at work (a university outside Paris) to discover I couldn't enter the door. It was chained and had tape wrapped around it. I tried another door, and other. Three sides of the building had hastily printed signs saying the doors were 'condemned'. It was the same in the other campus buildings. There was only one entry/exit door per building. These are buildings of 4-6 levels. It was pouring with rain and I was carrying almost 20 kgs of equipment and documents so I was a bit perturbed. It was also ironic as I was told by the photocopying office that they were unable to print teaching materials for students as they were out of paper.

As I trudged around the campus looking for ways in, I noticed that there were metal barriers wrapped around with red and white plastic tape outside the uni. It looked like a crime scene. All parking outside had been eliminated.  It was still the case this week so I asked reception what was going on? The nice man replied that it was by order of the Prefecture, not even the president of the university had done this; a consequence of the Vigipirate - the French level of security alert. Hmm. I felt damned uncomfortable but I didn't feel menaced by terrorists. I felt scared because of the reaction.

President Holland had publicly stated that 'we would not be afraid... we would never give in to terrorists...' but haven't we just done that, emotionally? I'm all for keeping folks safe (including my students and me), but it needs to be carefully thought out and implemented properly. France knew about the Charlie Hebdo and Kosher supermarket terrorists before it happened but failed to act to prevent the massacre. Here we were with no identifiable threat but we were blocking the doors and turning the place into a shrine to fear.

So let's look at this logically. If they want to control entry they need to have it under surveillance. There are very amateurish and extremely recent computer-printed signs suggesting the entry is under surveillance. Really? I could see no sign of a camera. Having a camera wouldn't be very useful; you need an armed person checking everyone's ID and bags in order to keep us safe. There is no-one. Why? No money, my students told me.

Then I remember President Hollande had suddenly found the resources in this indebted country to increase security personnel around France by an extra 50,000 which seems to have automatically increased his appalling popularity rating from barely two figures to a whopping 40% in just a week. Bad news is good news/ the sheeple have clearly thought this through. But my uni is obviously too far out from Paris to be considered important enough by the politicians and tacticians to protect in truly practical terms. Here are the various levels of the vigipirate...

I asked the nice man at reception how long the doors would be blocked. As long as we have the terror alert, he informed me. Well, I don't know what it will take to suddenly have the world a safer place so we can lower the vigipirate. Prime Minister Valls was reported in the media last week as saying that students would have to get used to living their lives indefinitely now under a threat of terrorism. OKayyy!

I wondered what my students thought so I asked them. Discussions on the serious situation facing France is encouraged in primary schools, to help people cope,  so listening to students was interesting for me because this sort of situation is not yet the norm in New Zealand (though the NZ Prime Minister is probably taking actions to ensure it becomes so, one day).

The general feeling was the splendid show of unity in the post-Charlie march in Paris hadn't achieved anything of lasting value. One student said a bomb launched into a uni building would mean no-one would get out via one small door. How quickly would campus security get the doors open again in a different emergency? The order to shut the buildings' doors, effectively keeping people from getting out in a hurry, and the threat to search bags (never happens) was symbolic, they told me, as without true monitoring of doors anyone can enter; it changes safety not a wit, in a positive sense.

Don't worry, my students said, eventually they'll have to lower the alert level otherwise they won't have a level left to raise it to if something else happens. They can't keep it like that but they must be seen to be doing something. Sure, I agree but couldn't they do something logical, realistic, effective? Do I have to continue indefinitely to operate in such a negative environment, in the middle of a crime scene, only there's no crime? There has been nothing but silence from the uni's communication department. I can't find any mention of any of this on the uni website news page.

Humans are adaptable so my students and I will all get used to reduced rights and a negative atmosphere. It's actually easier to deal with this than the fact that it's impossible to buy a drink on campus. I'm on campus from 8.30am-8pm on Mondays, for example. My health is more under threat from dehydration and urinary tract infections caused by lack of any drink vending machines than radicalised students or outsiders.
I applaud the sentiments that brought people out in Paris and got them talking about free speech but day-to-day life is not showing any positive changes for the better and I don't feel safer. The local armed military personnel are only evident in the Paris area of Ile de France. We chuckled ironically, shook our heads and shrugged our shoulders, my students and I, as our way of trying to deal with the changed situation and the craziness of it all. After all, what can any of us do, caught between terrorists and politicians.

Well done to all the boots-on-the-ground personnel dedicated to helping some of us stay safe, but where to from here?

In the wake of "Charlie"

It wasn't a happy start to the year - watching terrorists massacring innocents in Paris. I wasn't too surprised but it was shocking and I had the luxury of watching it on TV from the safety of a location outside Paris. I've lived in France for more than 4 years now and the current situation is alarming. As an 'outsider still' I try to use my otherness to look at things from a neutral perspective or at least try to appreciate different sides but I'm starting to become convinced that France has certainly created this problem but its ruling ideology will never take the steps to rectify the problems because it wouldn't be politically correct.

France is not a meritocracy.You don't get to enter and succeed based on your commitment and interest in the good of France. If that was the case a lot of dodgy people with no French language or resources or education would never have been allowed to enter.  Once you're here you can't say anything bad about groups of people who share a particular religion or ethnicity or you are racist, even if some facts are clearly there. Rights are quickly defended except for the rights of the majority to be able to move around France in relative safety. To my mind, it's a twisted sort of thinking leading to some reasonable fears for the future culture of France. There really are threats ahead.

There are 751 no-go zones in France. For a list of those you can visit this government website
http://sig.ville.gouv.fr/Atlas/ZUS/ list of no-go zones
 They are usually low education, low employment, low levels of home ownership areas. What this means is that if you are not of a certain type you don't enter. That includes emergency and government services like the police. So these little 'states' rule themselves according to their own rules; often islamic sharia law. This makes drug dealing, organised crime and jihadi recruiting rather easy because the State isn't going to interfere. I scratch my head. What on earth is France thinking?

 I agree that most Muslims are not terrorists and it's a shame they get lumped in with it all, but what's really being done to separate the two? The parade in Paris, avoiding its no-go zones of course, isn't really going to achieve much, I fear. Good to see the 'French' not cowering down, and wanting to keep relatively free speech and democracy but this is an internal war. They've got to clean out these nests of vipers with French nationality. How to do that? I hear some pretty alarming suggestions from some quarters which will be unworkable and will just augment the hate, but you can't have 'freedom to live separate and in hate' for the haters and no freedom for the rest? Jews are leaving France in unprecedented numbers because they feel it's not safe to stay. Some of them might go back to Israel and support the occupation of Palestine though. What a twisted world.

The terrorist who killed shoppers in the Jewish supermarket was one of 10 kids whose family had lived free (ie provided for) thanks to the State. I think French taxpayers have a right to expect all citizens to accept the French way of life or get out willingly or be evicted, instead of being murderous parasites and killing the hand that fed it for decades. If it's good enough for Napoleon to be exiled in the middle of the Atlantic surely we can airdrop these vermin somewhere like that. French nationality should be conditional on good behaviour and integration, for all citizens. It will be the case for me, why not them?

I'm not yet French but I feel proud of some of the values held here, yet horrified by the ridiculous ideologies that have allowed this situation to continue. If citizens don't feel part of a country it's up to them to adapt, not the other way around. The real problem is these no-go zones, and that everyone should be treated with the utmost niceness while they are murdering you, threatening your way of life, insisting France become a different country. France has 10% of its population Muslim. In my opinion this is only unbalanced if they persist in living as they did in their countries of origin. I have no problem with anyone who integrates - there's no reason to fear them.

I have many religions in my classes. I'm an atheist so I have to have tolerance for their views, so long as they are not trying to force it down my throat or threaten me. None of that, fortunately, happens as they are interesting and pleasant people. I'm also comfortable sharing my atheist ideas. That's how it should be. We listen, we learn, and we agree or disagree, that's all. And I'm not left, right or centre; I have the best of everything in my head and live by my own rules in accord with the rules of the country I live in.

I think this march today should be about freedom of speech and thought and religion but only if you consider yourself French first; not Jewish or Muslim or Catholic etc. France first, personal life at least second. I fear today's symbolic gathering may achieve little, or perhaps it's a start of a better way... we'll see. JC and I wanted to participate to show solidarity against terrorism and fear, to support French values of freedom but we were sadly too sick to spend many hours in the cold.

Note: I'm glad the scum terrorists were shot dead. No need to waste more money on them with a pointless trial, publicity and jail. They killed jews, muslims and christians alike. Likewise I don't include pics of them because they deserve to be invisible. I wish the media would understand that. If we no longer need to identify them we don't need to give them visual publicity.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11384995