by Jean-Jacques COURTEY, Doctor in Economic Geography, Ph. D
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We read recently a very stimulating article on "Courrier International" n°1337 about France and its politics, untitled "Une monarchie sans perruques" - "A monarchy without wigs", in English - from a Belgian journalist, Simon Kuper : it was originally published in "Le Soir" of Brussels, on last May 27th. It was amusing and entertaining.
According to him, the structures of power haven't change in France since Louis XVI. And supposingly his head was given back to him, he would be quite all right nowadays if walking in Paris.
Of course, this is a psychedelic image, but it means something subconscious has strongly been reactivated.
He underlined that Paris was often seen by French observers as a "royal court", just without less wigs. People may criticize the "monarch" behind, but in front of him they are empressed courtesans.
And he quoted that the Parisian elite feels protected from suburbs and its inhabitants by the "peripheral belt" (just named "le périphérique" in Paris). Finally, he stressed that the elections of 2017 to choose a new monarch, called "president" now, would most likely lead to the victory of a fragilized politician on the second round.
It is strange to realize that for outsiders, France is still strongly seen as a monarchy more than a republic. As a matter of fact, when in France, it is hard to find a single day without someone forgetting to recall our country is a republic or that an attitude is republican - with the meaning of "virtuous". And when you walk in the streets of Paris, in Odeon area for instance, you would expect less to meet a "re-headed" Louis XVI, starring as "the miraculous Survivalist", than Danton or Robespierre's ghosts - who finished themselves guillotined : officiously, Robespierre said he didn't understand the meaning of the word "republic" Danton was using, and then never proclaimed it openly in 1792 !
Imagine a minute, a resurrected Louis XVI going to one of the cinemas of the place in motorbike with his tender friend also "re-headed", Olympe de Gouges : it would be the day !
Just visualize both of them having a "Miko" ice cream and smiling at each other, while watching a love story on the screen ! The touch is psychedelic.
Or better, try to see them going to dance an acrobatic rock-and-roll on La Bastille square, at night, for the National Festival of July 14th !
Nostalgia is the key to understand present France, with all its upheavals, and it has psychedelic effects on everyday life.
When people are demonstrating their opposition to more and more reforms, it's not because they want to stay immobile. In fact, it is connected to a growing inner fear or even angst about the future, seen as dark and very worrisome.
Will the country still exist in the years to come, and especially will it count as a great nation ?
From Louis XIV to Louis XVI, France is considered to have been "la Grande Nation" in the world.
But, it's true at that time, it was owning the once gigantic Louisiana, stretching from Baton Rouge to Canada.
And this feeling is not really invented, as effectively, it was once the first power in the world, when now you don't know exactly where to classify it. Just recently, American statistics showed that California itself took over France in matter of GDP, outranking it as only n°7.
Even freedom is seen as in the famous painting of Delacroix ("La liberté guidant le peuple" - Liberty guiding the People) : the Vendean peasant (a survivalist legitimist devoted to the memory of Louis XVII, Louis XVI's son) is depicted as fighting on the same side as the worker (a republican) or the Parisian bourgeois, beside the kid Gavroche humming against "Voltaire and Rousseau's fault", and a topless Marianne, to defend their freedom in front of an oppressing and illegitimate power, in 1830.
Paris is presently the new "Woodstock" of the contesting, with flourishing ideas to recreate society.
It will probably lead nowhere, but it is creating quite an effervescence.
Discontent with their own politics and the way it is made, people are imagining another way, which may look rather psychedelic. But unhappily, it doesn't look like the funny "Peace and love" of hippies, from the seventies !
Hence, finding that discord and envy are often presiding over a lot of things, is just a "minimalist" observation.
Goddess Eris is reigning in those chaotic times, with flying illusions.
Her golden apple for the marriage of Thetis, is certainly creating conflicts between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite.
And it would be better this time for Pâris of Troy, not to say which one is the most beautiful !
Coincidentally or not, we are in a similar Solar configuration to the period 1789-1794, with the emission of coronal mass by the Sun. And this sudden and unusual activity of our Sun is predicted to last from 2016 to the end of 2017. Some doctors are quite seriously associating such a cosmic event with more heart attacks and cancers, but also with an increased human nervosity and reactivity. And it is undoubtly affecting Paris, even it is raining often !
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