Bemused grumble

You know, as much as I like Paris, and as beautiful and historic of a city it may be, I’m really not all that fond of it.  I know that may sound strange, but hear me out.

Paris is a fantastic city in terms of culture, history, architecture, etc.  Every time that I walk along its streets (as I did yesterday, on a successful quest to get my new passport), I realize just how privileged I am to be there.  So much has happened for so many centuries; the city is renowned the world over and has been for almost as many centuries as things have been happening there.  Every few steps, it seems, you run across some world-famous monument or piece of sculpture or museum, and by and large the city is relatively clean.  (Relative, say, to my town, Laon, where it is literally impossible to walk in a straight, rhythmic line down the sidewalk.  Too many little “presents,” and too much litter.)

For all that, however, I am starting less and less to like going into Paris.  I always end up with a splitting headache while I’m there, and the heart of the problem lies in the people.  There are just far too many Parisians.  According to my 2001 Frommer’s guide to France, Paris at that point had 10 million people crammed into 432 square miles.  Now, it shocks my students here (Laon: pop. 26,000) when I tell them that I’ve lived in two towns, each with around a million or so inhabitants. When you think about it, a million is a lot of people.  But the feeling of the multitude increases exponentially when going from one million to ten million.  It increases way beyond the actual number increased.  The feeling of people being everywhere is overwhelming and, to me, very stifling.  You never have a street to yourself, no matter how small and hidden the street may be.

The people themselves don’t help.  It’s not that I’ve found Parisians to be rude; that’s too active of a word for it.  Rather, they don’t bother to care about anything that doesn’t directly affect them.  Take litter, for example – since they aren’t the ones who have to pick it up, and since it might put them out a bit to have to hold onto a piece of trash the 30 feet to the next trash can, they just drop it. 

Or take this example: I stopped in a post office yesterday to use their phone book.  After I had finished, I headed towards the door, and reached it a split-second before another woman.  She was quite obviously completely shocked when I held the door open for her and let her go through first.  She didn’t move at first, actually, and when she did, she thanked me three times and said something about how long it had been since anyone had done that for her.  I don’t know what’s sadder – that she was so effusive in her thanks for such a small gesture (and the neglect that those thanks imply), or the tens of other people for whom I held doors who didn’t even nod as they swept past.  That lack of even passing attention to those around you, along with the seemingly-contradictory feeling that you are always being watched, combine to make my impression of Paris an increasingly distasteful one.