A different France

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Opinion: D-Day emotions stir, but France sees the good life wane

By Mort Rosenblum — Special to GlobalPost

Published: June 6, 2009 13:42 ET
Updated: June 7, 2009 12:15 ET

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A nun at Mother Teresa’s Calcutta mission put it simply: “If you are materially poor, that is only a lack of things. If somebody is spiritually poor, no medicine can heal them.”

When wealth surrounds you, and you have neither a belief system nor an extended family network to help you, the result is misery.

For the French, who emerged free but destitute from World War II, hard times are a painful reversal of fortune.

With help from the Marshall Plan and the hard-nosed national pride of Charles de Gaulle, the French resumed their old self-appointed global role as arbiters of civilization.

At home, strong unions established a social contract with industry and the government: job security, health care and pensions, long vacations, the works.

And, of course, eating well was as much a human right as an art form. The stylish reveled in a dejeuner sur l’herbe. Others, as in that old Cartier-Bresson photo, plopped down in their underwear to pour wine into glasses and gnaw on Bresse chicken.

But the world is different now, and so is France.

D-Day celebrations were eclipsed by the last day of campaigning for the European Parliament. Each year, France’s distinct flavors dissolve yet more into a continental stockpot.

Border-straddling companies bring labor practices from America — and the crisis. Suddenly, unions used to striking to protect their rights fear coming back to locked doors.

When factories are forced to cut back, workers hold bosses hostage and rail against “greedy rich stockholders.”

For outsiders, it is hard to take sides.

You have to love a country where workers can shut down transportation and cash machines for a week to widespread sympathy from people who see that the next fight might be theirs.

And that greedy stockholders thing gives pause. What about people who own a tiny fraction of a company as part of their dwindling retirement account?

So far, all bets are still out. There is a lot of France left to lose, and no one is giving up easily.

Robert Dantcikian, the butcher with the bedside manner, still hustles around his tiny shop in Draguignan as women trade their pension checks for fine Sisteron lamb.

On D-Day morning, Dantcikian’s place was jammed solid. He wasn’t much interested in Normandy. Like most Frenchmen, he was still deeply grateful. But that was 65 years ago, and now many of his customers are Germans with holiday homes nearby.

But, one by one, shoppers placed meager orders, asking for thinner slices of ham and pondering before ordering an extra veal chop.

“So far, so good,” Robert told me. “But this is a different France.”

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Mort Rosenblum, editor of the quarterly dispatches, was senior foreign correspondent for the Associated Press from 1981 to 2004. He is a former editor of the International Herald Tribune. His 13 books include "Escaping Plato's Cave" and "Who Stole the News?" He lives in France.

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