A Few Thoughts On Paris

In Response To Kurt Schlichter

I just read Kurt Schlichter’s latest Town Hall column, Looking at America From France, and left a comment there. A fairly lengthy comment that might help explain a few things about Paris.

Note that Kurt’s column is behind a paywall. I included some of what he said as quotes so that there is some context to my commentary.

I’ve included it here along with a few pictures from Paris for the heck of it.

A few different pictures taken over the years in Paris

Kurt says:
More people spoke English than I remembered when I was in Paris. What was interesting to me was that I had heard that immigrants flooded the city, but that wasn’t what I experienced. Yes, there were a few diverse folks, but generally, it looked like a Mitt Romney family reunion.

I was last in Paris in Feb 2022. My wife and I spent a week in the city around her birthday. During the 2010's I traveled frequently to/through Paris on business. Outside of the core areas, it is definitely going downhill, but nothing like LA, SF, Chicago, Seattle, etc. For example, the area around Gare du Nord (North train station) has a huge North African and/or Middle Eastern population now, a lot of petty crime, and there is graffiti everywhere. That's a big change. But, as Kurt notes, the Champs Elysees was clean and well populated with cheerful Parisians, mostly white other than the obvious foreigners, in 2022.

Kurt says:

Some of the most interesting stuff we noticed had to do with the fellow Americans we encountered.

You don't run into a lot of Americans in Paris in February, but there are a few. The one that I recall most was very obnoxiously American. We were at the sidewalk tent part of a cafe, where basically everyone smokes. The French were smoking cigarettes, except a couple older men and me, having a cigar. This obviously American lady comes in, sits down, and after about 2 minutes starts loudly sounding off about "everyone smoking and can't she enjoy a croissant and coffee in peace". I apologize (in French) to the other 2 men having a cigar, they tell me de rien (it's nothing, but of course it's not nothing) and finally the lady moves on. French culture is not American culture, lady. No one cares about cigarettes and cigars outside, not even at outside cafe tables.

Overall, I think some of what we hear about France "falling" is very much untrue, and some is quite true. But it is a long way from reality that France is nearly overrun by Islam and Sharia. Germany was much worse, from that perspective, which we visited in August of 2022.

Kurt says:

Bizarrely, we had trouble finding a decent meal anywhere – in Italy, it’s hard to find a bad one.

As far as food goes, I've had any number of good meals in Paris. If you only eat on the Champs Elysees, near the Eiffel Tower, or around the Louvre and down to Île de la Cité, you are likely to only find mediocre cafes catering to out of town travelers and local government functionaries. Head over to Marais or up by Montparnasse and it's an entirely different story. Head down the small side streets. That said, the French restaurants have been overtaken by globalization and pre-made foods, especially out on the main thoroughfares of Paris. Meaning that they are getting vegetables from Morocco much like many places in the US are getting vegetables from Mexico. And what happens is they are machine harvested while still green, then held in warehouses and force ripened right before going to the market. Which is why grocery store tomatoes suck balls compared to what we had in the 1970's or what you can grow in your backyard today.

Some of the food eaten over the years in France. Trust me, it's good.

Just a few thoughts in response from someone who has spent a lot of time in France generally, and Paris in particular, in the last 10 years.