Summer in the City (almost)
Friday, 19 June
There’s only one thing on my mind this blog Friday and it's the heat. The very hot heat, with no relief in sight.
I watched the temperatures rise with increasing anxiety and now it's here...
...for as far as the iPhone can see: our second canicule (heatwave) before the official start of summer.
I've been taking Tasha to the Tuileries early when the sun is still bearable.
Per the top photo, we spend the rest of the day in the dark, in front of fans. The dog is not any happier about conditions than we are.
There are other signs besides the precocious heat that summer is upon us. The tourists are here (not that they ever left) with increasing intensity.
...and diversity...
The city is still milking the 2024 Paris Olympics by re-installing the giant balloon on a fountain in the Tuileries. The recycling act bothered me a bit last year. Now, with that brief period of good will and togetherness seeming light years away, la vasque olympique looks more like an alien landing.
But the more longstanding seasonal indicator is the fête foraine fair in the Tuileries that will open in a couple of days. It has been a summer staple for four decades.
With rides that look almost as old as I am, it has survived the digital craze unfazed, attracting more than 2 million visitors over two months. Certainly not much has changed since I took my children there in the 1990s, and it's a wonder there have been no accidents due to rickety equipment.
It's the only fair inside the walls of Paris (there's a Christmas version too), thanks to the "fairground king" Marcel Campion, a colourful character who owns and runs multiple temporary carnivals, as well as being an amateur gypsy jazz guitarist.
Born into a Manouche (French Roma) family in 1943, his mother was killed by a German missile and his father was a prisoner of war. After a time in foster care with his brother, Marcel fled home and stepmother at 14 to make his way in the carnival world. By his mid-20s, he was already hooking and crooking municipalities in the Paris region to give permits to Manouche-run funfairs.
But Paris herself proved the hardest nut to crack. So in December 1985, he forged a letter from Culture Minister Jack Lang and drove his trucks into the Tuileries, occupying the gardens by force - even resisting the CRS riot police - until the authorities relented. The Christmas version, la Magie de Noël, opened in 2017. With 3 million visitors, it was an extension of the market stalls on the Champs-Elysées, also owned and run by Monsieur Campion.
The man is unstoppable. At the turn of the millennium, he was given permission to put up a big wheel on the place de la Concorde. Then he refused to take it down, using his many connections to support his cause. It took the mayor's office two years to prevail.
And this is just a small slice of Mr Campion's rich pie of a life. He has, for example (and not surprisingly), been in and out of court many times, most notably against our last mayor Anne Hidalgo, whom he at first supported, then turned against when she tried to dethrone him from the Christmas market.
But it's too hot for more than this short mental distraction, whether you're writing or reading.
Stay cool, as best you can.
