Terror strikes my hometown and neighborhood - AGAIN

PARIS

My second city's tribute to my
hometown

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, for a global city to be hit by a terror attack once a year can be considered a misfortune; to be hit twice smacks of gross negligence. Add to that that my neighborhood is the only one with the dubious honor of having been targeted twice makes me wonder if time hasn't come for me to move permanently to my second home, Rio de Janeiro. Now, that would be the mother of all ironies: seeking refuge from terror in a city well-known for random violence.

But we live in troubled times where what made sense for so long suddenly doesn't. Here is a short summary of the last 48 hours.

As (bad) luck would have it, as in the dreadful events last January (which I recounted in this post ) I was at home on Friday evening, relaxing from a long week of SAP-to-Workday workshops at French pharma giant Sanofi, when I heard the ear-splitting sound of sirens. At the beginning I didn't pay much attention, but after a while it suddenly hit me that the blaring sirens had been going at it for a good fifteen minutes. A quick look at the city skyline didn't reveal any Neronian fire. An accident, maybe? Then the ominous alternative crept into my mind: another attack?

I grabbed the TV remote control and tuned into one of the 24-hour French channels. My hunch was confirmed: another series of terror attacks have hit my hometown with my neighborhood once again targeted.(Dear Mr. Terrorist, I don't mind your being bloodthirsty. But do you also have to be unfair? Would you mind spreading the victim share among all Paris districts? Next time, could you try Montorgueuil?  Or the 16th arrondissement? Why not cross the Seine and have fun in the Left Bank?)

Since the action was taking place just a few blocks away from my place, I grabbed my coat and ran out. It was around 11 pm. By then I had already received some text/Whatsapp messages from friends and family who, when apprised of my intention to go to the Bataclan concert hall, tried to dissuade me. But there was no way I was going to experience the events vicariously on a small screen when I could witness them live.

The next few hours will probably never be erased from my memory. In the cold fall night I stood and watched as the elite security squads forced their way in using their guns in deafening noise, soon to be followed by explosions as the terrorists blew themselves up. Then the sad sight of bodies being retrieved. My phone battery died but I managed to shoot (no pun intended) a couple of videos and take some pictures. I'll never forget the distraught young man whose two brothers were inside the Bataclan (where I had been many times for some popular parties) and who tried to go in but was restrained by the cops (I later heard they had both died).

Few people managed to sleep that night in the neighborhood, or in the city. The next morning I woke up early and went back to see the remains of the carnage: the sad pair of shoes of a concert goer who never suspected that his Friday fun would put an end to his life. Still-fresh blood on the pavement was a reminder of the horror that took place just a few hours ago.

Apologies for the gory details but sometimes you need to
face reality head-on

People were too shocked to engage in meaningful and rational discourse. But some questions were being asked and the government's official version challenged:

- Some claimed that many who died didn't die at the hands of the attackers but as side effect of the police action - collateral damage, they'd call it in the US (but the supine press won't tell you about it.)
- Also, how come that for the second time in a year, and even more spectacularly, terrorists were allowed to operate freely in France?
-Was this timed for the the looming key regional election where the incompetent government headed by the Clown-in-Chief; François Hollande, is expected to suffer a big defeat? (I watched him on TV and his incompetence was eerily reminiscent of Gerge W. Bush as captured in Fahrenheit 9/11: both "leaders" showing they were not up to the task)
- Should France continue to target IS (Islamic State - not Information Systems) in Syria, if IS can retaliate so easily and spectacularly in France?

A victim's scattered sad belongings:
A testimony to the horror  that took place a couple of hours ago

The media vultures were all over the place and I was flabbergasted to see their reporters interviewing basically anybody who walked up to them and served them any cock-and-bull story. A Spanish anchorwoman basically bought lock, stock and barrel what was clearly the rants of an old woman who kept on referring to the Second World War. Other reporters fed their audience the asinine comments that all of us will later lap up while watching TV. A wise neighbor told me, "The only group who knows less than reporters is the government: and the little they know, they are not telling us." Couldn't disagree with him, since the entire French political class has lost the last shreds of respect from the citizenry. They can't fix the environment, but spend billions organizing a useless COP21 jamboree whose only function is to serve as a political marketing ploy for the government (regional elections were undemocratically pushed back to help the moron masquerading as French president win a few votes with the event's reflected glory). They can't fix the economy, nor unemployment now at record levels, and even less immigration. At least we thought they could keep us safe but, as this year's events are proving, the political class is also proving to be an abject failure at security. So, why are we putting up with them much longer? Shouldn't such low performers have been discarded long ago? Beats me.

In moments like these, scared people give the impression of rallying behind the "leader" who has no idea in what direction to lead us. But deep down inside of them, most know it is hopeless.

Last night, I took the metro around 10 pm and was deeply shocked to find it empty. I was born here and have never seen an empty metro on a Saturday night. The streets were equally empty, reminding me of that Friday in the early 90s when I was living in New York City and we were told at noon to go home because of the fear the Rodney King riots from Los Angeles would spill over in Manhattan. Last night in Paris I was eerily reminded of that distant Friday when I walked from the UN building towards Grand Central Station and the greatest city on earth was deserted in anticipation of possible mayhem. But in ghost-town Paris disaster had already struck. And will strike again. No solution is in sight.

Poor Paris.

Poor France.

(Except for the Christ the Redeemer picture, all photos and videos by the blogger)

UPDATE: Nov. 26, 2015. A week ago, while browsing through press accounts I stumbled on the name of a victim ("Djamila Houd") and her place of origin (Dreux, South west of Paris). I immediately emailed Tassadit Houd, one of my oldest friends, who is from Dreux, asking her whether she was a relative. I was getting worried when I couldn't get through to Tassadit and today I finally heard from her: Djamila was indeed a relative. Her own sister! She and her family are devastated. It took them 10 days before they got to bury her. Djamila was having a quiet dinner at the sidewalk restaurant La Belle Equipe (belonging to her husband, Gregory) when she was shot twice in the back. Here's the account by the local paper. In the family picture at the funeral my friend Claire Tassadit is the second from the right. Another press report quotes my dear friend Tassadit's tribute to her sister.

IN MEMORIAM
Djamila Houd, a Muslim victim of Islamist terrorists.
She leaves behind a husband and an 8-year-old girl who
will become a "Ward of the Nation"

Work-life balance, French-style: No after-hours work email

PARIS
If you liked the 35-hour workweek, then you'll love the ban on after-office-hours email which has become law in France this week (actually it is an agreement between business and union which as such as the force of law.) Since there is little doubt that many employees are overworked and stressed out  anything that could restore a healthier work-life balance can only be applauded. Few people realize that France, supposedly a worker's heaven, is also home to frequent corporate suicides.

There is clearly a cultural bias here. Whereas in Europe in general, and in France, the country of la joie de vivre, in particular, work-life balance is seen as enhancing workers' rights, in the United States, the country of 24 x 7 business, it is considered  a cost on business.

First, let us clarify what this new policy is all about. It does not apply to all French employees, only to those working in consulting and technology companies, therefore at most one million employees. Actually, when you take into account executives (cadres) who do not have a strict work schedule, probably just a few hundred thousand employees will be impacted by this law. Of course, nothing can prevent the current administration from extending the law to all French employees, say, before the next election, when it is desperate to emerge from the abysmal approval ratings it has sunk into.

Second, enforcing this law is not going to be easy. Actually almost impossible. There are so many ways to circumvent it that one wonders why they even bothered to adopt it. For example, even if you are one of those employees prevented from sending email after 6 pm, nothing can prevent you from copying  on a thumb drive any documents you need, go home, work from there and then shoot an email from your private email address. People have been doing this for years, and will now be encouraged to do it even more.

Then, there is the case of those road warriors, especially when traveling across time zones. It may be 6 pm in Moscow, but because France is a couple of hours behind it means you still have a few more hours to shoot that criminal message before your email server goes dead.

And, of course, nothing can stop you from writing zillions of messages offline, and the next morning, as the email server wakes up, it'll find itself busy dispatching tens of thousands of messages which  will create even more anxiety, pressure and workload on the recipient workers.

So, why is the government (in France no labor agreement happens without the state's blessing) bothering about a law which for all practical purposes will not protect burnt-out employees, but can work as a disincentive for foreign investors in France? The problem is the disconnect between politics and business/technology. No matter how fast you adopt a law, it always lags behind technological advances which are so much faster.

Controversial or pioneering? France goes where others fear to tread

If government bodies had any idea of what the business world REALLY looks like and how disruptive technology can be, they would not stop at email. What about social media? Government should also stop corporate employees sending business-related tweets, or updating information on LinkedIn. And yet, none of this is contemplated.

And what about business software? A lot of the work that people do now is done through ERP-type systems many of which can be accessed via the cloud anywhere, anytime. As a manager, you can still finalize a performance appraisal after having served dinner to your children. You could check on the recruitment status of some job vacancies in your team after having watched your favorite TV show. Again, the law does not  even seem to realize that such technology use is even more prevalent than email and can impact a worker's work-life balance even more significantly.

Worse, as I mentioned earlier, this new policy could have an adverse impact on workers by reducing the number of jobs available to them. Just as I have never known in my adult life France with a balanced budget, I have rarely seen an unemployment rate lower than 8% or 9%, it usually hovers around 10%. This new law is not going to encourage companies to hire more workers in France; and, honestly, what kind of work-life balance are we talking about here when we know that without work you don't have much of a life?

In summary, this new law won't change much. It will just add more compliance costs to companies, deter foreign ones from hiring in France and put even more pressure on employees to do more within the 9-to-5 work  schedule, thus achieving the exact opposite of what it set out to do.

Oh, mon Dieu! I am posting this business column on a Sunday. I am in full violation of French labor laws that forbid work on  the Lord's Day. If you don't hear from me in the next couple of weeks, that will mean that the Labor Inspector has knocked on my door and I am languishing in jail for contempt of the laws of the Republic.

Good riddance, Sarkozy!

"La France forte" or "Strong France"
was Sarkozy's campaign slogan.

NEW YORK CITY
In one of the most memorable lines of his presidency, Nicolas Sarkozy threw at a French citizen who dared refuse to shake his hand, "Get lost, asshole!" ("Casse-toi, pauvre con!" in the original French- Watch the YouTube video) At this week's second round of the presidential election, the French people returned the compliment sending Sarko packing.

Two years ago, in a blog called "Sarkozy: La France c'est moi" I alerted my countrymen to the dangers of the presidency of the authoritarian and egomaniac bullshitter who tricked us into trusting him with the nation's top job. It took five years but finally the French people saw through him and gave him what Churchill once called, when he was on the receiving end of it, "the order of the boot." And rightly so.

This is of course, only Part 1 of the Sarkozy defenestration. Part 2 should be to prosecute him for the various abuses in power (some of which I mentioned in the same blog) and convict him. Hopefully this time we'll have a convicted French president who will serve his sentence, unlike Chirac (see my blog, "Real crime, fake justice") Then we could say that we have made a qualitative jump on the democratic scale by ensuring that justice is meted out to ALL citizens regardless of social status. We would thus show the way to other Western countries to send Blair, Bush & Co to jail for the crimes they have committed and for which they enjoy a scandalous full impunity.

I have seen press reports about how François Hollande "won" the election. That is simply untrue. Sarkozy lost it. Just look at the figures, less than 2% separated each candidate from victory, hardly the mark of a landslide. And yet, considering Sarkozy's disastrous record and abysmal approval ratings, Hollande should have won by a handsome 60% at least. But are we surprised at the poor showing by the Socialist candidate?

Not really. After all, he was not the first candidate for his party's nomination; that was Dominique Strauss-Kahn who was disqualified after that little incident at the Sofitel hotel in this city last year. Hollande was not even the second choice, that was party chief Martine Aubry who dithered so long about running that she finally lost to him. Many Socialist Party activists even toyed with the idea of letting Hollande's former partner, Ségolène Royal, have a second try at the presidency, but thank God they thought better of it at the last moment (I used to think that  the US with George W. Bush and Sarah Palin had a monopoly on idiots running for the presidency, but obviously in France we also have our share.) Unlike Barack Obama who fought tooth and nail to get the job (what he did with it is another issue and will be the subject of a blog come November), François Hollande was just lucky to be the least bad man at the right place at the right moment.

"Sarkozy, Outgoing President!"

So François Hollande won by default. Will he be up to the task? Will he finally solve the crippling debt crisis we have been suffering from for the past several years now? Well, considering that in his thirty years as a party apparatchik, lowly MP or local politician in a sleepy rural town he never displayed any conviction, vision or signed any remarkable policies, that would be quite a miracle. A couple of months ago, I caught him campaigning on a bright Sunday morning in a market close to my Paris home, at the Bastille. Since the debt crisis is the direct result of banking misbehavior, I put the question to him:

"Monsieur Hollande, are you going to nationalize the banks?"

"At any rate, we will reform them," he replied.

"Is that a promise?" I asked grabbing his arm. With Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris smiling that phoney smile of his just behind him, the then-candidate-now-president nodded his head reiterating that policy decision before leaning forward to kiss a kid and shake hands with well-wishers.

In case you don't believe me, here are the videos I made (they are of course in French, I appear at the end of the first video, and in the second you can hear my voice asking the question at 00:40 followed by Hollande's answer.)

So Hollande is on record promising bank reform and to get us out of the debt mess these banks brought us in. After the wasted twelve years with Chirac and five Sarkozy years, it would be great to finally have a president who can deliver.

Unfortunately, considering his record, my advice to you is not to hold your breath. We are used in France (and other Western pseudo-democracies) to being betrayed by our political class. As we say, Plus ça change...