Paris Journal: Ecole Militaire

August 27, 2018 -- In gazing at the map, I just noticed that a busy intersection that we cross almost every day has a name: the Carrefour du Général Jacques Pâris de Bollardière.

Seeing a name like that, I had to look it up on Wikipedia.

Let me tell you first that this intersection is at the western end of the grand École Militaire, the war college that presides over the end of the Champ de Mars, opposite the Eiffel Tower. Directly across from it is the Peace Pavilion, which is nestled in one end of the Champ itself.

The École Militaire

The façade of the École Militaire is pock-marked from bullets of past skirmishes and conflicts. The place is still a war college, and so military types can be seen coming and going there every day.

Yet the party that happens on the Champ de Mars every night, with participants from all over the world, is a testimony to the possibility of world peace.

War and peace -- that's what that area is about.

So who better to name this intersection for than General Jacques Pâris de Bollardière (1907-1986), a French army general who was a pacifist. According to Wikipedia, he "became famous for his non-violent positions in the 1960s."

The Eiffel Tower and the Peace Pavilion, last night.

Although Jacques enlisted and went to the famous military academy at Saint-Cyr, he was guilty of insubordination and was demoted to the rank of sergeant. (Something similar happened to my father while he was training in the Army Air Force during WWII.)

Jacques just didn't like authoritarianism, an attitude which served him well later as he decided to join the French Resistance rather than go along with the Vichy collaborationist government.

He had joined the French Foreign Legion and so was posted to Algeria. But he was in Brest in 1940, and he realized what was happening. So he crossed the Channel in a fishing boat to answer Charles de Gaulle's call for the Fighting French. The Vichy government considered this to be treason, and so Jacques was given a death sentence. But the collaborationist government would have to catch him first, which it never did.

Le Germinal Brasserie, on the Avenue Emile Zola

In his service in the special forces during the war, he had exciting and dangerous parachuting assignments into France and Holland.

During the first Indochina War, Jacques was put in charge of a paratrooper half-brigade. But, according to Wikipedia, "he came to draw parallels between the anti-colonialist forces he was fighting against and the maquis group he led during the Second World War." The pacifist roots were taking hold.

In the early 50s, Jacques was teaching paratrooper tactics in this very École Militaire, in Paris, by the intersection now named for him.

Le Blavet, a river in Brittany

The Algerian war for independence began in 1956, and Jacques became known for his efforts to build relationships with Algerian people -- both the Arab/Berber people and the descendants of French people who had immigrated there (Pied-Noirs). He opposed the government policy of torture (as did John McCain, RIP). When human rights abuses increased, Jacques asked to be relieved of command.

He was arrested and served 60 days for agreeing with journalist Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber's coverage of the Algerian war. Then he resigned from the Army in 1957.

Like many French retirees, he returned to the land of his childhood, in this case, Brittany. He worked in industry until he decided that the industrial "environment was inevitably dehumanizing" (Jacobin magazine, 20 June 2018). In fact, Jacques connected all the dots; he thought that "the same French State that ran roughshod over Breton or Basque culture had likewise repressed Vietnamese and Algerian identity" (Jacobin magazine, 20 June 2018).

He went through a period when he read the Bible and Ghandi, more and more. By the end of 1970, Jacques was a full-blown pacifist; he was a founder of the Movement for a Non-Violent Alternative. He continued to be an activist for peace until the early 1980s. He died at his home, Vieux Talhouët, in Brittany in 1986. (BTW, that home is for sale now at 525,000 euros.)

Cholets and coral reefs -- what do they have to do with each other? Nothing, as far as I can tell, except that I learned about both of them on this morning's Paris walk.

View from the Passerelle Debilly (pedestrian bridge) near the Eiffel Tower this morning.

At the 9:15 opening time, I stepped into the garden of the Musée du Quai Branly, determined to explore more of its nooks and crannies since I had the place almost to myself. The guard at the entrance on the Quai Branly side was welcoming and polite. I handed him my open handbag for inspection, and I stepped through the metal detector.

Walkway in the Branly garden.

And so I was then in a quiet, safe, lush green space that looks like a grand Japanese garden come to life. I did walk through corners and areas I'd not seen before. I paused to rest and listen to the birds.

The museum building, near the Café Branly, has some large expanses of glass where the curators like to display information about some of the current exhibitions.

I was curious about the explanation of the exhibit on Cholets, because Cholets are so colorful and whimsical. Here's what English version on the display says:

The project Neo-Andina, by Tateqaki Nio, a Japanese photographer born in 1971 and living in Brazil, focuses on the recent development of a new form of architecture in Bolivia. Since 2006 a new middle-class has emerged, particularly in the city of El Alto.

The wealth of these booming nouveau Rich is reflected in the large constructions known as “cholets,” a term coined from the contraction of the words “cholo” (a person of Aymara descent) and “chalet.” Most of the buildings are designed by architect Freddy Mamani, and the city now has some 170 cholets. This architecture has taken the name Neo-Andean, so-called for its use of traditional Andean motifs seen in ceramics and traditional textiles.

Photos of cholets at the Musée du Quai Branly

Cholet is also a town in France, in the Maine-et-Loire department. For the 2018 Tour de France, the town of Cholet was the site of the 3^rd stage, in early July: the team time trials. For the past couple days, the Tour has been in the Alps -- far from Cholet -- but in an area with many chalets.

Along the walk this morning, I saw several people who had been sleeping on the streets -- people who looked as though they are far from home -- people who are, most likely, refugees/immigrants. Last year we didn't see them much in the city. But now I think that was because we were walking in the afternoons and evenings then.

The refugees/immigrants are noticeable in the morning. After the morning, I think they go someplace where they are being fed, and we don't see them later in the day. Churches? The soup kitchens? I don't know. I do notice that the refugees/immigrants generally do not beg. Some are alone. Some are in pairs. Some are entire families.

Place de Fontenoy between UNESCO and
the Ècole Militaire

I decided to walk home along the Avenue de Lowendal, past the open side of the Ècole Militaire and UNESCO.

On the Place de Fontenoy, I was pleased to see that this former "no-man's-land" is now being somewhat cared for. The trees have been trimmed and watered. Litter is being picked up. The park benches exist, and are fairly clean. Attractive new light poles have been installed. Like many French parks, the ground surface is light brown gritty sand. The place has improved. Thank you City of Paris or UNESCO or both.

The photographic exhibition on the extensive fence around UNESCO is about the Earth's coral reefs. Being a coastal environmentalist, I was pleased to see this opportunity for people to learn about these extremely important ecosystems. One of the photos was a great magnification of coral's cellular structure. I had never seen this, and I did not realize how fractal it is.

Here's the blurb about this exhibit:

“Coral Reefs: A Challenge for Humanity" Is the work of photographer Alexis Rosenfeld and journalist Alexe Valois. It bears witness to the beauty of these jewels of biodiversity. It presents scientific monitoring missions, and stresses the importance – for each and every one of us – of preserving coral reefs of all oceans.

This exhibition also announces the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021 – 2030). In the face of ocean degradation, it is becoming increasingly urgent to find scientific solutions allowing to understand the changes at work and end the decline of oceans. Coral Reefs are an essential element of ocean life.

Coral, up close, greatly magnified.

The photographic exhibition on coral at UNESCO.

An essential element of human life in Paris is eating. We had some ambitions about trying the Italian place in the ground level of our building, since I now realize that it has been receiving many high ratings in lafourchette.com reviews. Some people even claim that the pizza served there is the best they've ever had! Finding excellent pizza in Paris is a challenge, and it shouldn't be. Now, it may be literally right under our noses.

We went to the grocery first, and decided to start dinner with a salad, made by me, and then Tom would go downstairs to get pizza. When we finished the salad, we were too full for pizza. Some other time . . . .

The salad? It was baby spinach and lamb's lettuce, with cherry tomatoes grown on our balcony, a crumbling of some seriously great Roquefort cheese, a drizzle of honey, a drizzle of wine vinegar, two drizzles of olive oil, freshly ground sea salt and pepper, and a few strawberries. Toss and serve.

Voila! Enjoy some more photographs from this morning's walk.

The garden at the Musée du Quai Branly, above and below.

The Place de Fontenoy

A typical scene on the Avenue de la Bourdonnais, with souvenir shops and cafés.

The Seine, from the Passerelle Debilly.
Our favorite houseboat, the Julia, on the left. We like it because a beautiful longhaired cat once lived there.