Despite the national motto ‘equality’, France is surprisingly a polarized society. On one side is a small group of incredibly
rich elites enjoying absolute dominancy over those on the other side who are
financially oppressed. There are decent
French people who uphold morality…and yet there is also a culture that hails cheating
as cool. The last phrase was given to me
by a group of French.
The system has made it easy for those cheaters
too. For instance every new restaurant
must seek permission from the Council and an organization called PASU. Insulation
of the premises is mandatory so as not to deteriorate the quality of life of the
other residents of the buildings. However,
the authorities do not conduct follow-up inspection to check if the restaurant has indeed
carried out all that was claimed in their application for the permit. ‘Great’, thought our Mme. Empathy. Insulation costs a lot in Paris and she would
much prefer to spend more money on the décor of her new restaurant where she
would reign like a Queen.
Her partner, our Mr. Pride, checked to see who
lived near the restaurant. They were either
tenants or tourists. ‘Great’, thought
Mr. Pride because in France, it is up to the victims of noise to notify the
authority, in this case, PASU, of the offending restaurant within two months of
the day the permit to run a restaurant was issued. The tenants and tourists would leave without
complaining to the owner. Soon two
months would expire and the owners of the building would be deemed to have accepted
the conditions, no matter how horrendous they were.
In the touristic areas, many restaurants operate
in residential buildings. Next time
you are in Paris, look up at the apartment right above the bustling
restaurants. Some rooms look deserted, probably
by the owner who could not afford to hire a lawyer to contest the cheating
restaurant. Tremendous sadness is cast…or
is that all in the room, really? To be
continued.
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