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European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 30. November | 79 comments (79 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Cold woods preferable to stinking gymnasiums (4.00 / 5)

Avec les "clodos célestes" du bois de Vincennes - Société - Le Monde.fr		With the "Heavenly Hobos" of the Bois de Vincennes - Society - LeMonde.fr

En hiver, "ça arrive qu'on ait très très froid, alors on se recroqueville dans notre duvet avec le manteau et les gants et on en met un deuxième par dessus", explique Emmanuel. La veille, il a accepté de passer la nuit dans un gymnase d'accueil d'urgence. "C'était l'horreur : un dortoir de cinquante, les mecs puent, impossible de dormir, expulsion à six heures...". Il préfère encore le bois.		In winter, "Sometimes it gets very very cold, so we huddle up in our sleeping bag with a coat and gloves and then we put on a second one on top," explains Emmanuel. The day before, he accepted to spend the night in a gymnasium serving as an emergency shelter. "It was awful: a sleeping room for fifty people, guys stinking, impossible to sleep, get kicked out at 6 o'clock...". He still prefers the woods.
Et pourtant, "cette vie est intenable". Emmanuel écoute la radio, il sait "que des gens crèvent pendant que le gouvernement injecte des centaines de milliards d'euros dans les banques et qu'il faudrait beaucoup moins d'argent pour tous nous sortir du trou". Il sait aussi que les médias se désintéresseront vite de leur cas. "Si le taux de mortalité baisse, ce qu'on ne peut que souhaiter, tout va s'arrêter", dit-il sans illusions. Mais en attendant, les caméras se bousculent au bois. Alors il rajuste sa casquette, s'adosse au tronc, et visse un regard noir dans l'oeil de la caméra : "Dans dix ans, je ne serais peut-être plus de ce monde."		And yet, "this life is unendurable". Emmanuel listens to the radio, he knows "that people are dying while the government injects hundreds of billions of euros into banks and that much less money would be needed to pull us all out of the hole". He also knows that the press will quickly lose interest in their situation. "If the number of deaths goes down, which we can only hope for, all this will end", he said without any illusions. But in the meantime, the cameras are jostling in the woods. So he adjusts his cap, leans back against a trunk, and fixes a black look into the eye of the camera: "In ten years, I may no longer be of this world."

See also this inverview with Béatrice, who says that it is better to stay "independent" and "chez nous". (She says one thing before that which I could not make out: "Il vaut mieux être intransigeant." Is that the word she uses?)

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

by marco (cowannar at gmail punkt com) on Sat Nov 29th, 2008 at 10:20:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Cold woods preferable to stinking gymnasiums (4.00 / 3)

She says: "Il vaut mieux être dans une toile de tente." ("Better live under a tent."), in order to stay, as you quoted, "independent" and "chez nous".

Béatrice has a married son she hasn't heard of in years; a former apartment building concierge, she can't find any work because too old (at 54!) and the lack of a "fixed residence".
OPAC (Public Housing office) won't find her and her friend any housing because "they ask for a deposit first and you need money for that."

Thanks for the link, BTW.

Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.

by Bernard on Sun Nov 30th, 2008 at 09:50:58 AM EST
[ Parent ]

European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - 30. November | 79 comments (79 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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