A Month in Paris in Winter
Day 9: Existential Wisdom on the Metro
06.01.2015 - 05.02.2015
The newspaper Charlie Hebdo came out today for the first time since the attack and the murders at the publishing office and supermarket. The funeral for the three police officers was yesterday and police in their dress uniforms were everywhere. So were heavily armed soldiers and every kind of military and police vehicle imaginable.
Today there were Parisians standing in lines for the newspaper before the stands opened this morning. Normally, they print 60,000 copies. Today apparently they printed millions and sold them all. There are still armed military in the streets, especially around churches, synagogues and tourist attractions like le Tour Effel.
But the people are philosophical.
As a woman on the Metro put it, "Keep cool and calm. We don't have to understand everything. It is just our destiny. We cannot do anything about our destiny."
This is, after all, the land of the of Camus and Sartre. People here can still be heard discussing and arguing politics in cafes. They read on the Metro; books, not Kindles--when they are not dispensing wisdom and philosophy to the person seated next to them on the Metro.
Posted by teethetrav 07:49 Archived in France Tagged paris france camus existentialism sartre charlie_hebdo je-suis_charlie Comments (0)
