Latest news with #anarchy
Telegraph
a day ago
- Lifestyle
- Telegraph
Freedom-loving libertines? Our idea of the French needs a rethink
The signals coming out of France are confusing. They always have been. If you're travelling to France this year, you might like to know where they're at right now, for people quite often understand France the wrong way round. That's why it fascinates. Over the weekend, you may have noticed mobs of yobs attempting to wreck Paris, and various provincial spots, in celebration of a football victory. It's hardly the stuff of city-break dreams. That's soccer for you, I will say. That's France for you, you might say. And you would be sort of right. There's a thick seam of airhead destruction and looting running through French history, via the 1789 revolution to the present day. Anarchy is what the French do. But it's only one thing they do. Visitors often underestimate the variety of French behaviour. Alongside the lawlessness, France also boasts an urge to discipline and a tendency toward bossy censoriousness. They're probably flipsides of the same coin. Simultaneous with the torching of cars and looting of flat-screen TVs came, for instance, the banning of smoking in pretty much all outdoor public spaces – including the beaches which sunseekers frequent. We're also seeing an overdue kick back against France's famous libertinism. And, heaven knows, France buckled down to Covid restrictions quite as obediently – sheepishly, perhaps – as any other nation. The public smoking ban first. 'The freedom to smoke must end where the freedom of children to breathe fresh air begins,' said health minister Catherine Vautrin. So, smoking visitors please be aware, you may not light up in a park, on a beach, at a bus stop or sporting venue, or anywhere near a school. Anywhere, in short, where there might be youngsters (except bar and restaurant terraces). If you do and are caught, you're £113 down. (Though catching smokers on, say, the eight-mile beach at Sète in Languedoc will present a challenge.) I'd say this smoking clamp-down is pretty crazy. The health threats from smoke to kids on a beach seem likely to be minimal – there's an awful lot of fresh air available out there – and no more harmful than, say, the doughnuts sold on all French beaches by strolling sellers. Tobacco sales are, anyway, tumbling – down 11 per cent in 2024. If 25 per cent of French adults still smoke (12 per cent in the UK), that's down from 30 per cent a decade ago. And – here's a thing – these fewer people are, due to price rises (to £10.50 a pack), paying more than when there were more of them – £16.5 billion – a few years back. Of that sum, incidentally, between 75 and 80 per cent goes to the state in taxes. So, two things: the aim of stubbing out French smoking entirely by 2032 might be realised, or nearly, without annoying adults on beaches and in parks. Second, if it is realised, France is going to have to find an awful lot of cash somewhere else. Another round of tourist taxes, perhaps? Anyway, I've had no say in the matter, the ban is on from July 1 and France has shown that, contrary to image, it can be as high-handed as any other democracy. I think you should know that. It will help you on the French roads this summer, when you're pulled over by a clump of police officers. Be co-operative, even obsequious. France is also, now, sharp on licentiousness. You know the image: France, notably Paris, as a mix of exotic, sophisticated and raunchy. The Crazy Horse, Story Of O, the Can-Can, presidential philandering (Jacques Chirac was, apparently, 'Mr Three Minutes, Shower Included'), adultery as standard, and all the rest. The French government, it was said, used high-class brothels for entertaining foreign dignitaries, noting the appointments down on the official schedule as 'visits to the president of the Senate'. Then again, the whole of France rarely matched the image. The weight of the Catholic church – and of the parish pump – saw to that. The reputation came from the elite – intellectuals, upper classes, monarchs – who considered they had dispensation. Such tolerance extended to the upper echelons was aided by privacy laws and a craven press – which failed to mention, for instance, that President Mitterrand had not only mistresses but an entire parallel family lodged at public expense. This 20th-century libertinism took a first dive when Dominique Strauss-Kahn gave it a terrible name. Subsequently, #MeToo-ism has prospered as it's become clear that the ooh-la-la attitude has created an atmosphere conducive to appalling behaviour, and the worst of crimes. Simply put, we underestimate the variety of French culture. Being told to wear masks and stay inside during Covid wasn't contrary to their traditions. It was mainstream. High-handedness was rooted in the absolute French monarchy, enhanced by a despotic revolution, and remains in place. The Liberté – about which we hear so much – is liberty until some technocrat from Paris tells you it's not. No post-war British political leader would have got away with de Gaulle's haughtiness. Or Macron's, for that matter. France is, in short, not as French as you think. Of course, some of the images mirror some truth. The French are certainly less frenzied about sex and usually more elegant of deportment. But other elements of the image need adjustment. Take drinking. Famously, the average Frenchman passes the afternoon lying under a hedge, beret over the eyes, empty bottle in the nearby ditch. This picture needs modification. The French have reduced their drinking by much more than half since the 1960s, largely by cutting out spirits and the more dreadful wines. The hedge-dwelling fellows have gone. Per capita booze consumption is now almost identical to Britain's. OK, this is not a terrific point of reference – not compared with North Korea or the average nunnery – but it's an improvement. Food, too – a key concern for holidaymakers. Discussion of French food used to focus entirely on pleasure. There was an assumed scale of sensual seriousness against which diners judged dishes. There still is, but grafted on now are requirements for 'wellness' and for the 'saving' of the planet. Chefs are increasingly following their US and British colleagues in droning on about the naturalness of all their organic ingredients sourced from family producers no more than 30 miles away. Contrary to reputation, the French have also got the hang of hygiene. Though a few cafés and bars retain WCs like primeval swamps, most don't. And one may now usually tackle real public conveniences – in railway or service stations, museums and airports – without pulling on waders. You can also drink the water from the tap without 1950s-style results. Reputation also portrays the French as lunatic drivers. Again, I'm not sure. I last felt really threatened by traffic not in France but when driving in Lancashire. Hesitancy about lanes and turn-offs drove local tin-can warriors crackers. They hooted, they drove to within millimetres of the hire car and, on passing, shouted what I gathered weren't greetings. I've not experienced anything similar in France for ages. Granted, French road deaths are slightly more than twice those in Britain – 3,432 against 1,633 in 2024 – but that French figure is down from a 1972 high of more than 18,000. I could go on. I usually do. The key thing is that if, this summer, you're travelling to France under the impression that it is a buffet of delights with no moral restrictions, you'll be disappointed. Or reassured, depending. That's partly because bossiness is built in and partly because France truly isn't as free and easy, insouciant and disgusting as everybody imagines.
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Terrified residents of 'Mad Max' Kansas City reveal the truth about why it's spinning out of control
The Mad Max movie series offered a terrifying vision of society collapsing into anarchic tribal violence amid resource wars and ecocide. In present-day Kansas City, Missouri, water and electricity still flow, but residents say much about their hometown now resembles the diesel-punk mayhem captured by the movie franchise. The streets have been overrun by petrol-head bike and ATV gangs that mount sidewalks and mow down pedestrians. The sidewalks are full of trash. Homelessness is out of control. Locals lock their doors as gunshots ring out through the night. One of them told the Daily Mail it was like living in 'Kans-ghanistan.' Many point to Mayor Quinton Lucas, accusing him of undercutting the police in the years since he chanted, 'No justice, no peace', as Black Lives Matter activists torched cars in 2020. Crooks and hoodlums have little to fear, residents said, as Kansas City has not had its own jail since 2009, and can only access a few dozen detention beds in lockups in nearby counties. They also blamed Jean Peters-Baker, a self-styled 'justice seeker' who was panned for 'soft-on-crime' policies in the 13 years she was the county prosecutor, a job she left in January. In a chilling exit interview, Peters-Baker admitted that violence was 'still really high,' that she'd failed to get a handle on gun crime, and wanted a job that was 'a little less hard.' 'If people were killing each other with rocks, I could have probably gotten a lot more done,' she told KSHB 41. Lucas and Peters-Baker declined our requests for comment. Earlier this month, the Democratic mayor said his city's spiraling crime wave was down to the cops — not him. Mary Nestel, 59, a lifelong Kansas City resident, and other locals, don't buy it. 'We're just heartbroken and almost in tears about what's being destroyed right in front of us,' the insurance agent told the Daily Mail. 'Our leaders are more interested in their personal agendas and filling their pockets than listening to the citizens who are affected by their poor decisions every day.' She spoke after another brutal week in the Missouri city of half a million people, once better known for its barbecue, jazz music, and picturesque fountains. A man and a woman were shot and killed after an argument erupted outside a home in south Kansas City; police tried to regain control of streets overrun by ATV and dirt bike gangs and sideshows. In recent weeks, an ATV driver knocked down a police officer and then injured him again while pulling a wheelie. A woman pedestrian was injured on Cinco de Mayo weekend by a dirt bike wheelie stunt in the busy downtown restaurant district. The dystopian scenes recall the Mad Max movies, which saw a 'road warrior', played by Mel Gibson in the original and Tom Hardy in the reboot, battle gangs riding motorbikes and ATVs across the Australian desert. Another video of brazen lawlessness emerged this month, showing two people mercilessly punching and kicking another on the sidewalk at a bus stop downtown at night. Restaurant owners say their eateries are empty after 8pm, as locals are too scared to leave their homes. Kansas City now ranks among the most dangerous cities in America, with homicides peaking at 182 in 2023 and still scarily high. The 'City of Fountains' has the worst homelessness crisis in the US, with 96 percent of unhoused people sleeping on streets, in cars, or derelict buildings, federal housing data show. Sidewalks are strewn with garbage, business owners wash human waste off pavements each morning, says Nestel. Jay, a former Kansas City resident who didn't share his surname, said gunshots echoed through his neighborhood nightly and three of his neighbors were killed in the 18 months he lived there. 'I've since moved back to South America, where the only gunshots I hear are in my nightmares, where I imagine being back in Kansghanistan,' he said. Nestel and Mark Anthony Jones, a downtown resident who heads a district GOP committee, blamed Lucas, saying the mayor championed soft-on-crime polices since the George Floyd race riots erupted in early 2020. 'It's all connected: the homeless, the crime, the lack of leadership,' said Nestel. 'When Lucas in 2020 stood at Washington Square Park and raised his fist and said 'No justice, no peace' and defunded the police department, he started the ball rolling.' Jones also blamed former prosecutor Peters-Baker for embracing 'policies of not enforcing laws against non-violent crimes.' 'That set the stage for minor offenses to get more and more common,' Jones said. 'No consequences for criminals leads to big consequences for folks who want to live safe lives.' Police don't bother to book car thieves and other lower-level offenders as there are not enough jail beds to process them, he said. The city's jail shuttered in 2009, and it's since used a few dozen beds at lockups in nearby counties. There are plans to build a new city jail, but it won't be open for several years. City council members are even mulling a stopgap 'modular jail' that could be built in six months. Lucas has repeatedly rejected claims he tried to 'defund' city police after the BLM riots of 2020. Kansas City is the only city in the state where the local elected officials, by law, have almost no authority in how the police department's budget is spent. Lucas and some city council members in 2021 tried to divert $42 million of the police budget toward community engagement and intervention — but that was blocked by a judge. He has since rowed with the state over how much budget Kansas City must spend on policing. The force was hit with more budget cuts this week, after having to pay out more than $18 million from two recent lawsuits. Speaking with the Daily Mail earlier this month, Lucas slammed the gangs, but rejected claims he's responsible for the city's collapse. He said Kansas City could 'handle this moment' and that a police recruitment drive would get more officers on the streets in the coming months. 'More than anything, we need to make sure that there are real consequences for those who are engaging in reckless and foolish behavior in downtown Kansas City,' he added. 'I have great confidence in the city being able to handle this moment and many others,' said the mayor, who lives in a four-bedroom, $500,000 home. Peters-Baker left Kansas City soon after her term ended, records show. She did not answer our requests for an interview. Speaking with KSHB 41 in December, she said she was 'smart-on-crime,' not soft, but added that she was hamstrung by other officials. 'There's so many things I'd hoped for when I got into that job. One was that violence would be reduced,' she said. 'Politically, it's gotten so awful.' Nestel tried and failed to get a seat on the city council in 2023. She co-founded a civic group of business owners and residents called the Real Kansas City that runs clean-ups in parks and other run-down areas. The group's Facebook page has 2,300 members, who post about Kansas City's chaos and policies that have solved social problems in Omaha, St. Louis and other mid-size cities. Members hope they can turn the tide before Kansas City becomes more like the Mad Max wasteland, she says. 'We're very passionate about our city and determined to help,' Nestel says.
