Arras is a town in northern France that was destroyed in WW1 and rebuilt. The town council took the back page of The Guardian on February 14 to issue the following message. VR thought it “poignant”.
Dear friends and neighbours
Here in Arras and the wider Artois region we wanted to use Saint Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to tell you just how much we love our union.
We love to see you here, enjoying a morning coffee on the Place des Héros, climbing to the top of the Belfry, heading to the market to buy a local cheese or a sweet treat… And in the evening, we are enchanted to hear your accent drifting across the terraces as you sample the local beer, order a local speciality and make the most of your time here.
We often see you on the country roads, too, around the many war cemeteries. Which remind us of our debt to you, and what your young men and your determination gave us a full century ago: Freedom… and a steadfast friendship.
So this year in particular, on 14 February we’re saying “I love you”.
Yes, our home is your home too.
Yeah, it’s a tourism advert: visit our town, help our economy. But perhaps it’s a little more than that.
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ReplyDeleteI can see absolutely no reason why such an intimate friendship with another European country cannot be continued after Brexit.
ReplyDeleteBrexit is (was) political. Friendship is personal.
I wouldn't want to believe this is purely commercial. The idea must have come from somebody with a good dose of humanity. Can you imagine Trump or J thinking that one up.
ReplyDeleteAvus: WW2 was political too and was conducted at the same level of hatred. The most extreme supporters of Brexit (The Daily Mail, The Sun, Daily Express, Farage, BJ) actively encouraged Brits to hate Europe and Europeans; I made a point of reading their headlines when I bought my newspaper. This sort of thing can take a long time to dissipate and in the interim I am at risk of being tarred with their wretchedly nationalistic brush. Nor am I sure that friendship is necessarily personal; a country may be said to have friendly relations with another. Friendly gestures may be extended between countries, foreign institutions, etc. One thinks too of Legions d'Honneur awarded to British veterans of Arnhem, etc, long after the event.
ReplyDeleteObviously I will maintain my friendships with various Europeans but they may now be coloured by the fact that I live in a country where a representative half of the population expressed their desire - in varying degrees of animosity - to be apart from their neighbours. Friendship is not a purely pragmatic matter, much of it is emotional. Emotions are vulnerable to atmosphere; taint is abstract yet it endures.
Sir Hugh: You may not want to believe that but I - a cynical ex-journalist - take the Occam's razor view, I look for the most likely reasons. Faced with with writing the copy for this ad the Arras town council could well have farmed it out to a clever British copywriter. Someone who knew what would appeal. I hope not but cannot rule out that possibility.
Interesting. Whoever posted that ad was brilliant. It is both a savvy commercial appeal, and seemingly a heartfelt olive branch. It feels like a great kindness, doesn't it? I guess those who visit Arras as a result of this ad will be able to discover the truth of it. I hope for kindness. What a world we inhabit, with so many people vulnerable to being manipulated by hatred and distrust.
ReplyDeleteThat is so well done, a lovely invitation and a heartfelt message of gratitude. I'm hoping there is a bit of sincerity underlying the invite.
ReplyDeleteEven if it does have hints of town-promotion (and why not?) it is still a generous and well-expressed message to those Brits who feel genuine connection and affection for France and Europe in general. I wish it would inspire some town councils in the UK to post similar notices welcoming foreign visitors.
ReplyDeleteColette: Some copywriters can do sincerity, others can do humour. Who knows? I've been to Arras, liked it and I hope this is what it seems. Over the Brexit period I visited France and Germany several times and was astonished by the affectionate views expressed towards the UK; no surprise, at worst a gentle sadness. Other British writers have had similar experiences. Given the mouth-foaming condemnation towards the EU expressed by the most vocal Brexiteers I've been forced to say to myself: we hardly deserve such friendliness. And it isn't atypical. We owned a house south of Brittany for ten years and were courteously regarded throughout. Obviously it made a difference that I was self-evidently francophile but then why else would I have chosen to live in such an obscure, not-terribly-pretty village?
ReplyDeleterobin andrea: Arras is itself rather lovely. At the centre is a large colonnaded town square that must have cost a mint of money to re-create. After WW1 France lacked two essential resources: money and young men. In Arras they could have settled for something cheap and prefabricated, instead they opted for the long haul. When it's warm you can sit outside one of the bars round the square, drink a pastis and reflect. Yeah.
Natalie: What tees me off (A US euphemism for a blunter phrase you will be familiar with) is the sense of entitlement I find among those who claim to be patriots. That we should be loved for our quaintness, our history and our oh-so-clever decision to have chosen to live on an island. Such people are wont to refer to "the British car industry" instead of "cars made by foreign companies in Britain". Also to claim that we won WW2 when the truth is we happened to be on the winning side.
ReplyDeleteAs to foreign visitors our only reaction seems to be grumbling about the way they clog up our country roads.
Yes, and it pisses me off too.
DeleteAs for reactions to foreign visitors in the UK they are often worse than mere grumbling. Such as the "go back where you came from" type of reaction when some "patriot" hears a language they don't understand spoken by someone on the bus.
Natalie: You mentioned you don't drive. Perhaps it's time you learned.
DeleteAs claimed by Stanford Medical, It is indeed the ONLY reason this country's women live 10 years longer and weigh 19 kilos less than us.
ReplyDelete(And really, it is not about genetics or some secret exercise and really, EVERYTHING related to "how" they are eating.)
P.S, What I said is "HOW", not "WHAT"...
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