I think it probably was a coincidence. Most terrorist attacks are planned some time in advance. There's usually reconnaissance, although I can't find evidence in this case. I'd still be surprised if the assailants (Chérif Kouachi and Saïd Kouachi) just decided to do it that morning.
Yes, excellent. I must find the book, but the idea that "Their class enemies were the beauf, abbreviated from beau-frère or brother-in-law" jars - the notion that a brother-in-law is axiomatically a class enemy makes little sense, as most people marry more or less within their class.
The correct explanation is given in the French equivalent of the Sloane Ranger Handbook, which is that this is an abbreviation for "beurre, oeufs, fromages", staples of a grocer's shop: the British bourgeois are not the only ones with a contempt for "trade".
An absolutely engrossing and superb piece! Just fascinating but sad. Very informative however and I wish it continued on. Thank you for this, probably the very best piece I've read on any Substack and well worth the subscription price.
That exchange between Houllebecq and Hussey is interesting.
I am often provoked into over-thinking the genealogy of dress.
English Football fans, for instance. In paramilitary sports gear, blue jeans, ski-jackets and american work-wear. How did that all come about? I know the Scousers were supposed to have introduced Blue Jeans and Tracksuits from Europe. Presumably the Europeans were imiating the American GI's. The colonial mentality.
The flotsam and jetsam of American Mass-Media trends now litter the shared British sartorial imagination. Even provincial Dads are now more likely to be seen wearing an expensive sailing-jacket or mountaineering gilet over their Tattersall Check and Levi Jeans.
The idea that Britain posseses a distinct national dress, or even a vernacular language of clothing, has been forgotten.
One sees it with furniture now as well. A generation ago you could trust the native instincts of the middle and working classes to furnish a home or a pub cosily in the vernacular English taste. Now it's all Ercol, mid century and ironic Americana.
You would have thought the French would have put up a better fight.
Ercol are based near High Wycombe and still make Windsor chairs - despite being established by an Italian (Lucian Ercolani, hence the name), they couldn’t be more English.
Thank you, I was referring to the 'mid-century' profile of much of their furniture, in particular the Forli, Romana, Monza, and Teramo ranges one sees so widely adopted in 'Modern ' interiors rather than the 'heritage' style.
A Windsor chair is one thing but whether or not you 'couldn't be more English' than an angular mid century dining chair in North American White Oak designed by Sgr Luciano Ercolini, in the 'Romana' Style is perhaps open to question.
Great to see analysis of books I have read in the past inc. The French Intifada, Twilight of the Elites and Houellebecq's oeuvre. It makes me want to go back and re-read them.
One should keep in mind that all of this is still downstream of the collapse of French fertility that lead to much of the misfortune of the 20th Century:
Ed, does a country's population rate determine its political strength? I'm going to say No since history is full of smaller nations defeating larger nations (classical example: Athens vs the Persian Empire). In the aftermath of Napoleon's final defeat the 900 lb gorilla in European affairs was not Germany (or even Prussia/Austria) but rather Russia, a position the Russian regime frittered away with incompetent leadership and a failure to become an early adopter of industrialization. Germany did not really emerge as a great power until the later half of the 19th century, and that was based as much on economic factors as it was on raw population numbers.
I would say that France's current difficulties are the result not of deterministic factors but of a cumulative set of bad policy decisions. Compare with Japan, another nation with rock bottom fertility rates, but one which has avoided open borders immigration folly and, to the extent it allows immigrants, has carefully chosen those it welcomes.
Of course, the key fact there was German unification! One point of divergence for an alternative time line would be for the Austrians to win the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Bavaria would presumably have become Austrian and the resulting empire would have been more German than the Habsburg Empire in our time line... But Vienna wouldn't have been as ruthless as Berlin and a Prussia confined to Northern Germany wouldn't have posed the same kind of continental threat. Not to mention that the peaceable, mercantile, Low German-speaking cities, with their trading ties to the Netherlands and Scandinavia, would have had a greater proportional weight and influence.
So delightful and beneficial to get a glimpse of other cultures and their struggles. Western civilization is worth fighting for. Paris is worth a mass.
Here is a recent book I am hoping to get for my birthday. It's on the largely forgotten Franco-Prussian War and how it was in many ways a turning point for European history.
Fantastic piece. Under a violent rainstorm in 2018 in Aix les Bains I watched France beat Croatia on a big screen in the town square. The wind would have ripped our festival stage to shreds had not the crew leapt up the rigging to take it all down. Our gig was cancelled. The fans hardly seemed to notice and drummed their chests at the screen and the sky.
The Chi-tis or whatever - pronounced Shitties (no really) - are ethnically Flemish. They drink beer not wine, are more portly and pasty than the typical French and have names to match. They also used to do most of the hard work in the coal mines, etc. France has incorporated bits of other neighbouring countries over the centuries: Vlaams, Germans (Alsace + Lorraine) Celts (Brittany) Basques and Mediterranean types. The weird-looking surname Houellebecq is the French trying to spell the English surname Wellbeck. That’s how you say it: well-beck.
OK, I’m Canadian so I found that a wee bit confusing: 🫤.
But as I was reading, I thought the end of France/the end of Europe will be the realization of the real Brexit. The vote was real, leave won, but the aftermath was a fraud, of course, stay still rules. It turns out Europe will need to leave Britain for Brexit to be real.
Greetings from the 7th arrondissement. This is my first time in Paris since 2023, and as par for the course, it feels so different from London and New York, and I can’t put my fingers on the deeper sources and manifestations of this difference! Indeed, the French not only have a different appraoch/temprerment to expressing themselves, but a different approach to philosophizing society and state (sometimes with severely damaging consequences). Moreover, I realized at once that I formed my ideas of Paris and French culture through Anglo-American lenses, which, for all of its good intentions, does at times carry with it a lot of self-projection!
Yes that does sound low. he wrote 'By 1962, some 26,000 men were playing a number of roles from local policemen to conscript troops in the field', but most sources say several hundred thousand.
Une pièce de résistence! Your French is better than mine - I wasn't aware of bouchonner but thought I remembered the expression 'sentir du bouchon' to describe wine that's off and is 'corked'. Putting 'sentir du bouchon' into the Apple translate app, however, gave me "Smell of traffic jam" . . .
Superb, Mr West.
That final paragraph did me in - I hadn’t known that there was this connection and I don’t believe it was a coincidence.
thank you, Tamara!
I think it probably was a coincidence. Most terrorist attacks are planned some time in advance. There's usually reconnaissance, although I can't find evidence in this case. I'd still be surprised if the assailants (Chérif Kouachi and Saïd Kouachi) just decided to do it that morning.
You’re probably right.
Yes, excellent. I must find the book, but the idea that "Their class enemies were the beauf, abbreviated from beau-frère or brother-in-law" jars - the notion that a brother-in-law is axiomatically a class enemy makes little sense, as most people marry more or less within their class.
The correct explanation is given in the French equivalent of the Sloane Ranger Handbook, which is that this is an abbreviation for "beurre, oeufs, fromages", staples of a grocer's shop: the British bourgeois are not the only ones with a contempt for "trade".
In Spanish a ‘brother in law’ is used in the same sense.
An absolutely engrossing and superb piece! Just fascinating but sad. Very informative however and I wish it continued on. Thank you for this, probably the very best piece I've read on any Substack and well worth the subscription price.
Thank you so much! Hussey is a great writer and observer, so he deserves all the credit.
That exchange between Houllebecq and Hussey is interesting.
I am often provoked into over-thinking the genealogy of dress.
English Football fans, for instance. In paramilitary sports gear, blue jeans, ski-jackets and american work-wear. How did that all come about? I know the Scousers were supposed to have introduced Blue Jeans and Tracksuits from Europe. Presumably the Europeans were imiating the American GI's. The colonial mentality.
The flotsam and jetsam of American Mass-Media trends now litter the shared British sartorial imagination. Even provincial Dads are now more likely to be seen wearing an expensive sailing-jacket or mountaineering gilet over their Tattersall Check and Levi Jeans.
The idea that Britain posseses a distinct national dress, or even a vernacular language of clothing, has been forgotten.
One sees it with furniture now as well. A generation ago you could trust the native instincts of the middle and working classes to furnish a home or a pub cosily in the vernacular English taste. Now it's all Ercol, mid century and ironic Americana.
You would have thought the French would have put up a better fight.
Bill Amos, what’s with the vocabulary? I had to look up scoucers, sartorial, gilet, Tattersall Check, and Ercol (furniture company yes?).
You said that you tend to overthink the genealogy of dress. That’s so cool. The genealogy of dress was not on my radar: lol.
And then your description - “the shared British sartorial imagination” - that’s some serious highfaluting language: I love it.
I also noticed elsewhere that you liked Curtis Yarvin. Curtis is my boy, so good on you.
Anyway, that post put me in a good mood . I do love language.
Ercol are based near High Wycombe and still make Windsor chairs - despite being established by an Italian (Lucian Ercolani, hence the name), they couldn’t be more English.
Thank you, I was referring to the 'mid-century' profile of much of their furniture, in particular the Forli, Romana, Monza, and Teramo ranges one sees so widely adopted in 'Modern ' interiors rather than the 'heritage' style.
A Windsor chair is one thing but whether or not you 'couldn't be more English' than an angular mid century dining chair in North American White Oak designed by Sgr Luciano Ercolini, in the 'Romana' Style is perhaps open to question.
Thanks for this.
Great to see analysis of books I have read in the past inc. The French Intifada, Twilight of the Elites and Houellebecq's oeuvre. It makes me want to go back and re-read them.
And I'm keen to read Hussey's new book.
One should keep in mind that all of this is still downstream of the collapse of French fertility that lead to much of the misfortune of the 20th Century:
https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/whatever-happened-to-france
Fertility rates have fallen almost everywhere yet we do not see these sorts of troubles everywhere.
but France's early transition meant that Germany was too dominant in Europe for the continent to have stability.
Ed, does a country's population rate determine its political strength? I'm going to say No since history is full of smaller nations defeating larger nations (classical example: Athens vs the Persian Empire). In the aftermath of Napoleon's final defeat the 900 lb gorilla in European affairs was not Germany (or even Prussia/Austria) but rather Russia, a position the Russian regime frittered away with incompetent leadership and a failure to become an early adopter of industrialization. Germany did not really emerge as a great power until the later half of the 19th century, and that was based as much on economic factors as it was on raw population numbers.
I would say that France's current difficulties are the result not of deterministic factors but of a cumulative set of bad policy decisions. Compare with Japan, another nation with rock bottom fertility rates, but one which has avoided open borders immigration folly and, to the extent it allows immigrants, has carefully chosen those it welcomes.
Of course, the key fact there was German unification! One point of divergence for an alternative time line would be for the Austrians to win the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Bavaria would presumably have become Austrian and the resulting empire would have been more German than the Habsburg Empire in our time line... But Vienna wouldn't have been as ruthless as Berlin and a Prussia confined to Northern Germany wouldn't have posed the same kind of continental threat. Not to mention that the peaceable, mercantile, Low German-speaking cities, with their trading ties to the Netherlands and Scandinavia, would have had a greater proportional weight and influence.
So delightful and beneficial to get a glimpse of other cultures and their struggles. Western civilization is worth fighting for. Paris is worth a mass.
That PSG match was against Racing Club de Lens, who are currently top of Ligue 1, a sliver above PSG. Les Ch'tis might just do it.
https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Bismarck_s_War/DfuoEAAAQBAJ?hl=en
Here is a recent book I am hoping to get for my birthday. It's on the largely forgotten Franco-Prussian War and how it was in many ways a turning point for European history.
Fantastic piece. Under a violent rainstorm in 2018 in Aix les Bains I watched France beat Croatia on a big screen in the town square. The wind would have ripped our festival stage to shreds had not the crew leapt up the rigging to take it all down. Our gig was cancelled. The fans hardly seemed to notice and drummed their chests at the screen and the sky.
The Chi-tis or whatever - pronounced Shitties (no really) - are ethnically Flemish. They drink beer not wine, are more portly and pasty than the typical French and have names to match. They also used to do most of the hard work in the coal mines, etc. France has incorporated bits of other neighbouring countries over the centuries: Vlaams, Germans (Alsace + Lorraine) Celts (Brittany) Basques and Mediterranean types. The weird-looking surname Houellebecq is the French trying to spell the English surname Wellbeck. That’s how you say it: well-beck.
So more of a flematic temperament than the French?
OK, I’m Canadian so I found that a wee bit confusing: 🫤.
But as I was reading, I thought the end of France/the end of Europe will be the realization of the real Brexit. The vote was real, leave won, but the aftermath was a fraud, of course, stay still rules. It turns out Europe will need to leave Britain for Brexit to be real.
Greetings from the 7th arrondissement. This is my first time in Paris since 2023, and as par for the course, it feels so different from London and New York, and I can’t put my fingers on the deeper sources and manifestations of this difference! Indeed, the French not only have a different appraoch/temprerment to expressing themselves, but a different approach to philosophizing society and state (sometimes with severely damaging consequences). Moreover, I realized at once that I formed my ideas of Paris and French culture through Anglo-American lenses, which, for all of its good intentions, does at times carry with it a lot of self-projection!
Anyway, back to Paris!
You got the number of harkis wrong, by an order of magnitude!
Yes that does sound low. he wrote 'By 1962, some 26,000 men were playing a number of roles from local policemen to conscript troops in the field', but most sources say several hundred thousand.
Une pièce de résistence! Your French is better than mine - I wasn't aware of bouchonner but thought I remembered the expression 'sentir du bouchon' to describe wine that's off and is 'corked'. Putting 'sentir du bouchon' into the Apple translate app, however, gave me "Smell of traffic jam" . . .
With its fabulous real estate, all France needs is part-time jobs in the country: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U0C9HKW