Fourqueaux:- Sunday, 15. September 1996:- This is the second day of the 13th edition of France's national Heritage Days - Journées du Patrimonie - and in this part of the country the weather is perfect for it, at midday.

This is the annual weekend when France invites its citizens and residents to take a free look at what they own in the way of heritage. In the Paris region - the Ile-de-France - this usually means that you get yet another look at the France of regions - because all of them are here in the form of many people from throughout the country who have concentrated here.

As it was nicer outside than I expected, I made a snap decision to come over to Fourqueaux to see what this nearby village, west of Paris, was doing to celebrate the occasion.

When I arrived late it turned out I was early, and then the public announcement said that the parade would start from the church - but a village official told me it was starting at the leisure centre - to go to the church - which was indeed what happened.

It was no great parade, as it wound around the parking lot of the leisure centre, past the 'regional' stands that featured - mostly food and drink - but as many of the people operating the stands were dressed in costume too, it was hard to tell who was in the parade and who was a bystander.

I emphasized regional above because there was a stand festooned with American flags, another with beer and sauerkraut and the Bavarian blue and white regional colors and one with a pile of Dutch cheeses. It is kind of an indication of a grass-roots attitude in Europe - that it is a collection of regions - because the state or national level is simply too remote to understand.

By that I mean that ordinary people can comprehend regions, even those outside France, but do not feel too close to their own national governments - and do not believe these governments really understand the concept of 'regions.'

So Fourqueaux had its parade and as I left, the tables were nearly full of residents filling themselves with regional products, including oysters, sausages, wine, beer, and Swedish meatballs and the blue sky was filling with very white clouds - into which the 100 pigeons departed - along with the rich smoke of various grills operated by people in European costumes of their own.

Saturday's Le Parisien says that there are 11,106 sites open this weekend, and each in its own way is supposed to be honoring a writer - such as Balzac, in Paris. Last year seven million took advantage of the weekend to visit gallo-roman ruins, châteaus, abbeys, palaces - the Elysée! - but also factories, banks, restaurants and model farms.

As so often, the cartoon in Le Parisien, tells a more complex story - as it shows Gaston and Pierre standing in France behind a cord barrier. Gaston says, 'It's neat,' and Pierre replies, 'When one thinks it is ours, all this,' sort of sums up the ambivalence of 'national heritage.' We own it, but are only allowed to enter two days out of 365.

Elsewhere, at Langoiran near Bordeaux, the château which started life as a fortress in 1250, is being restored as a local initiative, begun in 1972 - with the physical help of Japanese, Swedes and Germans, plus some students from Colorado - and since 1992, by some of the local unemployed. Local artisans provide material and professional advice. Although classed as a national monument in 1892, the state has only recently added some funds, and half of the ex-ruin should be inhabitable sometime in 1997. Part of it has already been rented for mediaeval festivities, concerts and even wedding receptions.

There are more than 700 sites open to the public this weekend in the Ile-de-France - some of them for the first time - and Le Parisien devotes 18 pages of its Saturday-Sunday edition to the program. It is also the 20th anniversary of André Malraux, who created - more than 30 years ago - the general inventory of the artistic riches of France, as it is called.

Joining literature to illumination, l'Institut de France, home of l'Academie Francaise - is to join the list of already illuminated monuments such as l'Hôtel de Sully in Paris, which was lit up last night.

France's Heritage Days are organised by the Ministry of Culture and Direction of Heritage with the co-ordination of the National Monument Fund, and are put into motion by regional cultural directorates.

The days of this weekend are also a homage to the thousands of local associations whose members fight daily to save everybody's past. I hope somebody thinks of giving each and every one of them a glass of wine and a half-dozen oysters, at the very least.