Some of the News That's Fit to Print

Elections, Traffic Jams and Date Changes

Paris:- Sunday, 27. September 1998:- I don't know why it has taken me so long to change the date on this column from Saturday to Sunday. Too many big events - most elections for example - happen in Europe on Sundays, and if they are French elections I can get pretty good results before midnight.

Then there are Paris' own events, such as today's automobile parade on the Champs-Elysées. Since the Hôtel de Ville has promised us many more extravaganzas, many of these will be on Sundays too.

Making the day change, puts Metropole's news up-to-date with its Monday publication date, without me having to fiddle around with phoney 'updates.' After the magazine goes online, I have the rest of Monday to fiddle a siesta if I want to.

This morning about 20,000 Parisians and their friends came out in the pouring rain to see some cars on the Champs-Elysées. It is hard to know how many more would have come if the weather had been fine, because there are always plenty of cars on this street.

The first to descend from the Arch de Triomphe was a 1898 Panhard M2 E. The last of the 'old' cars was a 1973 Alfa Romeo. TV-news on Saturday evening showed the fine old cars being parked overnight at Longchamp, also in the pouring rain.

Some constructors made a proper show of it. Lancia had carnival in Venice mixed with Comedia dell'Arte. There were Brit Rollers, German 'rollers,' movie 007 cars, American pastel zoomers from the '50's, and a horde of French antiques. In all, 700 oldies rolled down the avenue.

These were followed by the 900 of the cars present-day constructors will be showing at the Automobile Salon, starting next Thursday at Paris-Expo. There are not a lot of auto showrooms on the Champs-Elysées these days, so this was a rare commercial treat.

Considering last Tuesday's 'no cars day' in Paris, the contemporary cars were followed by the low-energy models, some powered by EDF. After these came the constructor's new models, the ones to make their world debuts at the salon.

See this week's 'Café' column for details about this year's 100th Mondial de l'Automobile. Read next week's Metropole for a report about the Salon.

Last Monday's Le Parisien had ample information about the areas of the city where there would be 'restricted circulation' on Tuesday.

If drivers had ripped out the newspaper's handy map and taken it with them on their travels, a lot of the ensuring traffic jams might have been less annoying to everybody.

As it was, delivery trucks form a large part of weekday traffic - and these go where they have to go. On normal days, one of these making a stop in a narrow street can completely upset the traffic pattern of an entire quarter.

On Tuesday, Le Parisien published their map again, in a big front-of-the-paper, seven-page section about the subject.

Currently there are nine projects under consideration for improving traffic flow or giving streets to pedestrians. Two of these are given a good chance of realization and four others only have average chances.

Last Monday several hundred demonstrators blocked a bus at Châtelet, to protest the general inaccessibility to public transport for handicapped persons.

TV-news showed a film of a man in a wheel-chair as he tried to get from his home in the suburbs to a location in the city's centre. The commuter succeeded, but he had to put up with long waits for some few elevators, waits for assistance from public transport agents and some generous assistance from other travellers.