THE CITY OF (DECLINING) LIGHT

GUESTS? OR CUSTOMERS?

Passage St Andre in a rare moment of quiet.

           Eleven million foreigners visit Paris every year - a figure expected to double for the Olympics. Sometimes it feels as if all of them pass our door en route to the Luxembourg Gardens, and it's a common complaint that the ever-increasing influx is ruining the city.

           Well, so it may be - but not in the way you might think.

           Yesterday, I walked down the lane called Passage St Andre on my way to lunch with a friend. At the intersection with Boulevard St Germain, a guide lectured in Italian. Halfway down, another said the same things in Spanish,  and at the exit onto rue St André des Arts a third discoursed in German.

           The congestion hardly compared with the crowds at the Eiffel Tower or lapping around the glass pyramid of the Louvre. But when I arrived here more than thirty years ago, nobody bothered with the Passage du Commerce at all, and most afternoons you could stroll into the Louvre, past a gardien snoozing at his post, and pay your respects to the Mona Lisa more or less alone.

Alone… with the Mona Lisa?

           Until recently, I'd have said that Paris, recognising that visitors were its bread and butter, welcomes them with courtesy - sometimes, albeit, a bit strained - and didn't let their presence rupture the way of life they came here to share.

           Lately, however, a certain cynicism is becoming apparent.

           Take walking tours. As the aimless strolling known as la flânerie is one of the city's most treasurable features, I've never criticised them, not even when their numbers swelled into the dozens, and guides introduced throat mikes. Presumably some information, however fragmentary, was transmitted, even via an ear bud. And at least they were out on the streets, and on their feet.

           But what of the groups on bikes or Segués, in rickshaws - pedal or motor power - or the back seats of 2CVs? Any information they receive is thrown over the shoulder of their guide as he or she negotiates the traffic.

Paris, but precariously, from the back seat of a 2CV.

           Information, however, isn't the point. Such an excursion is just another box to be ticked. Street tour - check. Can-can show at the Moulin Rouge - check. Bateau mouche dinner on the Seine- check. Louvre - check, Eiffel Tower - check, Notre Dame - check. And when your feet give out, just hail one of the double-decker buses that cruise the city and sit back while a recorded commentary tells you, usually inaccurately, where to look and what to think.

           My friend and I were lunching at Allard, which hasn’t changed since it opened in 1937, not even when Alain Ducasse bought it a few years ago. Or so I thought.

           But then the waiter insisted on speaking English, even when I spoke to him in French. And the menu, rather than the traditional unwieldy volume with a multitude of choices, was a simple photo-copied sheet of A4 - again, also, in English.

           The penny didn't drop until the room started to fill up.   "We seem to be in the English section," I joked as the accents of Baltimore from the next table competed with those of San Francisco from the group in the far corner.

           By way of reply, my friend said "We went to the Fontaine de Mars last week,"  naming a restaurant that has enjoyed presidential patronage, both French and American. "They wanted to seat us in a room specifically reserved for English-speakers. I told them to forget it."

           I'd hoped Paris had escaped the curse of Tokyo's Olde English Tea Shoppes and the Real Fish and Chips emporia of Marbella, but apparently it had just been delayed.

           Allard's website promised "an encounter, a shared philosophy, a new culinary adventure."  It claimed that "In this authentic Parisian bistro, tradition is still alive and well. The cuisine perpetuates a certain bourgeois tradition full of conviviality."

           But that was precisely not what we experienced. The French, or at least its more cynical citizens,  no longer see us as guests.  

   Instead…well, they have a word for it here. We are ploucs  - 'ow you say een zee Eengleesh? - mugs.

           Not to end on a sour note, the Allard experience reminded me of a story told by the writer Brian Aldiss. Finding himself in December on the island of Malta, he noticed a café offering "Real British Christmas Turkey Dinner."

           Curious how so chill a tradition could flourish in Mediterranean sunshine, he went in and sat down.     

           “What’s the turkey like?” he enquired when an obviously local waiter arrived.

           The man considered. "Is like….", he said thoughtfully, "…..beeg chicken."