Today, I ran across an item in the Anglo press that the French Riviera is burning. From my perch in the Old Town of Nice, nothing seems different.
Word has it that the French Riviera is on fire. Odd, since I happen to live in the middle of Nice and I only heard about it through American and British newspapers. Now, it’s not that I don’t believe what the newspapers say, and I thoroughly understand that the French Riviera encompasses many, many miles of coastline, but when the dateline says “Nice,” you’d think people here would be talking about it. Not so.
The UK’s Daily Mail headline screams: “Britons flee in terror from raging French Riviera forest fire.” Really? Are people fleeing in terror? I certainly have witnessed no fleeing. I haven’t seen any fire or even smoke, for that matter.
According to one report, more than 49,000 acres have been destroyed in the famed French beach resorts and almost 3,000 people have evacuated. Nope, not one word about it here. Another report says the blaze centered around Mandelieu, a resort town just a short distance from Nice. The fire department says 700 firefighters have been dispatched to contain the fire. Unbelievable. Again, I have not heard a word about this in town.
But maybe that’s typical of the French, or the Southern French, at least. I mean, when a wildfire of a different sort blows through the area - namely the celebrities attending the Cannes film festival - very little of it trickles into the Nice conversations.
I had friends from the States here for the Winter Olympics in 2006, which were held a mere three hours away in Turin, Italy, and they were shocked by the lack of discussions, media coverage, and general excitement for the games. We actually had to ask a barman to turn one of the pub’s several TVs to the Olympics and almost got booed out of the bar for switching from a friendly football match.
Obviously, I have a skewed perspective. I went from working at a daily newspaper in Idaho, where, when a huge fire broke out, we were all over it ... sometimes to the detriment of the area’s tourism industry because it often lacked a bit of perspective. Now, I work from home, hang out in pubs with English-speaking clientel and spend most of my time with a Kiwi and a French guy I can’t understand.
So, maybe what this story about the fires in Southern France needs is a bit of perspective. They say 49,000 acres have been destroyed. Is that 49,000 out of 100,000? Or maybe 49,000 out of 100,000,000? Or more? Who knows?
What I do know, is that Nice has not been touched. And it’s time for a trip out of Old Town.
