I could not start this page without paying a tribute to the late Mr. Claude Liotaud who was my "first smile" in Rouen.
Always accompanied by his dog and his rabbit, he was coming every day from the Left Bank to the Gros Horloge street where he settled. He didn't beg, he waited for people to see him, to really look at him, to give him a coin on occasion. But he never asked for it.
Sincere, he expected no less from others. "The Man with Animals", as people were used to call him, left us leaving a big void and, creating a strong emotion among people who had the chance to know him.
I do not forget him and, I always have a thought for him when I walk in the Gros Horloge street.
He is one of those characters who mark a life, a city. With a great elegance.
Claude and his friends Gros Horloge street
Claude Liotaud has been my first smile in Rouen.
Farewell Mister Claude, you were a great gentleman. March 13, 2013
"Me, you,
them, you, us,
they,
together.
All together,
One person, persons.
People. "
"No one is nobody"
because we all have a story, a more or less successful one, more or less fortunate experiences.
Nothing is worse than indifference towards people you meet at random, you should never turn your back to avoid those who disturb your daily routine, because they end up on the street, because of the vagaries of their lives.
Often, these people expect only a look, a smile, the coin is a plus.
Giving money to a homeless person is not giving yourself a good conscience, you have to do it wholeheartedly, even when you suspect that these coins will be for a beer.
So what?
Who are we to judge?
To be nice, without overworking the meaning, that's good. Nowadays, "being nice" seems pejorative, a sign of weakness, let's give this word its nobility. "Being nice" does not prevent having an asserted personality, those who think the opposite are those people who follow the current current of thought .... and, who I feel sorry for.
Let us be "ourselves" with our flaws and qualities without trying to resemble to the"mass" (as for clothes .... each one his own style)
I hear people complaining about the atmosphere surrounding us and yet you just have to make an effort to get a feedback.
Let's be nice and the person in front of us will be in return
Let's be polite and the person in front of us will be in return
Let's be closed and the person in front of us will be closed too
We cannot wait for what we are unable to give .....
The human race is really too complicated, and yet so interesting ....
I never hesitate to smile, to greet someone who does the same.
Too bad if one of them takes me for a "crazy-nuts", it surely comes from my Greek years where everyone greeted each other, was familiar and even so polite (I had to relearn the distant "you"as it exists in French... not easy!)
It was though part of the customs to be gentle with each others . Smiling even to unknown existed in France a few years ago, too bad it has been forgotten because it frankly facilitates human contact.
I recommend it .... it works and we can have great encounters.
Be assured, I also had my bad, unfriendly meetings but, at least, I tried!
This page will be for the people I dared to photograph, a tribute to these beautiful people. I will still have time to dare more, I do not lose hope ....
"Each person is someone"
The man and his flowers Gros-Horloge street
The man and his dog
The woman and the kids
The man and his music
A man and a woman
A man, a glance
The man and his band
The man and his band
Together
"Wings for Life - World Run"
- Edition 2016 -
"What three people know is public." -French proverb-
"People without personalities play a character." -Gilbert Cesbron / Diary without date-
"Macabre: calls the frolics very light." -Tristan Bernard / Crosswords-
"Adults are just children in disguise." -Pierre Daninos / Holidays at all costs-
"Proud people create their own sorrows." -Emily Bronte / The Highs of Stormwind-
"Nine out of ten people love chocolate; the tenth one lies." -John G. Tullius-
"Children must be lenient towards the adults." -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry / The Little Prince-
"Oaths, like people, lose their strength as they get older." -Marcel Pagnol / The time of love-
"In France, a few people promised thousands of other people to change their lives, and then they changed their minds." -Guy Bedos / Bobino (1981)-
It was while going for a walk on the Left Bank that I found myself facing a colorful crowd and, in full effort. I was blown away, ... breathless just by looking at them and, totally admiring.
Cleaning agents from Rouen
"The true value of a man lies, not in what he has, but in what he is."
-Oscar Wilde-
I wanted to pay tribute to these women and men who clean and maintain the city and the spaces of Rouen clean every day. Not a day without seeing them at work, a thankless job very often that citizens do not see, no longer recognize.
Cleaning agents that people often don't look at, when they have a great value and are always friendly, helpful. I do not understand the disdain of some people towards them when they do an exemplary work.
We are the ones who are not exemplary. Some people think that the agents are there for "that", others who absolutely do not respect the streets of Rouen and have forgotten what the trash cans are for! The cleaning agents are not servants, people shall educate themselves by collecting their waste, dog owners to collect excrement (nothing is more unpleasant than walking in it huh !?).
If the city can appear dirty, it is not because the agents do not do their job, it is because people are dirtying it by not respecting the streets of Rouen and especially by not respecting the difficult tasks of the agents maintenance.
If you don't pay attention to them, the next time you meet them on the street, look at them and greet them!
They deserve it.
Rémi, yellow cardigan
"It is not the revolt in itself that is noble, but what it demands."
By Albert Camus / The Revolted Man
Rémi , a retired man in a country in madness
There to express his anger
It was while going to the Employement Pole that I met on Thursday November 22, 2018, Rémi, retired, angry, rebellious ... a yellow vest in front of the tax center.
Because he does not want the protest to turn off, he was that day the representative of the yellow vests who left for work.
Alone but not lonely.
Rémi has seen his purchasing power drop, the CSG increase on his retirement, his property tax increase dramatically ... yes, the president must think that all retirees are wealthy rentiers like his wife! He forgets that the retirees worked very hard all their life to have a downhill life and that the amount of their retirement is in no way an annuity but the result of hard work. To the extend if they are not accused of being still alive!
Yes, people are fed up, citizens demand a decent life ... when the people are hungry, they revolt.
Some messy historical reminders:
-Napoleon III was first elected representative of the people and then President of the Republic. After his coup he proclaimed himself emperor (1851)
- The Jacqueries are the peasant revolts against the nobles
-Democracy comes from the Greek: from "Demos" the People and "Kratos" the State. So a political system in which sovereignty emanates from the people.
-On October 5, 1789 discontent again won the streets, and thousands of women marched on Versailles to seek bread from the king. The king on his return promised a return of wheat to Paris, but the next day, the crowd gathered in front of Versailles, and proclaimed "In Paris". The king is therefore forced to leave Versailles with his family ("the baker, the baker and the little baker").
.... / ...
So many facts which today remind us that history is an eternal beginning.
The yellow vests of today are the revolutionaries of yesterday, the president of the republic of today is the monarch of yesterday. The nobles of yesterday are the caste of the privileged today whose wealth tax has been abolished ... among others ...
When the people are no longer heard, when they are bled, they revolt.
There was "the black Napoleonic legend", will that of this century be "Macronienne" ?!
The French today ask only to live and not just to survive.
Pay taxes? yes but that clarity is made on their use and that this government stops "tapping" again and again on a so-called "middle class" which tends to disappear with current politics.
When I hear Mr. Macron, I always think of the difference between education and intelligence. He who likes to shine so much by using convoluted words as to better crush people thinks he is intelligent because he is educated. What a mistake! Manipulator, yes, intelligent in its function, no.
I appreciated the conclusion made by Alexandre Taliercio in one of his editorials explaining that education and intelligence are two completely different things: "I therefore deduce that if you can be intelligent without being educated, you can fatally be educated but not intelligent, even downright stupid. And that, I don't know about you but I know quite a few like that and they are not my favorites, they are even the most dangerous. "
The president of the republic hears but he does not listen ...
Tomorrow is scary ...
Yes, Rémi, "I'm tired of it!"
No madam, you are not invisible
... I see you and it hurts me to see you so alone, staring into the void because you never watch people pass by. You are there and yet absent. I feel your embarrassment and yet it is not you who should be ashamed, no it is some of these politics who dare to say that people living in precariousness have made this choice and prefer to "wallow" in the lust of social assistance ... I am so ashamed for them.
As if sitting in the cold and hoping for a coin was a pleasure. I don't even know if I would have this strength because it takes a lot to face the gaze of passers-by. I understand that you are avoiding it because some looks are not complacent, others are downright indifferent. It is also fear on their part, fear of what can happen to each of us following the accidents of life. Of course there are those who think that it only happens to others, the contempt in their eyes is unbearable.
Who can think that you have chosen to sit there, facing all eyes and all kind of judgment ?!
So yes madam, I see you and I am in pain because no one deserves this trouble.
With all my respect .
and then came the smiles ...
-What is happiness. Liberation Charlélie Couture - July 16, 2017 - Charlélie Couture-
Life is like that, you go from sadness to smiles in an instant.
From a black and white world to a world of colors. All in the same street, an emotional elevator.
I would have liked to turn around and ask forgiveness from this lady sitting alone on the cobblestones to experience an almost childish joy at the sight of these ephemeral balloons that remind me of the smile of children. I wonder if she still sees the colors, if she still has the strength to smile at the sight of these simple, naive pleasures.
She has to survive, and it "eats" her up at all hours.
I hope that one day, she will see again what surrounds us, that she will no longer look into the void.
I often admire the talented street artists who dare to combine their talent with the spirit of the times.
A nice way to make a little money for a dose of pleasure.
... then the daily life of our century catches up with me at the sight of these soldiers .... terrorism is the world war of our century, it blindly strikes the innocent in the name of a god or an ideology incomprehensible to ordinary people.
The vigipirate plan is reassuring, of course, but will never prevent these determined madmen from committing their foul crimes.
A Monday at Solepi ...
... Solidarity grocery, 1 rue des Augustins, a Monday in March just before the opening. The beneficiaries wait patiently for opening time. I am disturbed to see so many people waiting, they are young mothers, retired, the men lower their heads more than they admire the surroundings. They all give me the impression of being curled up, inattentive to others, not because they don't care but because it is never easy to feel on the margins. But thanks to this association, they will all leave with food, fresh products that they could not otherwise afford. They will pay much less for basic necessities because yes, in this grocery store you have to pay, little, but an amount that allows the beneficiary not to have the impression of begging. Because precariousness is not a choice, it is suffered even if many politicians think that people take pleasure in it. Precariousness hurts. Very badly.
"The voices of voiceless men must prevent the powerful from sleeping. " -Abbé Pierre/Thoughts (1912-2007)-
"When I was little at home, the hardest part was the end of the month... Especially the last thirty days!" - Coluche-
Tenderness
“Tenderness is the rest of passion.”
- Joseph Joubert / Carnets-
“If the person is elderly, their heart is not.”
- Chinese proverb -
I also have a sincere and moved smile when I see this couple tenderly holding hands. What is special about it?
Because after all I see lots of couples holding hands in the streets of Rouen, this one is neither the first nor the last. But it has this "little nothing" that makes it unique, a force emanates from their embrace: this woman and this man are no longer twenty years old nor the fiery youth but decades of union and the strength of wisdom. The certainty of a lasting love.
I find them beautiful and their harmony makes me turn around. I admire them. Really. I find them beautiful. Because I believe that when we reach an advanced age, there are no more false pretenses and that holding hands is done naturally with envy and tenderness, without forcing yourself. All the love of this couple is in his two intertwined hands.
A very nice way to demonstrate that love has no age.
Love at church ...
Here ! this is what I find normal to see in a street in Rouen: a couple with their children.
Mister's job? Pope or Orthodox priest if you prefer. They separated by a tender kiss as the couples do, with modesty in front of the children. Nothing more normal. It reminded me of the popes in Greece, who, as a family, accompanied the children to school, had a life next to their priesthood. Singles, by choice and not by obligation, sometimes went to the bar for a drink in the evening ... There was Yiannis especially that everyone loved. He looked like a rocker with a long white beard after removing his cassock. He liked to drink his whiskey leaning on the counter from time to time and talk. What he was talking about!
Nothing more normal.
This is what the Catholic Church lacks. Accepting that a priest remains a man, that a man's life will not make him less faithful to his religious convictions, less competent in his profession as a priest.
So many priests have secret love stories. It is unbearable to forbid them a family life on the pretext that they dedicate their lives to their church and that they were forced to make a vow of chastity. What rubbish! What hypocrisy!
Disgusting these scandals of pedophilia within the church. I have never heard it as much as in the Catholic church where the children undergo the carnal needs of these men in cassocks. As well castrate the priests to save the children from the impulses of these men. Seeing the lives of these little victims destroyed is a shame, a pain. These are the men who interpreted this religion imposing celibacy on them. A celibacy that makes some priests vicious, twisted.
And hearing the Pope assimilate pedophilia to homosexuality puts me out of my mind. How dare to make such a mistake ?!
So yes, there you go, I am for marriage, the cohabitation of Catholic priests. It would be healthier and the proof is made in other faiths where couples exist and that does not change the devotion which is theirs.