Amélie in Paris | The Press

I’m not one to brag in life, but if there’s one thing that makes me proud, it’s having been able to preserve my oldest friendships, some born in the schoolyard.

This is how I met Amélie more than 40 years ago, and I still remember the tiny little girl with her freckles. We have been through many things together, and each on our own, without ever losing sight of each other.

When we were 14, we fell head over heels for the animated series Lady Oscar, which we recorded on cassettes to replay the episodes over and over again. It took place at the dawn of the French Revolution, a real history lesson from the gang, and we had memorized the lines, some of which were famous, like “we need audacity, more audacity , always audacity” by Danton.

We had the big plan of one day visiting Paris and the Palace of Versailles together, to walk in the footsteps of these historical figures who fascinated us. The conditions were never right, even though we frequented the City of Lights several times over time, never at the same time.

Until this year. I extended my stay for a week after covering the Paris Book Festival, and she came to join me on a whim.

It proved to me that it is never too late to realize your childhood dreams, but above all that you should not abandon them.

It seems that it’s when you travel that you discover if you really get along well with someone. This week in Paris has only confirmed why we have been friends for four decades. Besides, we had already had our experiences of extreme tourism – you know, when amateurs have the bad idea of ​​inflicting themselves with visiting eight museums in five days.

We had nothing other than the pleasure of enjoying this city, which is the best way to experience it.

Let yourself be carried away by chance, marvel at a sunset over the rooftops, go to the cinema, drink cheap wine, clog your arteries with cold meats, cheeses and a few cigarettes.

“We’re wandering,” she reminded me, when I was walking too fast.

Nothing was sweeter than walking without destination in the labyrinth of Parisian streets, even if it was freezing cold. We have seen that Paris is preparing for the Olympic Games in its most emblematic places – Eiffel Tower, Invalides, Concorde, Versailles, etc. – and we understood that these Olympics will look like a huge postcard on TV. As if Paris, the most visited city in the world, needed it!

We did not escape a demonstration – the other national sport of the French – in support of the collective of young people from Belleville Park who occupy the Maison des metallos. They are all teenagers from African countries, who have gone through hell in the hope of a better life, and who fall between the cracks of the social net when their status as minors is not recognized. The other side of the Olympic postcard is this: evictions, skyrocketing prices, cleaning up undesirables who are pushed back to other cities. An activist explained to us that several social movements could well take advantage of the eyes of the planet turned towards Paris during the Games to expose their demands and injustices.

When our feet became painful, there was always a terrace to welcome us, where each time Amélie said to me, while toasting, the phrase that Depardieu often repeats in the film The waltzers by Bertrand Blier: “Aren’t we comfortable there? Eh ? Fresh? ”, which made me cry with laughter. Not only because it was freezing and the radiators were turned off, but also because in the film he added “glans casual”, which we transformed into “clit casual”. Seeing that people were going to bother making fun of big Gégé, with his setbacks.

I swear, two teenagers with non-stop fits of laughter, especially when fire music from Lully received us in the gardens of Versailles, on the threshold of the Grand Canal. Yes, we had to do Versailles together, even if it was our third visit each, and probably our last. Immortalized by Amélie, who captured our moments.

A friend takes a photo of us, in those moments when we can’t see ourselves.

In fact, I only had one quest in Paris, which was to find my favorite Serge Lutens perfume, on sale only at the Palais Royal boutique since 2009. You can’t even order it online. I made the jump when I saw the price – which has increased like many other things since the pandemic. “You only live once and the greatest gifts are those you give yourself,” Amélie, philosopher and temptress, told me, so I took out my credit card. That’s kind of what friends are for: to convince us to do crazy things.

It also serves to comfort us when we have our phone and all our cards stolen by a pickpocket in the metro, like a beginner. This had never happened to me and yet I lived here for several months a few years ago. I had to bring my return forward by a day, having no more resources, but I didn’t want to feel sorry for myself – I wasn’t in Gaza or sleeping under the bridges of Paris, anyway – and then, I came back on the same flight as my friend.

Because despite this fishtail ending, and even if my body (especially my feet) told me the opposite, for a week, I was 14 years old, with Amélie. More than Paris, it was friendship that brought joy to this improvised trip, even though it had been planned for 40 years.

Are we not good here ?