La journée mondiale du refus de la misère – a day of compassion
Games for children spread messages of understanding and compassion
Leaving Peter Watkins' three and a half documentary, La Commune, on Wednesday morning, set the scene perfectly. Watkins reproduces – to great effect - the poverty stricken lives of those living in the French capital's eleventh arrondissement during the events of the Paris Commune, while simultaneously displaying a critique on the role of the media in today's society. He seems to claim that today's media is an ignorant bunch of self-obsessed air-heads, only providing the opinions of those "who count". In other words, the ruling classes.
It was therefore a very timely visit to the cinema seeing as Paris, New York and Bukavu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, were celebrating La journée mondiale du refus de la misère, a day where the world comes together to fight against the violation of human rights.
Tents and open-air stalls, where anything from forums to theatrical performances were part of the days schedule, allowed people to gather together and express the need for increased access to housing in France, amongst other issues related to human rights.
Homelessness is a huge problem in France. According to the French newspaper Le Monde, seven million people in France live in poverty.
A mixture of reggae songs, poems and personal accounts of life as a homeless person created an atmosphere of immense solidarity in a crowd of people from all kinds of social backgrounds. It is the usual French scenario; the nation comes together in a state of euphoric commotion, and then slowly crawls back into its burrows of ignorance.
A young lady sings unnaccompagnied for the world's homeless
Nicholas Sarkozy said recently that his goal "is not to express sympathy," but to "obtain results." However, he has stamped on his own foot. A new law which makes accommodation a constitutional right means emergency shelters are often full for long periods of time.
As children ran round the maypole and a young lady sung for the homeless in front of hundreds of people, the tramps living in Paris slowly acclimatized to the dropping temperatures.
Christopher Deltombe, President of a French charity for homelessness called Emmaus said Monday, "the President has listened to us. Has he heard us?"
Once again, only time will tell.
The official poster for the day's event
