More local politics

I'm on a roll, here, so bear with me. Every year from mid-September to early October, Toulouse hosts the Grande Fête St. Michel, which is basically just a fun fair. Since 1945 or thereabouts, it has always been held around the St. Michel district. Now, it spreads along the Allées Paul Fuega, through the Grand Rond Boulingrin and into Jardin des Plantes like an upturned bucket of vomit. Let me explain...

There is very little greenery in Toulouse. In this part of town, there is Jardin des Plantes (no dogs allowed i.e. only place in city of 450,000 where you don't tread in shit), the Boulingrin and Jardin Royal (dogs allowed, providing you clean up after them, which nobody does. This is France, after all). It's a nice area, so all you need once school has started up again and you're ready to enjoy the last waves of summer over an afternoon picnic in the park is........to be invaded by a sodding fun fair for nearly a month in one of the heaviest traffic spots in the whole city. It's like Disneyworld meets Ramallah. Not surprisingly, residents' associations have been petitioning the town hall for decades to relocate this monstrosity, but nothing ever happened...until last year. An even newer tramline than the lethargic snail-like one was voted; it would start at the Boulingrin and terminate at Arènes, like just about everything else in Toulouse including many people's will to live. It would run down the Allées Paul Fuega, namely right through the middle of their overpriced, crappy funfair, past the Palais de Justice, over the Pont St. Michel and off to Arènes. Public surveys and questionnaires found this proposal to be A Good Thing. So, the funfair managers were respectfully informed that 2010 would be the last year they would be able to occupy their habitual spots and that the city would find them 'alternative accomodation'. You know what's coming, right? Absolutely correct: they went on strike. First of all, they refused to leave, squatting our parks for another week and cutting prices, so the public 'would realise what they were going to miss' (sic). Then, on the day they finally pissed off left, they did a go slow through the centre of town and onto the ring road at rush hour, bringing the city to a standstill., after having threatened to just ramrod their way in to their usual spot this coming September. Needless to say, our courageous socialist mayor did absolutely nothing, but after hearing they were going to be accomodated near Compans Cafarelli park, I thought the story was over and done with, until I read a fairly innocuous article in the local rag the other week...

There's now a question mark concerning the city centre terminus for the new, sleek tram. Our elected representatives now feel there's no point having the terminus at the Boulingrin, pointing out that 'almost everyone' would use the previous stop at the Palais de Justice, as this also linked up with the metro. If the tram stopped at the PdJ, the Allées Paul Fuega, which join the law courts with the Boulingrin, would not be developed for tram traffic i.e. there would be no structural change to the stretch used up until now by the funfair. I'm sure I'm not the only one who smells a rat, here; it feels like the travelling gypsy circus has had its sordid way with the bloody socialists in the town hall and, yet again, people who pay through the nose to live in the only decent part of the centre of town are going to have their noses rubbed in enforced diversity: crime soars in the area when the fair's in town, there are muggings and rapes, vandalism and petty theft. We're sick of it, but it looks like the hypocritical left feels we need to be exposed to scum for at least three weeks every year. This is before they drive home to their leafy suburbs and crack open a bottle of Kristal to the memory of Che Guevara.