French turmoil, then and now

We had toured the Underground Citadel where French soldiers had lived for months, a dank tunnel complex equipped with dormitories, kitchens, bakeries, even a library, but a place so dark, cold, and depressing that soldiers actually looked forward to emerging into the trenches for battle. At the cemetery where 15,000 soldiers lie buried next to an ossuary piled with the bones of unidentified soldiers, I had traipsed in the rain from the monument to Jewish soldiers (with its Hebrew Ten Commandments) at one end to the monument to Muslim soldiers at the other, all in company with a couple we had met over lunch in Verdun, the three of us — an American Jew, a French Muslim of Algerian roots, and an Italian-born Catholic — silently vowing never again to use violence to resolve our differences. We had climbed the tower to look down upon forests where some half-dozen villages had once stood before they were completely obliterated in this battle.

At the Center for World Peace in Verdun itself, we had toured an exhibit exploring the physical and psychological effects of World War I — damage that (although the exhibit didn’t say so) sapped the French will to resist when Hitler invaded in 1940. Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 antiwar film set in the trenches of Verdun, was originally banned in France as an insult to French military pride; now it holds a prominent place in the Center’s exhibit. (To view an excerpt, click here.)

Taxi drivers' protest

But now all that simulated terror was behind us. It was June 25 and we were on the last leg of our vacation, heading for Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris, where we would return our rental car and board a flight home to Philadelphia. For more than two weeks, we had avoided newspapers or news reports of any kind, the better to marinate ourselves in the past.

Big mistake. Having gone out of our way to experience the simulated nightmare of Verdun, we were about to experience a nightmare beyond our control.

We had unwittingly booked our flight home on the very day chosen by angry French taxi drivers to stage a nationwide protest against competition from unlicensed low-cost cab services like Uber. To that end, the cabbies were blocking roads throughout France, burning tires and attacking drivers who they thought were working for Uber. (To read the New York Times account, click here.) Dozens if not hundreds of taxis and sympathetic motorcyclists were at de Gaulle, parking along the airport approaches and in some cases blocking them altogether. Among the victims was Courtney Love, who said she and her driver were held hostage on her way home from de Gaulle Airport until she was rescued by passing motorcyclists. But of course we knew nothing of this until we reached the airport.

Over the stanchions

As we crept along, we saw people getting out of their cars and dragging their wheeled suitcases to the terminals on foot. But we enjoyed no such option — our car was due back at Hertz. As it dawned on me what was happening, I assumed the cab drivers were simply trying to slow traffic down (much like baggage handlers at Philadelphia Airport some years ago, who delayed baggage delivery to dramatize their labor grievances). It did not occur to me that they would block lanes altogether. So while other drivers turned back, I naively plunged forward. Imagine trying to return a rental car to the Donetsk airport while Ukrainians and Russians are fighting for control of the runways and you will grasp some sense of the ludicrousness of my situation.

Still, my naïve faith in the goodness of human nature may have been my salvation. The taxi protest, it turned out, was not terribly well organized, and the taxi drivers were not Mafia hoods out of a Martin Scorsese film — just taxi drivers.

When we at last reached a point where our car could proceed no farther, I asked a policeman, of which many were present, where I should go to return my rental car. He pointed straight ahead and advised me to drive through a line of schmoo-like rubber stanchions that hemmed me in on one side.

Unaccustomed though I am to violating traffic barriers — and terrified that the stanchions might cause scratches for which Hertz would assess me — I took his advice. The stanchions yielded without resistance, and I drove on perhaps 30 more yards to the last exit to the rental car lot, only to find it deliberately blocked by a parked taxi.

Who was right?

I got out of the car, walked over to the driver and, in my best French, asked where I should go to return my rental car.

“Just drive around me,” he replied with a strange grin.

“But there‘s no room,” I said.

“You can do it,” he insisted.

Driving around him required driving through another line of rubber stanchions. Which I did.

We wound up in a rental car lot that was a 15 minutes’ walk from our intended terminal. We dragged our suitcases into de Gaulle and somehow made our flight. Not until we were back home safe and sound did we grasp the extent of the turmoil we’d experienced. (To read the Associated Press account, click here.)

And of course, our nightmare was small potatoes next to the Battle of Verdun.

So who was right in this taxi dispute we stumbled upon? In a world of sophisticated computer communications, flexible low-cost people-to-people services like Uber are clearly the wave of the future. But the transition to that future requires some way to compensate cab drivers who have paid $250,000 and more for licenses in the belief that their government would protect them from unlicensed competitors. In the game of life, the rules constantly change. The challenge is not to resist change but to find equitable ways to manage the transition in an atmosphere of mutual respect between adversaries. A visit to Verdun provides a useful reminder of what can happen when we don’t.