There will be fireworks

The French do like their feux d'artifice – fireworks. Almost every village fête and foire ends the day with a grand firework display, and they are usually entirely free. Even the smallest display is pretty spectacular.

It used to be that the displays were set off by members of the comité des fêtes. This meant that the fireworks were arranged fairly haphazardly on the day, and then set off by a couple of blokes wandering around with cigarettes in their lips, which they used to light the blue touch papers. While there may have been some basic concepts behind the actual sequences of the display, they were often not much in evidence. The end was usually signified by one of the men waving a torch in the direction of the audience, rather than it being obvious from the final explosions of light and smoke.

Not unreasonably, there were some concerns about public safety, and the French equivalent of the UK Elfin Safety department issued guidance, as they say. Now the displays are professionally organised, by companies such as France Artifice, and much better. The ignition process is electric, which means greater control of timing and sequences, and thus the development of themes, and a much better sense of a flow of different fireworks, and a grand and obvious climax.

The presence of electricity on the site means that they displays can be accompanied by music. At its best, the fireworks and the music are integrated; and it is not always Handel. At its worst, as at a recent display I went to, the fireworks were set off to random, dreadful, right wing American country and western recordings. I am sure they were the personal choice of the organiser, who probably didn't understand the words, but for rational English speakers the music and lyrics were excruciating.

The other downside is that quite often the local maire uses the occasion to make a speech, or even worse the chairman of the comité des fêtes seizes his moment to congratulate himself. Neither type ever seems to have any microphone technique, so they usually shout into the mike and render themselves unintelligible because of amplification distortion, or they almost swallow the mike and everything is lost in the sound of their breathing.

Very often, the fireworks displays are preceded by une retraite aux flambeaux – a parade of children carrying flaming torches. There are two significant problems with this. Firstly, it is very difficult to organise a group of small children, and virtually impossible if they are accompanied by their parents, who always want their child at the front, or with a different torch, or with a specific friend, or whatever. This means that it takes half an hour longer to start the parade than planned, during which time some of the children start to cry, others lose their torches, or their interest.

The other problem is that usually the torches are Chinese paper lanterns with candles, often suspended from small branches cut from trees. Here we have two new problems. The children tend to swing the branches around, or get tired and let them droop. This results in the paper catching fire. This in turn often leads to the leaves on the branches also catching on fire. The children then start to panic, their parents wade in to put out the fires, and the entire parade descends into chaos.

This adds to the delays and explains why the grand spectacle usually starts an hour late. There are other causes of late starts. At one, at Christmas in the town square, the street lights were between the audience and the fireworks, which would have ruined everything. Unfortunately, the man with the key to the part of the mairie which controlled the street lights was on holiday. It took an hour to find a way in, and turn off the lights. At another, the delay was because the repas – the dinner in the marquees - was late starting and finishing, and the volunteers who organised the dinner had to finish clearing up the area for the subsequent bal populaire – public dance – and they were entitled to see the fireworks; the several hundred other people waited around in the dark until they were ready.

But the displays really are good.

Despotism moderated by riot

In the UK, we elect a government, or to be precise a few of us who happen to live in the handful of constituencies that are not one-party fiefdoms, choose the party of government. The vast majority of members of Parliament are voted for not because of who they are or what they can do, but because they have been picked by the relevant party. In effect, most MPs are selected by the handful of party activists and then elected by a majority who would have voted for an ambulant green slime if it had the right party label.

The first past the post system results in hugely disproportionate results, where the great majority of votes are worthless. Perhaps the most appalling example is the 2005 election where two out of three people voted for parties other than the awful Blair and his NuLabour puppies, but he still won a large overall majority of parliamentary seats, and formed the government. The will of the people, that is the 75% who did not vote for him, was frustrated. Yet Blair's manifesto for the 1997 election promised reform and proportional representation. Not the worst of his lies and broken promises.

One NuLanour person has said that the elections are now really decided by a few thousand people in a few constituencies – and they know their names....

In the UK, MPs pass laws at the government's instruction, effectively. If the UK government proposes a new Act of Parliament it will almost without exception become law. This is because most MPs are now creatures of the Whips (the party officials in charge of discipline and control), and whatever objections they may raise to address the concerns of the people who elected them – and in very rare circumstances their own consciences - when it comes to voting they do as they are told. The term whips, incidentally is long standing and comes from fox hunting: the whips were the 'hunt servants' responsible for controlling the pack of hounds.

New laws that give this wretched government more powers, whether to increase taxes or restrict liberties, are usually applied at once. Laws that are intended to deal with issues of public benefit, such as drink driving and carrying knives, are assumed to be effective without any real enforcement. Using mobile phones while driving, for example, and other motoring offences are considered a success if about 80% of the population observe them, so there is no effort to enforce the law and prosecute those who ignore them. Most people grumble about laws they don't like, but do nothing.

France is different. New laws are enforced, sometimes with excessive zeal. But if the public, or an aggrieved sector of it, object, they take to the streets, and protest in various ways until the law is changed. Here in my part of Normandy, there are two developments that are attracting forceful attention at the moment. The first is the price of milk, which is controlled by a mix of state and commercial factors, and which is now believed by the farmers to be below the cost of production. This dispute involves a wider area than Normandy, and there have been a number of manifestations (demonstrations), some of which have been useless, such as ostentatiously pouring milk down the drain, and others quite imaginative, like the huge sculptures made from shopping trolleys they have used to construct blockades of the big supermarkets. Their next plan is to give the milk away: the public benefit, and the losers are the big dairy product companies and supermarkets. So if you see fairly rough hewn signs talking about 'Greve et don du lait', they are advertising a strike and giving away of milk.

The other issue is the creation of a very high tension power line (THT – Tres Haute Tension) from the nuclear power complex near Cherbourg down through the Cotentin peninsula to Maine. Some of those who are directly in or very near its path are furious. The agency responsible for the line are I think doing their best to involve and inform everyone. The sign in the photo above is a list of dates and villages where the detailed plans will be displayed in the Mairie, with people from the project in attendance to answer questions and explain issues. I went to one in a nearby village, and as a project manager (though not construction) I believe they are making a pretty decent fist of involving people, and planning around concerns. The line itself is going to run on the sides of hills rather than the top ridges, to reduce visual impact, and the route wobbles around to avoid villages and as many individual homes as possible. If the need for the increased power is accepted, and there may be long term arguments that it will not be needed, then the powers that control it are not doing badly.

This who object are only just getting started. Slogans, such as the one above, are appearing all over the place, signs are being knocked down, and action groups being formed, for example Un collectif d'associations locales mayennaises : "MAYENNE SURVOLTEE" s'est créé pour s'opposer à la ligne Très Haute Tension (THT) et au Réacteur Européen ... . Who knows how far some of them will go? In the last few years we have seen the local butter and cheese factory blockaded by tractors two or three times, parades of lorries blasting their klaxons and even a huge mountain of vegetables outside a larger town Mairie. There is no possibility of the THT not being built, and it is such a long term project that it will be impossible to keep up the impetus. Unless there is a huge majority against it, with massive protests, the opposition will slowly wither.

Essentially, government in France is despotism moderated by riot. The president and his ministers essentially make laws, their police and other agencies enforce them, until the public take to the streets and force the laws to be changed. The history of France since the Revolution is one of almost constant uprising, upheaval and protest.

A couple of years ago, we had a problem when a neighbour inherited a house and promptly turned the fields around it into a motocross track. The first day of practice, with three 500cc unsilenced motorbikes roaring a few yards past the front door on one neighbour, the noise drowning out a chainsaw, and echoing around the village, was enough. A few of us went to the gendarmes (you have to go to them rather than the maire for things like this), and it was stopped – for good. But before that known, I was talking to a friend from the other side of the village, a widow of almost sevety, about it, and she was furious. Now that she knew the source she said that 'il faut manifester' we must demonstrate. And many of the village would join in.

Are French kids happier than British?

The other night I went to a bal populaire in a small Normandy town. A free event, in the local salle des fetes, with a three piece band, organised by the local comite des fetes as part of the summer activities. There was no bar, and not even the possibility of buying soft drinks.

There were I think about 150- 200 people there, including a couple of dozen children under ten. The kids spent the entire evening running around, across the dance floor, around the seats at the sides. If they bumped into someone dancing, or were knocked over, they just got up and kept on running. Nobody minded. When I left at 11.00, they were still running, and still laughing. They had been laughing all evening. I did not hear a single child cry, or whine, or have a tantrum all evening. They had no sweets, no fizzy drinks, no snacks, and never demanded any, or complained about anything. Their parents were there, but left them alone to play.

I have been at other fetes, dances, dinners and sports events, and it has always been like this. The children are happy, active, and, well, children.

At restaurants, the kids often discuss what they will eat with their parents, and evaluate the different dishes and their preferences, before making their choices, At school, even the under 10 group have a three or four course lunch every day, with sometimes choices of two or three dishes for each course.

Increasingly over the last few years, young British children seem to me to be becoming more unhappy, angry, needy and greedy. They seem to have a wealth of material stuff like computer games, TVs in their rooms, mobile phones and I-Pods, fancy trainers and brand name clothes, and all the other trivial things to distract them, but seem so miserable. They cannot go for more than a few minutes without a fizzy drink or a snack, and are constantly demanding something else or whining that they are bored.

If you go to the cinema, they have huge buckets of salty popcorn and enormous paper cups of fizzy caffeine and sugar. Even apparently leftish parents are part of this: a Guardian commentator complained that the cost of popcorn and coca cola in cinemas was so high it made it an expensive visit with just one child. Seemed not to occur to her that it is weird that her child could not go an hour and a half without unhealthy artificial snacks and drinks. In restaurants they have no idea of how to behave, or awareness of other people, screaming, throwing food and running around, and their ridiculous parents just indulge them and become seriously aggressive if you say anything.

Many of their parents hover over them all the time, and seem terrified that some huge disaster will happen if they lose sight of them for a second. They exercise no control or influence over appalling behaviour, but intervene to stop their children doing anything fun and childish. They won't let them play in the grass because they will get dirty, or their clothes will be stained, or there might be insects, climbing anything is too dangerous, running involves a risk of falling over, and every adult male is a proven child molester and every adult woman is a probable kidnapper, so they can't move more than a few feet from their parents.

There are middle class parents with children called things like Persephone and Hector who manage every second of their children's lives, who have become intimidated by everything, have no initiative or energy, and have never made a decision themselves, or those with kids called Demi-Jordan or Tyson (or is that just the pit bull dog?) or some other invented and hyphenated name, who alternate between yelling at them or stuffing crisps and chocolate into them. Either way, it is hard to find English children behaving normally, such as having fun or playing.

Is this an over-simplification? Maybe in some ways, but every time I go to England I am more appalled by the sad state of the children.

A National Trust survey this week finds that 'eight out of 10 (British) youngsters feel they spend too much of their time indoors' which suggests that the children are aware of some parts of their lives which are wrong. But the same survey also found that 'about 87% of (British) parents wished their children spent more time outside, but one in four would not allow them to because of safety concerns'. Seems that the parents are clearly part of the problem.