They cite attacks by Muslims, mainly from North Africa and said to number six million. Violence has certainly increased, but anti-Semitism disfigured French society long before Muslims settled here. There are echoes of it among the shrubs and classical statues of the beautiful Parc Montsouris across the road from the Cite Internationale Universitaire's Maison de l'Inde, where I am staying. Among the many celebrities (Lenin, Trotsky, and so on) who once frequented the park was the infamous Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, who notoriously made the Jewish Captain Alfred Dreyfus his scapegoat in the 1894 cause celebre.
It also was in the Parc Montsouris that I stumbled upon evidence of how bad things are. A black band was celebrating the Summer Solstice, when a young Indian looking French-speaking couple sat down beside me. They turned out to belong to France's 100,000-strong Pondicherrian community. He was a land agent trying to sell a flat in Central Paris for "four lakhs". He meant euro 400,000 - not rupees! - but even that was cheap. The owner needed cash.
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Distress is less glaring in Italy or Greece, which are statistically worse hit by the European crisis. There are more beggars in the streets of Toulouse and Paris than of Venice or Athens. Vagrants stare hungrily at people eating in the open-air cafes around the Centre Pompidou. The entire area - much of Paris in fact - looks run-down. The trains are shabbier than before with even fewer straps and bars for passengers to cling to. Floors are thick with used tickets.
Unemployment is at a high 11 per cent. France is not "in deep recession" console the pundits, but gripped by "a severe stagnation." It's not yet certain whether Francois Hollande's improvident government will pay for 20 per cent of the shares in Alstom, but thanks to official bungling, the value of the state's 85 per cent stake in the energy giant, Electricite de France (EDF), has fallen almost euro 5 billion ($6.8 billion).
But Parisians couldn't be friendlier. I miss the old gendarmes patrolling the streets of Paris whose right hand instinctively flew to their kepis in salute when you approached with a question. But people, especially the young, are also far more willing to admit to speaking English and helping out foreigners. One solitary exception was a girl in the Cafe de Flore in Boulevard St Germain (hallowed sanctuary of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir), which is being renovated. I asked when it would reopen and she snapped, "I don't speak English!" No wonder the Cafe Les Deux Magot next door, also once an existentialist haunt, was doing roaring business.
Both places long ago, ceased drawing writers, painters, poets and thinkers. Even Boulevard St Germain seems more sedate, less creative. The human element injects a different kind of variety. France doesn't categorise people by race or religion, but if I had to identify people with an activity, I'd say the commonest sight is of blacks leaping over station stiles to avoid buying tickets. Never have I seen men vault so nimbly.
Younger and smaller blacks might slip under the stile or push in with someone who has legitimate access, but not a single white, brown or yellow person did I see trying the same trick.
This alone can't account for France's bankruptcy. The more serious cause is a work ethic that matches Kolkata's. French Jews migrating to Israel are warned not to expect a 35-hour working week or five-week paid vacations annually. The Jewish Agency should add work stoppages.
We drove from Chateau Luxeube where we were staying to Auch, bought tickets for the next day's first train to Toulouse and returned to catch it. The station was closed and there was no train. The railways were on strike. Luckily, the government had laid on a bus service. That won't happen this weekend if surface trains from Cite Universitaire to Charles de Gaulle airport, which are part of the national rail network and not the Metro, strike work.
If that happens, we'll have to pay euro 70 for a last-minute taxi instead of euro 20 for two tickets. Or we'll miss our flight to Dubai and Kolkata. My fingers remain crossed.