Parisians and French people are arrogant, full of themselves, flanked by a superiority complex that leads them to constantly sigh and look down on everyone who is not Parisian, or at least French.
Here is a platitude which – like all platitudes – does have some basis in reality, but with one important exception. I, who am Italian and have been living in Paris for a few years, have the impression that the French have a special admiration for the Italians. An admiration of which the Italians themselves do not suspect the existence.
“We remain the country where happiness is possible”
The rivalry between these two countries separated by the Alps does exist, but it is unilateral: the Italians feel it, the French do not, and the latter are miles away from suspecting that they are still considered haughty and authoritarian cousins.
The French adore us, and too bad if it’s not mutual. It remains to be seen whether this affection is based on good reasons, on reasons that make us happy.
To begin with, we remain the country where happiness is possible. When, a few years ago, the great writer Jean d’Ormesson received at his home the Corriere della Serawho asked him what had brought him the most satisfaction in life, he replied without hesitation: “Many times, I took my car on Friday evening, I drove all night, I arrived in Portofino [en Ligurie] at dawn and I stayed in Rome until Sunday evening. Then I left to present myself on Monday morning to the drafting of the Figaro. Destroyed, but very happy.” In French mythology road trip, we take our car and drive to Italy – not to Hamburg or Frankfurt.
Because for the French, the Germans are good enough to host the headquarters of the European Central Bank and form a Paris-Berlin axis that brings stability, but not to unleash great passions. The Belgians play the role of our carabinieri in French jokes. The English live in a country too far north, a kind of “Britain” where it rains even more than in Brest or Saint-Malo. It is the Italians and Italy that make people dream, that represent the idea of another way of life, perhaps more interesting.
A place where people smile not out of naivety but out of taste and intelligence of life. “Take life in both hands”, here is a beautiful French expression that says the ambition to live with all possible intensity. Right or wrong