La Marseillaise

I leave the glamour and glitz of the Riviera behind and set foot for Barcelona.

I’m on a TGV, one of France’s high speed trains which means I’ve got a seat upstairs and a stellar view. As we’re about to leave a station, a man comes on the tannoy; ‘Madames et monsieurs’ and then gives a spiel in French for a minute or so. He switches to Spanish, ‘Señors y señoras’, and repeats it all in Spanish. He hurriedly switches to English, ditches all formalities and in two seconds flat blurts out only two sentences: ‘It is leaving. Mind the doors’…

I switch trains twice. Just as I’m thinking how at home I feel in France, I’m greeted by overflowing rubbish bins and grime everywhere. I’m in Marseille station, and it’s one of the dirtiest stations I’ve ever been in. There’s graffiti all over the station (although rather thoughtfully and politely done on banners rather than directly the wall). I spot one which translates roughly as ‘we have nothing to lose, long live the revolution’. It’s a stark reminder that 2023 has been a rather turbulent year for France.

Given that the French national anthem, which was written as a rallying cry for the French Revolution, was named ‘La Marseillaise’ after volunteers from Marseille marched to the capital of Paris in the revolt, I shouldn’t be surprised that the city seems politically charged in a year in which France has seen widespread protests regarding pension reforms, drastic inflation and price rises with inequality at a higher disparity than during the French Revolution, strikes (much like the rest of Europe), and recent unrest in response to the shooting of a teenager.

I catch my next train and the journey goes smoothly until just before the Spanish border at which point we ground to an unscheduled halt. A different voice comes over the tannoy and explains in French that there’s been an accident on the line and we need to wait for police to intervene and clear the line, he repeats this in Spanish and then there’s a few seconds silence before a recorded English female voice that I’m relatively sure I’ve heard on the London tube before, states ‘there has been an incident. We have made a plan’ and nothing more. The power on the train is shut off, meaning aircon, charging points, and the automatic doors shut off with it. After some searching I find a manual release button for the carriage door and manage to shove it open to make my way to the dining car to grab some water. Shortly after, an announcement is made to tell the French and Spanish speakers that we can go to the platform (god help any English speakers at this point because the announcements aren’t going to 😂) and so I find myself stood on a scorching train platform in the shade from our stationary train as french transport police hand out water up and down the platform. Terrible English announcements aside, we’re well looked after and not too long after we’re on our way once again. Czytaj więcej