Last week, we showed you Eric Bouvet’s report on the Oise, one of the regions most hit by the coronavirus.
Today, it is his images of Paris that is closed down that we publish.
It is to be hoped that Eric will soon receive public or private aid for this work in this most insane moment in our history!
The avenues have emptied, silence has settled, only the song of the birds is more audible.
For a week, Parisians have been confined to their homes.
Some are alone and work to tame this loneliness when others are shaken up by a full-time reunion, where most often we only cross each other briefly. In families, everything is mixed, work, school, outings, obligations and pleasures.
I can’t help but think of the forgotten conflicts of the past forty years that I have encountered.
We are at war, says our president, a war in peacetime, a war where we keep shopping and watching TV. The differences leave me suspended. I think in the calm of the city of those who are in the tumult of hospitals, the noise of exchanges, in the clash of decisions to save us.
Paris, city of light is quieter than ever, like a calm before the storm. And I wonder what will happen when the doors reopen. Will life resume where we left it? Will our priorities and choices change? Isn’t this time the right or ideal time to question our personal order, our global thoughts? The following days cannot be as before …
In these solitary outings, the human part is missing. The taste of the city is bitter without the life it breathes, yes, those who are just as capable of messing up and destroying.
In this beautiful and empty city are missed those that imagined, built, embellished it, yes, the Humans in the streets of Paris are missing.
Eric Bouvet
