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Paris Facebook Party Still Not Happening

by Amar Toor on May 22, 2010 at 03:00 PM

paris facebook partyIt wasn't supposed to be this way. May 23 was supposed to be the day Parisians could forget about their country's stagnant economy, their strenuous six-hour workdays and their oversharing first lady. It was supposed to be a day when thousands of anorexic sisters and effeminate brothers, brought together under a tri-colored Facebook flag, could sport their finest identical black and gray wardrobes and congregate around their Tree of Life beloved Eiffel Tower to pickle their livers as one nation. Even after officials announced their intent to squash the Facebook-organized frat party, the digital Résistance lived on, kindling the embers of revolutionary fervor.

[Ed. Note: Please forgive our writer. He lives in France, and longs for his terra patria and takes out much aggression on his adopted country.] Now, however, police have cooked up a more legitimate reason for the ban. As it turns out, it's illegal for people to have open bottles of liquor on the Champ de Mars, the park in front of the Eiffel Tower. Parisian police even found enough time between protecting masterpieces of Western Art to issue an awkwardly-translated statement, declaring that, "The consumption of alcohol being permanently forbidden on the Champ de Mars, 'giant cocktails' cannot take place there on the evening of Sunday, May 23."

Interior Minister Bruce Hortefeux, however, didn't rule out the possibility of allowing mass cocktail parties in the future -- as long as they're approved in advance, and chaperoned by exorbitant numbers of police. But in a country where even using a public restroom requires paperwork, Paris's party animaux should probably get started on the application now.

As we can tell you from our experience reporting from Paris, this city needed this pointless party almost as much as it needs to constantly tell itself it still matters. Sure, haute couture is alive and well, and all you need to do is stroll down Rue de Seine to see that the unemployed timeless cafe culture is still vibrant as ever. But beneath the materialism and vacuous stares is the soul of a nation in crisis, a people clinging to a glorious past that died with Truffaut. People here still talk about Serge Gainsbourg in the present tense, for Sartre's sake! So we ask you, dear readers: if Parisians can't mask the painful reality of their own Frenchness with copious amounts of publicly consumed alcohol, what can they do? [From: Reuters]

Tags: alcohol, alcoholism, aperitif, Carla Bruni, carla bruni-sarkozy, CarlaBruni, CarlaBruni-sarkozy, facebook, france, french, paris, party, police, socialnetworking, top, web

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