French and British national moods a world apart

[Gerald]

Gare du Nord v St Pancras.

It has not been a great week to be French. Unemployment has just hit three million, growth for next year is estimated at barely above zero, and the popularity of President Hollande has plummeted.

Anyone who uses the Eurostar regularly gets to know the station at either end pretty thoroughly, so I do not think I will be the first traveller on the line to make the following observation - St Pancras: Gem. Gare du Nord: Dump.

Get on the train in London and it is a treat. The stations are clean, the staff are friendly.

Get off in Paris, and you know straightaway you are in a less than salubrious part of town.

A couple of weeks ago, about to board a train there to Brussels, I interrupted the activities of an obvious con man.

Wearing a spurious official-looking cap, he was trying to interest tourists in some scam. I stopped him (because the staff did not), and for my pains got shouted at as an interfering foreigner. Elsewhere, vaguely threatening vagrants with dogs and organised bands of aggressive-looking beggars swiftly dispel any desire to linger. A year or so ago, there were riots here.

Now, I am not going to draw any too-facile comparison between France and Britain on the basis of a pair of 19th Century railway termini.

But I will say this - never in 16 years of living in France, and making pretty regular trips back and forth across the Channel, have I ever felt a greater disparity in national moods.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19814806


Note: 4 October 2012 Last updated at 23:34 GMT