In Paris Without Papers, and Seeking Visibility

– By Scott Sayare, for The New York Times –
PARIS — The 2,000 illegal immigrants camped in this vacant warehouse are not hiding. Quite the contrary.
These West Africans, Turks, Pakistanis and Chinese have done all they can to publicize their camp, a sprawling colony of mattresses and cardboard, quilts and concrete at 14, rue Baudelique, [...]

French Rap as a Flash Point

– By Scott Sayare, for The International Herald Tribune –
PARIS — A gentlemanly patron of the arts, Frédéric Mitterrand, France’s culture minister, seems an unlikely champion of rap. But when the French artist Orelsan called publicly for his support at the height of a months-long free-speech polemic around the rapper’s song “Sale Pute” (Dirty Whore), [...]

Paris Journal: Mourning AF447

– By Scott Sayare –
PARIS — Amidst a pallid, unearthly Paris haze that seemed to stifle the horns and sirens and bustle of the city, a crowd of thousands gathered last week outside Notre Dame cathedral in hushed remembrance of the victims of Air France 447.
The lonely tolling of a churchbell called forth hundreds of [...]