Romans fighting in a corner of France and not being able to win it over? Could this be Asterix's and Obelix's territory, I wondered. But, wasn't I in a different part of the country and not in in the Gaulish Village? I didn't want to request "S" to backtrack so that I could take a photo of that road-sign.
We reached home, and settled down to catch our breath. In the morning, I wandered into the kitchen, while the rest of the household was asleep, and made myself an espresso to go with the delicious chocolate croissants that were calling me.
Which is when I spotted two figurines: Asterix and Obelix. So, I hadn't misunderstood the sign by the road. Yay!
In the old, old days before India liberalized its economy, anything "foreign" was very rare among us kids, and Asterix comic books was a special rarity. If ever any classmate managed to get a copy that seemed to materialize out of nowhere, every once in a while, then it quickly passed from one hand to another. We read it even in class, during the breaks, and after school. Sometimes we read the same comic book a second or third time.
High school ended, and thirty years later I was in that fabled comic book geography? Yay!
The familiarity with the comic book characters meant that the first thought I had when I spotted this editorial cartoon was, hey, they have drawn Obelix while calling it Asterix!
My second, and a more substantive, reaction was about the gypsies--the Roma. One of the classmates with whom I have read and discussed the Asterix comics was Srikumar, who now works with/for the Roma people in the Czech Republic.
I have noted earlier, too, France's casual treatment of the Roma. Was there something in the news for this editorial cartoon to have popped up? Yep:
French Interior Minister Manuel Valls ordered police early Monday to dismantle a Roma camp set up along suburban railway tracks in Evry, south of Paris, and expel 72 inhabitants, including 19 children.
It is a controversial decision for President Francois Hollande's Socialist Party, which attacked former President Nicolas Sarkozy when his party dismantled Roma camps around France in 2010. Since the beginning of August, five camps have been dismantled under Valls' directive.
An interesting coincidence it is that the CNN story carries a byline of Dheepthi Namasivayam, which reflects a Tamil heritage.
Mr. Hollande's government has gone to great lengths to distinguish itself on social policy from Mr. Sarkozy, who served as interior minister before becoming president in 2007 and made law-and-order crackdowns a signature of his governing style. But breaking up Roma camps and offering financial incentives for repatriation appears to be a continuation of the initiatives of Mr. Sarkozy, whose mass expulsion of foreign Gypsies sparked an outcry in France and a row with the European Commission, the European Union's executive arm.To rework Obelix's favorite phrase "Ils sont fous ces romains," I suppose the French are simply insane! Oh well, if only we could all get along ...
At the time, European Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding called Mr. Sarkozy's policies and a government circular singling out Roma a disgrace and initiated legal proceedings against the country. Ms. Reding has weighed in on the latest evictions, though she has welcomed France's cooperation and the government's pledge not to target any particular group.
"The Commission will follow the developments in France very closely," she wrote in an op-ed published in Thursday's Libération. "There are 12 million Roma in Europe, who, like us, are at home in Europe. It is our responsibility to help them integrate."
