This article is from the original Chicano in Paris recently moved here to its new home.
I woke up this morning and laid in bed contemplating whether I truly wanted to leave my cozy-comfy bed and start my day, or just lay there forever living out my days blissfully unconcerned with anything in the world save my need to pee. I couldn’t decide so I grabbed my phone and logged into Bluesky.
I left Twitter about a month after Elon bought it and my tens of followers were devestated so I know how difficult it is for those of us with a following to actually leave. When I read Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s post about Paris leaving Twitter I was pleasantly surprised. Very pleasantly. And I as I Deepl translated the entirety of her post I realized that she had left the platform a full year earlier.
A year ago was the run-up to the Olympics. Here. In Paris. The city she runs. And she had the chutzpah to tell Leon Trump to fuck off. She left a platform that would have potentially made her life easier - communicating with an entire city in a timely manner is challenging enough, but leaving a platform that fascillates that communication is either crazy, dumb, or ballsy.
Having lived through the Paris Olympics and seeing first hand how smooth the Cité ran, how wonderful the entire experience was, how Paris became not only the center of the world for awhile, but a reflection of all that is best in us I would say Mayor Hidalgo was neither crazy, nor dumb.
She missed Twitter the way I miss Florida. Not at all and is annoyed that it is still a thing.
So when I saw that the Cité itself has now left Twitter I may have smirked a little. Then, around mid-smirk I saw that the Pasteur Institute has followed suite and also left Leon Elon’s playground.
For my American readers: Pasteur is the guy who was boiling raw milk before it was cool.
Anyway, in the words of my Mayor: “…sortez-en, lisez, écrivez, débattez, c’est la démocratie!”
I’m trying, Madame, I am trying.
Yesterday’s walk around town.
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