So, there’s this battle over a French rooster, and it’s completely fowl.
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
by David Stone
Of all the birds, the rooster has long held special esteem with the French. During the French Revolution, the animal was a symbol of vigilance; now, its traits—unabashed, proud, possessing a fighting spirit—serve as a down-and-dirty counterpart to serene Marianne, symbol of the Republic.
It appears on monuments, French sporting uniforms, and even the logo of the French cinema company Pathé.
In the American tradition, we get a duck parade.
About the battle over a French rooseter
But in recent months, one particular rooster has become a symbol not of France, but of the country’s growing rural-urban divide.
For many of us, the impressionist art of the late 1800s illustrated that divide first. The likes of Monet and Pissaro left images of a rural France disappearing into the Industrial Revolution.
Maurice is a handsome bird with a magnificent red wattle. Unfortunately for his neighbors, he has a triumphant morning call to match.
Here’s the issue: These neighbors don’t think very highly of Maurice or his rapturous song.
In 2017, as CNN reports, the neighbors asked Fesseau to keep her bird in check. She demurred. Relations between the three people—and Maurice—have since grown so strained that the rooster this week served as the defendant in a court battle over a French Rooster.
The neighbors are now suing over his morning song, and have requested that he be removed. (Fesseau went in his place, lest he disturbs proceedings, though a selection of other roosters, and their owners, came in solidarity.)
The long fight to preserve rural France from urban encroachment gets fowl…
Read all about the battle over a French rooster here.
Also from Assorted Ideas, Large & Small
Naples Child, Fine Art Photography Print/©Deborah Julian. All rights reserved.
One for the books…
What the Promenade Remembers
The light on the East River in the early morning is different from the light anywhere else on the Island. It comes in low and sideways, catching the water in long, uneven flashes. On certain days it makes the promenade feel less like a walkway and more like a corridor someone once meant to finish but never quite did. When I was younger I found the suggestion to stop and look at it faintly ridiculous.
