For those who don’t know where it is, the most beautiful avenue in the world is in Paris. It is called the Champs-Elysées. Don’t argue or question it, it is a fact of life. 5th Avenue? No. Broadway? Hah! Kurfürstendamm? Please, stop.
The first time I was in New York I noticed an advertisement in the (hell-like) metro over there, referring to NYC as “The Greatest City in the World”. I thought “Damn it, they called it first…” Since the New Yorkers stole that title from them, I guess the Parisians managed to salvage an avenue.
You’ll hear the expression repeated over and over on TV here in France, where reporters, without batting an eye, refer to it as a replacement for the avenue’s name. One journalist even recently slipped up and called it “the longest avenue in the world”, but sadly, that statement can be easily disproven. “The greatest”, or the “most beautiful”, thankfully, can’t.
These last few days, I heard the expression several times an hour, as many journalists gathered there daily to comment on the buildup to the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) final, in which PSG, Paris’ football (read soccer if you’re in the US) team was going to compete for the title for the first time in the club’s 50-year history.
The topic of the day was how the police was going to prepare for the tsunami of people that was going to unfurl the instant the referee would blow the whistle and seal the PSG’s destiny as the ultimate champion of the continent. Never mind that Paris was going against the best team in the championship, FC Bayern, which scored nearly twice as many goals throughout the competition. Everyone here in Paris was worried about how far the party was going to go.
3,000 police officers were dispatched, with the same protocol as a New Year’s Eve event, and braced themselves for a night of non-stop partying along with the usual breaking of the covid-related sanitary rules, but also the smashing of storefront windows and looting of luxury shops along the avenue, because, you know, that’s what sports-induced euphoria does to people.
Every TV channel, tired of chewing on the same old covid-19 bone for nearly half a year now, was ravenous at the prospect of the PSG winning its first victory and triggering an orgy of jubilation and violence throughout the French capital.
All the stars were aligned for a fascinating (and lucrative) 48-hour news cycle.
Yet, the unthinkable happened.
FC Bayern won to PSG.
This morning, my cynical side thoroughly enjoyed waking up to the pictures of just a few people on the Champs-Elysées last night. The only people who seemed to have shown up to the party are a few looters, who didn’t let the defeat get them down, and smashed and pillaged luxury shops along the Champs-Elysées, which is, in case you already forgot, the Most Beautiful Avenue in the World™.
This morning, some woke up to see their cars vandalized, sometimes even overturned. I feel bad for them. At the same time, I get a little puzzled when I see some of the car owners utterly flabbergasted, incredulous that something like that could happen in the “triangle d’or”, the city of lights’ coveted golden triangle. One of the distraught residents even said this was very recent and it didn’t use to be like this.
Personally, I remember going to the Champs-Elysées back in the mid-90s and getting randomly insulted, spat at, and borderline mugged when a group of 15 kids would forcibly ask me and my friends for some money to “buy cigarettes”. But I guess I was just unlucky or looked like an easy prey.
But anyway, don’t worry about the Champs-Elysées, the news cycle has moved on. Just like a phoenix, the Most Beautiful Avenue in the World™ will rise again from the broken glass, the littering, and the ashes of the fires started last night. Today’s already another day, and we won’t hear again of this night of looting after 8pm tonight, just like we don’t get to hear peep from our woulda-shoulda-couldabeen PSG heroes this morning, not even a word condemning the violence and the looting following their defeat. It’s not their responsibility, and even if somehow, someone argued it were, it would fly right under the public opinion’s radar, along with their salaries. Talk about CEOs and politicians all you want, but soccer players, why, they’re simply the most beautiful people in the world.