Grenoble part 2

WE’RE more than half-way through our locum stay here. Sunday services seem to have gone well. Last Sunday’s Communion had a good turn-out, and people seem to enjoy the variety of liturgy we are sharing – Jo led the first part of the service, having written her own prayers. It’s the practice here for even very young children to receive communion, especially among the Nigerian families; new for me, it seems to make sense in this context – especially if ‘belonging’ is as important as ‘believing’.

I didn’t say very much about the church last time. The building was one of the first fully ecumenical centres in France, and is – we gather – the only one that has survived. Within the centre are various ‘salles’ and a ‘grand espace’; the latter is used most weeks for an RC Mass, and the Anglicans meet in the mid-size Cana salle. There are offices and meeting rooms, and the building is often used for secular meetings and concerts. I mentioned last time that the focus at the moment is on developing a ‘drop-in’ centre; this will be the focus for a united celebration this coming Sunday, when the three churches come together for a single act of worship. Work starts this week on re-developing the kitchen and meeting room – so things will be chaotic for a couple of months!

Refugees continue to arrive in Grenoble and at the church. We learned of one problem concerning two Nigerian youngsters. The local council decided after an assessment they were over-18 and so expelled them at very short notice from their lodgings. A church member has offered them temporary accommodation. But when he took them to begin the process for applying for asylum status, he was told they could not apply until they were 18, and the only papers they had said they were still minors (in which case they should not have been staying with him)! No doubt similar problems arise in the UK. But it makes one realise how hard life is for refugees, even after the danger of their crossing the Mediterranean.

What of the political situation in France? Demonstrations by the gilets jaunes continue in many cities, mostly at weekends (last weekend was the 13^th.) (We came across a midweek demo in Grenoble, but that was by pensioners seeking better linking to inflation.) There clearly is resentment that Mr Macron has not delivered all he promised – but although prices do seem to have risen, there has been good news with a reduction of income tax for the less well paid. It is hard to classify the unrest. The growing hostility between France and Italy, which started when the latter began to move refugees out of the country, reached a new height with a clandestine meeting in France between an Italian far-right minister and some of the gilets jaunes ‘leaders’. What the ongoing protests in France are really about is unclear to me – it seems to be part of a widespread phenomenon of groups who feel left out by the establishment. So there are right- and left- wing elements, and a variety of targets – various shops and offices, some churches, cars and various representatives of ‘order’.

For ourselves, we have now enjoyed some outings into the surrounding area, with a visit to the chateau of Vizille, which is claimed as the birth-place of the French Revolution (after a meeting of disaffected locals in 1788); the chateau houses a Museum of the Revolution, and boasts a splendid park. We’ve also managed a couple of other trips; in one of which we walked beside the Isère on the way to Valence. And we had a lunch-time meeting with one of the churchwardens, who lives fairly high up on the Vercors in a village – which at one time was at the end of the Grenoble tram route! The drive there was splendid, with increasing amounts of snow on the hills around (but none on the road itself) and wonderful views across to the Alps. The department has an excellent policy of offering free-entry to most of its museums. Grenoble has several, including a challenging museum of the Resistance (which was strong in the surrounding mountains). The Musée de Grenoble has a good collection of paintings – that was also free on the first Sunday of the month.