Place Denfert-Rochereau in Paris

My last name is Paris, although I have not a drop of French blood in my veins. In Hungarian, my last name is Páris, pronounced PAH-reesh. On my father’s Czechoslovakian passport when he emigrated to the United States in 1929 (bad timing), his last name was shown as Parisej. When I asked him about this, he said the dominant Czechs always messed with Slovak last names.

There was a time when I was anti-French. This reached its height in 1976, when my Laker Airlines flight to London first stopped at Paris’s Orly Airport. We were all deplaned and made to go through security by the French police. When one of the officers wanted me to open up the back up my Olympus OM-1 camera and expose the film that was loaded, I refused and remarked rather snootily, “Je ne suis pas Carlos le terroriste!” Somehow, the officer smirked and let me continue without sending me to the guillotine.

Since then, I began to admire France more and more. My girlfriend, Martine, was born in Paris. My favorite novelists (Honoré de Balzac and Marcel Proust) are French. Subsequently, I visited Paris twice with Martine, staying first near Place de Clichy and then on the Left Bank near the Eiffel Tower.

I fell in love with Arthur Rimbaud, Blaise Pascal, Paul Eluard, François Villon, Emile Zola, Albert Camus, Patrick Modiano, Jean-Pierre Manchette, Nicolas Poussin, Antoine Watteau, Claude Lorrain, Auguste Renoir and his cinéaste son Jean, Jean-Luc Godard … Oh, hell, the list goes on damn near forever! In the end, I did a 180.

Public Transit Map of Paris

Now with the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics, I am more impressed than ever with the French. In a handful of brilliant images, France reminded us who and what they were, and what they meant to the world.

Whenever I read a French novel, I am never without a copy of Paris Pratique Par Arrondissement in my lap, so I can follow the action street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood. It’s almost as if I considered Paris as more than just another city: It is a city I revere, a world city.