The United States has a special Senate committee to prepare for
the Y2K bug and the CIA to fret about millennial crises in developing
countries. The French, on the other hand, have set up a new government
office on the avenue de l’Opéra to turn New Year’s Eve into one
of the largest cultural events on the planet.
Mission 2000, an organization set up under the auspices of the Ministry of
Culture and the Ministry of Communication, plans an enormous millennial
celebration involving, among other things, 20 alpinists stringing over eight tons of lighting around the
Eiffel tower, 20 ferris wheels amassed from throughout Europe kitted up with
artists and performers from all over the country with a budget of roughly 400 million francs.
All 20 ferris wheels will line up along the “Gateways to the Year
2000,” from the place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe, each
one transformed by a designer, sculptor, musician or choreographer,
each performing and displaying works designed especially for the
Year 2000.
“Up until now I can’t say I’ve really worried about [the Year
2000] at all,” says Vincent Le Terme, a concert pianist who will
be performing on composer Louis Dandrel's ferris wheel, “L’onde
sonore.” “They’re constructinging a special piano for me made exclusively
of car horns... We’re starting rehearsals soon. That’s what I’m thinking about,
I couldn’t care less about the (Y2K) bug.”
For thousands of school children, the New Year will begin in November
as they plant 1,200 kilometres worth of trees in honor of the
millennium to create the Méridienne verte (green meridian) consisting
of thousands of trees stretching in a straight line from Dunkerque
to Barcelona.
Champagne manufacturers have been busy preparing as well, estimating
that the world will consume roughly 320 million bottles of champagne on December 31 (that’s 240 000 cubic meters of champagne),
not to mention millions of bottles of sparkling wine — not the
issue of the regions’ vines. Mme. Pelletier, owner of Le Champagne,
has “seen 30 years of New Year’s rushes,” but with sales already
beginning to pick up, she may have, for the first time, miscalculated.
“I ordered about 50 percent more than I did last year, but I’m
worried already about running out.” Collector’s bottles are beginning
to show up in wine stores, from the leather lace-up corset case
designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier for Piper Heisieck to the six liter
magnum bottle by Roederer. The price tags for lower-end bottles
are expected to jump 30-40% from their off-season, non-millennial
prices — a good excuse to invest in a more expensive, vintage
bottle.
The unlucky few is what newspaper Libération calls the collés (the "glued" or “grounded”) of Saint Sylvestre, who will have
to stay near their work places. For most this will simply mean
being reachable by phone. Thousands of employees in everything
from the computer industry to the Gaz de France will be on call
the night of December 31, to be ready for any major disaster,
to assure their customers that nothing has gone drastically wrong
and in some instances, to gain positive PR. Otis Elevators, for
example, plans for 300 extra employees on call, even though all of their elevators are already Y2K safe. The
goal, says their media spokesperson, is to “show our quality of
service during a period of media attention.”
While the US worries about stock market crashes and hoards canned
food, the French seem more concerned over price hikes for champagne
and how to get a whole lot of ferris wheels in from places like
Denmark. But if the more relaxed, French approach to the turn
of the century hasn’t escaped millennial anxiety, at least one
French company, Campingaz, offers a special “kit dépannage spéciale
réveillon.” “Some people,” the packaging claims, “honestly believe
in the Y2K bug… but at any rate this kit will be of use to campers.”ake
his dreams come true.
More about Mission 2000 can be found at their Website, http://www.2000enfrance.com
or their office, 8, av de l'Opéra, 1er. Le Guide du Millénaire”
(“Mille et Une Nuits”), by Nick Hanna, explains how the rest of
the world is planning to have a happy New Year.
Your number is up
Evidently, numerologists, those who study the esoteric characteristics
of numbers, have a lot to think about with the turn of the year,
century and millennium.
Kristina Volpech, a numerologist and native New Yorker now practicing
in Paris, recommends that we all set our minds to “nurturing and
serving each other” as we move from an age of 1 (the first millennium),
symbolizing the male, to an age of 2 (the year 2000), representative
of the female.
This is especially important in Paris, she says, a city constantly
celebrating women and their beauty, and a key location for the
fashion industry. For Volpech, December 31, 1999 will be a day
good for business and making money while January 1, 2000 will
be a day “for laying new foundations.”
