Au Revoir Halloween

At the risk of offending many people in the US and elsewhere, I want to express my deep gladness that France has bid adieu to the grotesque foreign invader which was Halloween. It came, it appeared to conquer, and then it went away again. It was probably no more than five or six years ago that the obsession first took hold. In what was clearly a massive marketing operation, the shops were full of that ghastly orange-coloured garbage, and suddenly corpse-bandages were amusing. In our local hamlet in the Cher, troops of children came round for the "trick or treat" -- and I am afraid they said it in English. I sent them away with a flea in their ear. A more amoral ritual I cannot conceive. Blackmail, tout court. Anyway this year suddenly, it seems to have died a death. Just a few items in the supermarkets, and none of the hoopla. Who to thank? I have seen a few po-faced commentators blame France's latent anti-Americanism. I think that is rubbish. The French may well be latently anti-American, but that has nothing to do with it. The truth is that Halloween -- at least all the japing around -- is utterly alien here. The French already have a deep and dignified tradition for November 1. It is the day when in their millions they visit the graves of their loved ones, and deposit bunches of chrysanthemums. Next to that the garish orange pumpkins and the ha-ha imagery of death were exposed eventually as exactly what they were: a cynical money-spinner for a handful of manipulators. It failed, et je m'en rejouis.