To the Subsidies, Citizens!

To reconcile the nation with itself, the government embarks four thousand ‘representative’ citizens on the Fraternité, the largest liner in the world, chartered on credit. Open Bar, financed by the ‘Cohesion’ line, the anthem copied out in the piano bar, ministers in suites on deck 15 and, on the funnel, a giant screen that displays the debt in real time. No one looks at it. Jeanne Lerouge, a roofer in Saint-Étienne, has come aboard with her toolbox, amid the laughter. She mends the doors, then the portholes, then the engines, when the government makes off in a tender. Behind, a grey yacht draws nearer every day.