THERE were no Bastille Day or French National Day celebrations in the city this year. Security concerns, following the blast that killed eleven French submarine engineers and technicians on May 8th, were the obvious reason. However, unlike the Americans who chose to celebrate their Independence Day on July 4th, under heavy security arrangement, the French chose to play it safe and were too sad to celebrate. Only Pakistanis were killed in the June fourteenth blast on the American consulate.

The Bastille Day was celebrated in the French Embassy in Islamabad and Nafees Sidique, who was there, said that it almost felt like a mile long walk from the parking lot to the embassy.

The French Consulate’s premises on the busy Mohammed Ali Bogra Road in Clifton had been shut down for security reasons. The depleted consulate staff, along with their new consul general, Gorges Dupuis, is now a guest of the British Deputy High Commission, at the Runnymede, in Clifton, itself a heavily guarded area.

The French have already stopped issuing visa’s to Pakistanis. A national day party would have enabled the new consul general and his wife to meet a number of figures in the social setup.

Diplomats in the city as a whole, have become cautious and have cut down on the number of parties they give and functions they attend.

Alliance Francaise which had been the most active cultural centre in the city, with a function on almost every alternate day, too has become a ghost of its old self. Its director too has gone on leave. The language courses are in progress though, so that they could be completed by September. After that, there may not be any new enrolments.

The American Cultural Centre remains shut and so does the busy British Council. The British Council however is having its workshops conducted at various hotels in the city. The Goethe Institute is equally circumspect in these uncertain times.

As major Western consulates tend to look for safe places in the city, they may seek more assistance from the British Deputy High Commission which has plenty of land at Runnymede to accommodate them. A part of the surplus land was sold to the German Consulate, which established its premises there and moved in. It also sold a number of the plots to Pakistanis, including Hakim Ali Zardari. And now, the government may request the British Deputy High Commission to be accommodative to the European consulates which need safer places which can be more easily protected than where they have been so far. How obliging the British can be, remains to be seen.