French Gnomes Stolen

Sun., April 16, 2000

Someone in France is stealing garden gnomes again, those cheery and fuzzy-cheeked symbols of smug suburban contentment. In an after-hours raid on a Paris park where 2,000 of the elfin figures had been assembled for an exhibition, members of a group calling itself the Garden Gnome Liberation Front swiped a score of the sculptures last weekend. The unknown thieves, in a statement, demanded the “immediate closing of this odious exhibit, as well as the unconditional liberation of the garden gnomes still detained.” Act now, they warned Paris authorities, or we will strike again. Is this for real? Patrick Boumard, professor of anthropology at the University of Rennes believes that gnome-napping, which first surfaced here in the mid-1990s, started out as a simple student prank but struck some profound chord in French life.The garden gnome, the anthropologist says, is a totem of the times we live in and is fraught with all sorts of symbolism - economic, cultural, emotional.

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French Gnomes Stolen

Jesse Tinsley

Jim Meehan

Molly Quinn

Rob Curley

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