Le vieux Paris n'est plus
davidabell.substack.com
davidabell.substack.com
For me it's weird to visit Paris. Maybe I've read to much French literature which set some expectations. Such as Paris being inhabited by mostly Parisians. People who lived there for generations.
Is Paris still Paris without its people? For me it isn't. It's mostly a collection of buildings, places, corners, parks, monuments, historical places, a large museum of what was once Paris.
It's the same way I feel about Venice. It's nice, but it's mostly a museum.
As for true Parisians, they have been a minority for ages, there are famously more Bretons in Paris than in Brittany and true Parisians will always tell you that they are actually from Paris. That's not one of the new changes of Paris.
I think the problem is that you have an idea of Paris in your mind and refuse to accept that reality does not match it (and probably never did - literature is never a perfect mirror, since it will reflect an author's view rather than reality).
Venice has a different problem. The historic centre is literally dying out: nobody wants to put up with the annoying logistics anymore, and buildings are more profitable when used by tourists; so the "locals" (as in long-time residents; many of them were not born there) choose to live on land instead, in Mestre (which keeps growing). What is left is indeed largely a museum, an open-air tourist trap. This is well-understood and nominally opposed by local politicians, but it's unlikely that these macro-trends can be significantly reversed.
You might have came in Summer/August, where all the parisians disappear because there are too many tourists and it's too hot so if you can afford it you go to the south of France/abroad.
Also the experience you will have as a tourist is indeed of a museum, the experience you will have living here inside french circles is vastly different but, like in every city, it's not something that you can create in 1 week or 2. I would even say, if you're not french or parisian, you will have difficulties joining the right inner circles. It's not a good thing, it's not something to be proud of, but the parisian life is extremely lively. It's exactly the same than in New York, there are more to scratch than the surface but it's not something that you can "consume" easily just because you have a wallet.
The suburbs and smaller towns (Nantes, Chartres, Bordeaux, Toulouse etc.)
I saw a ton of friends and family move out of Paris as they started building a family or wanted more than just the urban life.
It's actually still extremely easy to get to Paris from more than 20~30km away. Many keep commuting to Paris while taking a healthy distance.
I'm surprised, and so my statement above is wrong as more people in Paris are born outside of it, I would have thought it was more than 50%
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the greater Paris (basically the extent of where the RER goes) had more natives moving in that sphere for most of their lives.
- 1861: 57% born outside of it, 1872: 64%, 1881: 62.9%, 1901: 57.4%.
So the fact that most Parisian has been born outside of it is not exactly new. What probably changed is the part coming from outside of France. But it's not exactly as if Paris was not described as Cosmopolitan since at least a century so not sure how that would be bad.
- 1789 The revolution, which lasted a decade, Louis XVI being guillotined in 1793, and the entire 1800 being busy with Napoleon, Restauration of monarchy, then Napoleon III,
- 1880 Haussmann refurbishes Paris. Think of the writings of Zola and Victor Hugo. Every grandiose avenue, every beautiful building, every train station comes from that period. Gare d’Orsay (now a museum) with 15 tracks and its magnificent glass ceiling is built in just 2 years, along with a dozen kilometers of rails under the river’s level. Yeah imagine that today, they can’t even build a cycle lane in 2 years. Orsay was just built for Exposition Universelle then shut down like 10 years later.
- 1889 Exposition universelle where the Eiffel tower is built. Paris is truly the capital of the world, everyone comes to see it, Paris and France are able to execute grand plans in just a few years. The Russian cour of the tsar speaks French because it’s classy, President Poincare forms an alliance with Russia and visits Saint Pétersbourg in 1913.
- XXth century: Nothing really happened in Paris (with the exception of May 1968, the local version of the worldwide cultural changes about freedom of the youths of the 1970ies, feminism, anticonservatism, etc). The entire history of the world happened in Berlin, the gay bars in 1934, the Nazis, the Russian rapes after the occupation, the 40-year wall, the Weidervereinigung in 1989, the EU in the 2000s… Berlin truely was the capital of the world’s events for an entire century.
- 2024 The Olympic Games in Paris. Pay close attention to the events, it will tell you what Paris wants to be.
What would you say will be the capital of the world for the next 50 years? I’d say San Francisco, because so much of our world is dictated by our startups’ community policies. Or maybe Beijin?
OTOH Berlin never really had the cultural importance that Paris, London or New York had. The counter-culture was much broader than gay bars and both England and the UK were much more influent. I’m not denigrating Berlin because I love the city, but it just is not in the same league. And it certainly was not prominent for a century.
Yes and no, Paris was an economic powerhouse even back then and attracted a lot of workers from the nearby regions,
> Paris might still exist but the people who built it are no more.
If we are speaking of building then the most defining era for Paris date back to 1870 with the Haussman transformation so not exactly a surprise there.
> People who lived there for generations.
Not sure what this special breed bring to Paris versus those living there for mere decades ? Generations of nepotism ?
Migration are not exactly new, those from Aveyron started in mass from 1880.
> Maybe I've read to much French literature which set some expectations.
Humm maybe the Paris from your expectations never existed ?
Not sure which author you are speaking of but there is a high probability they were not born in Paris but probably lived there later on.
And lastly while it's certain that peoples are moving out from Paris especially when they start to want children I believe it's still far from the state Venise is in where half of the dwellings in the city center is for tourism.
See also: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome>
Which is to say, there's still a HUGE divide in the population, and the fact that the "french" part is using a few words from the other part shouldn't fool you into thinking that immigration is going well.
Don't be surprised by the results in the upcoming EU poll.
To be fair that is how a lot of new vocabulary ends up in the standard lexicon.
Total tangent there's this thing in Japanese where a word ends up meaning one thing and also its opposite, due to being used ironically. Sometimes the original meaning is lost, sometimes it isn't. Like 貴様 (originally a honorific, now an insult) or 適当 meaning at the same time proper and sloppy.
This is quite common outside Japanese: e.g. in English, ‘wicked’ can be positive or negative.
I wonder if that's how Christian Spaniards started saying 'ojalá'[0] back in the day, before it became fully adopted into the language!
There is a far right wave currently for sure, but this is propelled by a mix of issue, not just immigration.
TFA opens with somewhat weird mentions to immigration waves, which become more concerning when we learn the author works at Le Point, a publication that favors right wing political points of view, but they eventually fairly describe (I think) the physical and demographic evolution of the metropolis.
FWIW "immigrant-descended communities" is the politically correct way to call people that don't have Nos ancêtres les Gaulois* - "our fathers the Gauls", is a phrase that refers to what was taught in schools until approx. the generation of Boomers, and has become a cliché as it has become more and more untrue - if it ever was true. It can be interpreted as racist in specific cases.
Let’s not get carried away. Le Point is fairly mainstream liberal magazine. Yes, it is right-wing, but it is not Valeurs Actuelles.
Just because other journals are worse doesn't makes Le Point a respectable journal.
This is a typical case of shifting the baseline or "normalization of deviance" [2].
[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Point#Accusations_d'islamop... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shifting_baseline
Google Maps shows it permanently closed since 2022 though [1].
Actually, that's only the OFFICIAL truth (or an architect fantasm), as much as saying that limiting the number and speed of cars on the Peripherique will make better living conditions for those living there...
Truth is: the Peripherique is largely more used by the suburbs (even to go from one to the other, east and north to west and south mostly) than by Parisians. The plans on the Peripherique will mostly impact badly these people on their day-to-day but... the Mayor Hidalgo think that
1) it will help her to be reelected by the "bo-bo" (bourgeois boheme - left upper class) living in Paris (that has been too costly for other population)
2) it will leave a "testament" of her Mayorship "in the stone" (a bit like Mitterand did with Palais du Louvres, Arche de la Defense and so...) and turn Paris into a tourist dream (like Venice) more than an economic and social capital
1) Refugee / Skilled worker policy combine to give communities from the global south a healthy mix of size in numbers and money to support many of them. Skilled workers from these communities are really generous and spend a lot to maintain their communities and community centers / the most unfortunate among them.
2) There is a much more collectivist mindset which is actually very helpful in a freer, more free market system. Many global south countries are less free in terms of business. But Western countries are better about these things. Communities abroad get along when the same people might not have been friends back at home, this cohesiveness lets them open and patronize businesses in the community better. These people can then save on costs (rent, food costs, etc.) while putting that money into collective asset control or other money making systems.
3) It's easier to find the community with Internet. In the past you would need to find or know someone when moving abroad and the options were limited. Nowadays a religious center, cultural center, or other association office or even just scanning the map for restaurant names and clusters can allow you to find your community easily from millions of miles away.
In short, local white collar youth don't have the same collective mindset with each other, and cannot grow by adding more numbers to their ranks, so these are the main differences I feel.
Perhaps the capitalistic system also does a disservice by encouraging them to keep funds in bad investment vehicles (stock, deposits) instead of social capital or a spare home.
The white collar youth complains about not being able to settle in the capital. They mean it in the most Parisian way: inside of the Périphérique, and will only consider the posh banlieues. An immigrant will be way less picky, and choose places with a local community of immigrants.