Right Bank, Wrong Banlieue ("Youths" in Paris")

For Parisians there is no more sacred space in the history of their city than Les Halles, the old central market at the heart of the Right Bank, near the Seine to the south and the Grands Boulevards to the north. A market has stood here in one form or another since the 12th century, when dockers heaved wine, meat and other goods from the barges that regularly queued up the Seine. The area was first known as Les Champeaux but got its nickname Les Halles because chacun y allait (“everybody went there”). It reached its apogee in the 19th century, when it was celebrated by Émile Zola as the very “belly of Paris”. During this period, the market sprawled over nearly a square mile, covered by wrought-iron pavillons or “umbrellas” designed by Victor Baltard that formed a stinking labyrinth that was a knacker’s yard, an open-air brothel and the greatest food market in Europe, all at once.

These days, far from being the vibrant centre of the French capital, Les Halles has become a byword for everything that is wrong with contemporary city life. The site of the old market is now a shabby and decaying shopping mall, which penetrates deep underground into a metro and train station. The uninspired architecture isn’t the only thing that has upset Parisians, however. It’s also the neighbourhood – and its crime rate. In recent years, the shopping mall at the centre of the area, called Forum Les Halles, and its surrounding streets have become the adopted home of a floating community of banlieusards – youths from the tough suburbs of Paris.

The teenagers and twenty-somethings are brought straight here by the RER B, a train that runs from some of the poorest and most decrepit northern suburbs directly to Les Halles. The youths wear the clothes of rap idols – home-grown and American – but talk with accents from the Maghreb, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. For the most part they refuse to identify themselves as either French or Parisian. “Les Halles is the culture of the suburbs in the centre of Paris,” says Gregory, whose family origins are in Guadeloupe but who now lives in a notorious housing project at Cergy. “We are not trying to be French – we don’t care about that – but we are here to say that we exist, and that we are as good as you.”

On the steps of Fontaine des Innocents and its surrounding arcades, the suburban kids sell drugs and stage real and mock battles between rival gangs, terrifying everyday shoppers and provoking the police. “Les Halles belongs to us for this reason: it is like our headquarters in the capital,” says Gregory. “The police watch us here but they can’t control us.”

Most white, middle-class Parisians say they shun Les Halles not on racial grounds but because they think it is ringard – hopelessly naff – thanks to its outdated modernist architecture, fast-food restaurants and cheap shops selling hip-hop gear. The reputation of the area is not helped by its proximity to the rue Saint-Denis, a mile or so of hardcore sleaze – sex shops, peep shows and prostitutes – which runs down to the Seine.

Yet Les Halles was always much more than a market place. It was in these streets that the stock image of the titi parisien or parigot – a rough equivalent to the cockney – was formed among the traders, prostitutes, hustlers and rogues who inhabited the market. It was also here that la gouaille – a form of streetwise patter characteristic of the native Parisian – was invented. For generations of Parisians, this place was not just the mark of Parisian identity but came to represent the very soul of the city. “Even though it is not really there, the very name Les Halles sums up a certain idea of Paris for all generations,” says Jacques Fayzal, a retired doctor and an amateur historian of Paris. His father had worked in Les Halles during its great days, and Fayzal recalls that, for a child, the place was an enchanted spot. “I think this is how most Parisians think of Les Halles: still as a place of magical experiences. Nowadays, of course, all of that is gone. But the important thing is that the cultural memory remains.”

During the 1980s and early 1990s, the area became home to the so-called “tribes of Les Halles” – mods, rockers, psychobillies and participants in a burgeoning hip-hop scene. As chronicled in a recent history of alternative Paris, Rebelles: Une histoire de rock alternatif, Remi Pepin says that the “tribes” were defined by their mutual and often violent antagonism.

These days, the area is a lot calmer. And yet some people admit they feel threatened even in the middle of the busiest shopping afternoon. “I never go to Les Halles now,” says Françoise Duroyon, a teacher from the well-heeled 7th arrondissement. “I consider myself a true Parisian but Les Halles is nothing now to do with Paris: it is the suburbs in the city. In fact it is now dangerous for Parisians to go there.”

These kinds of fears played a role in bringing French president Nicolas Sarkozy to power last year. When the banlieues exploded into rioting in November 2005, Sarkozy, then interior minister, promised to sweep the racaille (or “scum”) from the streets. The irony is that, rather than being swept away, they dominate the very heart of the capital.

Another irony is that the man trying hardest to clean up the area comes not from Sarkozy’s own party, but from the political left: the socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe. As part of his grand plan to make Paris fit for business in the 21st century, Delanoe has targeted the redevelopment of Les Halles as a priority for his new, greener and more people-friendly city. “Everyone has an ideal,” said Delanoe. “Mine is to imagine how people in Paris can really live together.”

In 2004, the mayor announced an international competition among four teams of architects. A group led by the French urbanist and architect David Mangin was selected to lead the first phase of the project, which would culminate in another competition to deliver the final vision of Les Halles. On the face of it this seemed an uncontroversial proposal. When Forum Les Halles was first built in 1977, its architects, Claude Vasconi and Georges Pencrea’ch, argued they had pulled off a clever trick: an inverted skyscraper in the heart of Paris. It was ugly then and has only grown more so over the past three decades. And yet the Mangin project to revamp it was attacked for its alleged “mediocrity” and “timidity”. The plans consisted of ripping out the worst of the 1970s eyesores – the underground corridors leading to the metro – and introducing mechanised panels in the roofing of the structure to control light and air. Mangin, it seemed, was set on damage control rather than reinvention.

Delanoe’s enemies on the political right weighed in quickly. Jean-François Legaret, of the UMP (the party that brought Sarkozy to power) and mayor of the 1st arrondissement (in which Les Halles is situated), led a strident attack on the project, which he termed “an enormous hoax” that would lead to “a monster which would be impossible to finish”.

More surprising, however, was the muted response among Delanoe’s own supporters in the Paris town hall. Christophe Girard, a Green proponent and close adviser of the mayor, declared that he was disappointed by the project, citing the design as his principal objection. But he also pointed out that the problems of access, parking and ageing, inadequate facilities had not been addressed. The plan to build what was essentially a big garden on the site was no more than a cosmetic gesture.

Other critics on the left attacked the plans on cultural grounds. In the pages of Liberation, Le Monde and art-criticism magazine Les Inrockuptibles commentators have stood up for the banlieusards, arguing that they have made the place their own, and have thereby earned the right to be there. “There is a solidarity here now,” says Bruno, a middle-aged ex-skinhead who recalls old battles with the police with all the dewy-eyed nostalgia of a war veteran. He argues that to change Les Halles physically would be to disturb the delicate ecology of this micro-culture – a move which might well have dangerous repercussions in the city if the “tribes” are forced to move on. In the meantime, “people have come together because they don’t know how long all of this will last”.

In the face of such opponents, Delanoe finally decided to put the original plan to the side and, in 2006, launched a new competition to redesign the site (Mangin was one of the overseers of the contest, and architects Patrick Berger and Jacques Anziutti the prizewinners). Les Halles, Delanoe promised, would return to its former glory as the beating heart of Paris – if not all France. “The new Les Halles will be intelligent and realistic,” he announced to the television channel France 2. “In fact, it will be a real work of art for the 21st century.”

Work is due to start on the site this spring. The most ambitious part of the project – a “canopy” based on the tree tops of tropical rainforests – is planned for 2009. It will be lit at night from below, offering the spectacle of a brilliantly green illumination in the dead centre of the city, perhaps emblematic of Delanoe’s ambition to make Paris the “greenest city in Europe”. In the meantime, the dank underground corridors and shopping malls will be completely rebuilt. And if the rumours among his admirers and enemies are correct, all this will be taking place as Delanoe prepares to make a bid to leave town-hall politics behind, entering the political mainstream and possibly even challenging for the presidency.

Whether or not any of this will really happen is another matter given the already chequered history of the project. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood, many of whom are quite content with Les Halles as it is, in all its tatty glamour, are gearing up to campaign against the development. They promise a website, protest marches and support from prominent intellectuals (as yet unnamed). They are likely to be joined by small-scale businesses and shopkeepers, some of whom remember the years of dust and disruption when the Pompidou Centre was being a built a stone’s throw away, near the rue Rambuteau. “Parisians don’t like change,” says Nicolas Simon, a bookseller and bibliophile expert on the history of Les Halles. “They will prefer to stay with something they know is bad if it means change in any way.”

The reality is that change will be forced on Les Halles, in spite of the critics. Delanoe has invested far too much political capital in these plans to retreat now. And perhaps most crucially, the existing Les Halles is so dirty, dangerous and downright ugly as to constitute an unsustainable disgrace at the heart of one of the world’s great capitals.

The example for the future lies, however, not in London or New York, but a few hundred yards up the road in the rue Montorgueil, a once disreputable and run-down area which in the past decade has reinvented itself as a desirable part of “old Paris”, with new shops, cafés and even cobbled streets. But this is a gentrified and expensive part of town where few ordinary people can afford a reasonable apartment.

All of Delanoe’s plans – like the apartments in rue Montorgueil – come at a high price. Whatever happens to Les Halles in the next few years, it is unlikely that rents will drop, and even more unlikely that the area will see the return of the lively working-class community that once defined it. To this extent, as Parisians know already, the battle for the belly of Paris was lost a long time ago.

From our old friends at Saturday Night Live:

“France: rolling countrysides, sprawling vineyards, quaint cafes.

“France: home to the world’s greatest painters, chefs, and anti-Semites.

“The French: cowardly, yet opinionated; arrogant, yet foul-smelling; anti-Israel, anti-American, and, of course, as always, Jew-hating.

“Paris: the city of whores, dog feces on every corner, and effete men yelling anti-Semitic remarks at children. The real crème de la crème of world culture.

“With all that’s going on in the world, isn’t it about time we got back to hating the French?”

From what I’ve seen, its not so much the ugly 70s late modernist architecture, as it is the grungy “discount stores” that dominate an otherwise upscale, center city area. Reminds me a little of 14th Street in Manhattan, which has only recently been shifting from 99 cent stores and du rag/video game vendors (which attract the outer borough thug set) and replacing them with more upscale stores.

.....that the “tribes” were defined by their mutual and often violent antagonism.....

We know these feral urban groups as gangs. We can’t say tribes because it strikes to close to home as an accurate descriptive. Although we are told it takes a village, we can’t say that village is home to a tribe.

Bulldoze the place and start over. The same can be said for much of Europe.

You can be happy that I do not bulldoze you since I am in a good mood today and New York is far away. But be warned: In difference to you I own some real bulldozers.

Regards from good old Europe.

A.B.

"Most white, middle-class Parisians say they shun Les Halles not on racial grounds but because they think it is..."

GREAT BALLS OF FIRE! I hate racism as much as anybody does, but the "It's not racism" disclaimer has become the most worn out cliche in any language! When you reach the point of including religion, criminality, and everything else as "race" something is seriously wrong--and it's probably that you are not being honest.

Honesty, of course--and truth for its own sake--are not virtues attributable to the politically correct--no matter how generous we may wish to be toward them (which is seldom very).

In fact, it has begun to mean its exact opposite--like "Not being inquisitive, but..." or "It's not about the money, it's...", which means that inquisitive is exactly what you are being and that money is exactly what it's about!

When people start spouting off "It's not racism!", it's a good bet that that is exactly what it is!

No problem if you pay me in advance. I also have some crawler cranes with a wrecking ball. They are more suitable for this job than bulldozers. ;) (Although I do not want to mess up national Italians)

A crawler crane with a 10ton wrecking ball driven by my companion Leo in 1996.

The secondary problem is how to keep the new space occupied. There's a reason the turf was ceded to the gangs - there was nothing to put there but crappy shops. The great food halls that dominated the space all moved out to Rungis outside of Paris because it was too hard to move that much food around in the center of Paris.

If you haven't been to Rungis, it's a foodies paradise. Just take a look at the size of it.

http://fxcuisine.com/default.asp?Display=32

THAT'S a market!

The area is over-run with muslim thugs and they think the solution is to change the architecture?

The Titanic might have been saved if only they had rearranged the deck chairs.

It appears that there are guided tours that leave from Paris - the link for the company is down at the bottom of that article. I’m with you on the driving. I don’t so much mind the driving, it’s that I don’t like driving stick, plus I have no idea what I’d do if I ever got into an accident.

I've been to Les Halles. It has one of the best bookstores I've ever been to.

But the area is grubby, the architecture is the most painful 70s crap (including the Pompidou Ctr), and it's a boring maze.

The Rungis place is accessible by train.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.