| Paris |
| Motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur (Latin: "It is tossed by the waves, but does not sink") |
 |
| Paris, with the Eiffel Tower in the foreground and the skyscrapers of La Défense in the background |
|  |
| City flag | City coat of arms |
|
Location within Île-de-France region [show] |
| Administration |
|---|
| Country | France |
| Region | Île-de-France |
| Department | Paris |
| Mayor | Bertrand Delanoë (PS)
(2008–2014) |
| Statistics |
|---|
| Land area1 [1] | 105.4 km2 (40.7 sq mi) |
| Population2 | 2,211,297 (Jan. 2008[2]) |
| - Ranking | 1st in France |
| - Density | 20,980 /km2 (54,300 /sq mi) |
| Urban area | 2,845 km2 (1,098 sq mi) (2010) |
| - Population | 10,354,675[3] (Jan. 2008) |
| Metro area | 17,175 km2 (6,631 sq mi) (2010) |
| - Population | 12,089,098[4] (Jan. 2008) |
| Time zone | CET (UTC +1) |
| INSEE/Postal code | 75056/ 75001-75020, 75116 |
| Website | www.paris.fr |
| 1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. |
| 2 Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once. |
Coordinates: 
48°51′24″N 2°21′03″E / 48.8567°N 2.3508°E / 48.8567; 2.3508
Paris (
i/ˈpærɨs/;
French:
[paʁi] (
listen)) is the
capital of and largest city in
France. It is situated on the river
Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the
Île-de-France region (or Paris Region,
French:
Région parisienne). The city of Paris, within its administrative limits (the 20
arrondissements) largely unchanged since 1860, has an estimated population of 2,211,297
[2] (January 2008), but the Paris
metropolitan area has a population of 12,089,098,
[4] (January 2008), and is one of the
most populated metropolitan areas in
Europe.
[5] Paris was the largest city in the Western world for about 1,000 years, prior to the 19th century, and the largest in the entire world between the 16th and 19th centuries.
[6][7][8]
Paris is today one of the world's leading
business and
cultural centres, and its influences in
politics,
education,
entertainment,
media,
fashion,
science, and the
arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major
global cities.
[9][10][11][12] It hosts the headquarters of many international organizations such as
UNESCO, the
OECD, the
International Chamber of Commerce or the informal
Paris Club. Paris is considered one of the greenest
[13] and
most liveable[14] cities in Europe. It is also one of
the most expensive.
[15][16]
Paris and the
Paris Region, with €552.1 billion (US$768.9 billion) in 2009, produce more than a quarter of the
gross domestic product of France.
[17] According to 2008 estimates, the Paris agglomeration is Europe's biggest
[18] or second biggest
[19] city economy and the
sixth largest in the world.
[20] The Paris Region hosts the headquarters of 33 of the
Fortune Global 500 companies,
[21] the highest such concentration in Europe, hosted in several business districts, notably
La Défense, the largest dedicated business district in Europe.
[22] The Paris region has the highest concentration of higher education students in the European Union,
[23] is the first in Europe in terms of research and development capability and expenditure
[23] and is considered one of the best cities in the world for innovation.
[24] With about 42 million tourists annually in the city and its suburbs,
[23] Paris is the
most visited city in the world. The city and its region contain 3,800
historical monuments and four
UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
[23]
[edit] Etymology
The name
Paris derives from that of its earliest inhabitants, the
Gaulish tribe known as the
Parisii. The city was called
Lutetia (more fully,
Lutetia Parisiorum, "Lutetia of the Parisii"), during the Roman era of the 1st to the 6th century, but during the reign of
Julian the Apostate (360–363), the city was renamed Paris.
[25]
It is believed that the name of the
Parisii tribe comes from the Celtic Gallic word
parisio meaning "the working people" or "the craftsmen."
[26]
Paris has many nicknames, but its most famous is "La Ville-Lumière" ("The City of Light" or "The Illuminated City"),
[27] a name it owes first to its fame as a centre of education and ideas during the
Age of Enlightenment, and later to its early adoption of
street lighting.
[28] Since the mid-19th century, Paris has been known as
Paname[29] (
[panam]) in the Parisian
slang called
argot (
Moi j'suis d'Paname, i.e. "I'm from Paname"). The singer
Renaud repopularized the term amongst the young generation
[29] with his 1976 album
Amoureux de Paname ("In love with Paname").
Paris' inhabitants are known in English as "Parisians" and in French as
Parisiens (
[paʁizjɛ̃] ( listen)). Parisians are often pejoratively called
Parigots (
[paʁiɡo] ( listen)), a term first used in 1900
[30] by those living outside the Paris region.
- See Wiktionary for the name of Paris in various languages other than English and French.
[edit] History
[edit] Origins
The earliest archaeological signs of permanent settlements in the Paris area date from around 4200 BC.
[31] The
Parisii, a sub-tribe of the
Celtic Senones, inhabited the area near the river
Seine from around 250 BC.
[32] The
Romans conquered the Paris basin in 52 BC,
[31] with a permanent settlement by the end of the same century on the
Left Bank Sainte Geneviève Hill and the
Île de la Cité. The
Gallo-Roman town was originally called
Lutetia, or Lutetia Parisorum but later Gallicised to
Lutèce. It expanded greatly over the following centuries, becoming a prosperous city with a forum, palaces, baths, temples, theatres, and an amphitheatre.
[33]
The collapse of the Roman empire and the 5th-century
Germanic invasions sent the city into a period of decline. By AD 400,
Lutèce, largely abandoned by its inhabitants, was little more than a garrison town entrenched into a hastily fortified central island.
[31] The city reclaimed its original appellation of "Paris" towards the end of the Roman occupation.
[edit] Merovingian and Feudal Eras
The Paris region was under full control of the Germanic
Franks by the late 5th century. The Frankish king
Clovis the Frank, the first king of the
Merovingian dynasty, made the city his capital from 508. The late 8th century
Carolingian dynasty displaced the Frankish capital to
Aachen; this period coincided with the beginning of Viking invasions that had spread as far as Paris by the early 9th century.
Repeated invasions forced Parisians to build a fortress on the
Île de la Cité. One of the most remarkable Viking raids was on 28 March 845, when Paris was sacked and held ransom, probably by
Ragnar Lodbrok, who left only after receiving a large bounty paid by the crown. The weakness of the late
Carolingian kings of France led to the gradual rise in power of the Counts of Paris;
Odo, Count of Paris, was elected king of France by feudal lords, and the end of the Carolingian empire came in 987 when
Hugh Capet, count of Paris, was elected king of France. Paris, under the
Capetian kings, became a capital once more.
[edit] Middle Ages to 19th century
Paris's population was around 200,000
[34] when the
Black Death arrived in 1348, killing as many as 800 people a day; and 40,000 died from the plague in 1466.
[35] During the 16th and 17th centuries,
plague visited the city for almost one year out of three.
[36] Paris lost its position as seat of the French realm during occupation of the English-allied
Burgundians during the
Hundred Years' War, but regained its title when
Charles VII of France reclaimed the city from English rule in 1436. Paris from then on became France's capital once again in title, but France's real centre of power would remain in the
Loire Valley[37] until
King Francis I returned France's crown residences to Paris in 1528.
During the
French Wars of Religion, Paris was a stronghold of the
Catholic party. In August 1572, under the reign of
Charles IX, while many noble Protestants were in Paris on the occasion of the marriage of Henry of Navarre – the future
Henry IV – to
Margaret of Valois, sister of Charles IX, the
St. Bartholomew's Day massacre occurred; begun on 24 August, it lasted several days and spread throughout the country.
[38][39]
In 1590 Henry IV unsuccessfully laid siege to the city in the
Siege of Paris. During the
Fronde, Parisians rose in rebellion and the royal family fled the city (1648). King
Louis XIV then moved the royal court permanently to
Versailles, a lavish estate on the outskirts of Paris, in 1682. A century later, Paris was the centre stage for the
French Revolution, with the
Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 and the
overthrow of the monarchy in September 1792.
[40]
[edit] 19th century
Paris was occupied by Russian and Allied armies upon
Napoleon's defeat on the
31 March 1814; this was the first time in 400 years that the city had been conquered by a foreign power.
[41] The ensuing
Restoration period, or the return of the monarchy under
Louis XVIII (1814–1824) and
Charles X, ended with the
July Revolution Parisian uprising of 1830. The new 'constitutional monarchy' under
Louis-Philippe ended with the 1848 "
February Revolution" that led to the creation of the
Second Republic.
Throughout these events,
cholera epidemics in 1832 and 1849 ravaged the population of Paris; the 1832 epidemic alone claimed 20,000 of the population of 650,000.
[42]
The greatest development in Paris's history began with the
Industrial Revolution creation of a network of railways that brought an unprecedented flow of migrants to the capital from the 1840s. The city's largest transformation came with the 1852
Second Empire under
Napoleon III; his
préfet,
Baron Haussmann,
levelled entire districts of Paris' narrow, winding medieval streets to create the network of wide avenues and neo-classical façades that still make up much of modern Paris; the reason for this transformation was twofold, as not only did the creation of wide boulevards beautify and sanitize the capital, it also facilitated the effectiveness of troops and artillery against any further uprisings and barricades for which Paris was so famous.
[43]
The
Second Empire ended in the
Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), and a besieged Paris under heavy bombardment surrendered on 28 January 1871. The discontent of Paris' populace with the new armistice-signing government seated in
Versailles resulted in the creation of the
Paris Commune government, supported by an army created in large part of members of the city's former
National Guard that would both continue resistance against the Prussians and oppose the army of the "Versaillais" government. The Paris Commune ended with the
Semaine Sanglante ("Bloody Week"), during which roughly 20,000 "Communards" were executed before the fighting ended on 28 May 1871.
[44] The ease with which the
Versaillais army overtook Paris owed much to Baron Haussmann's renovations.
France's late 19th-century
Universal Expositions made Paris an increasingly important centre of technology, trade, and tourism.
[45] Its most famous were the
1889 Exposition universelle to which Paris owes its "temporary" display of architectural engineering progess, the
Eiffel Tower, a structure that remained the world's tallest building until 1930; the
1900 Universal Exposition saw the opening of the first
Paris Métro line.
[edit] 20th century
During
World War I, Paris was at the forefront of the war effort, having been spared a German invasion by the French and British victory at the
First Battle of the Marne in 1914. In 1918–1919, it was the scene of
Allied victory parades and peace negotiations. In the
inter-war period, Paris was famed for its cultural and artistic communities and its nightlife. The city became a gathering place of artists from around the world, from exiled Russian composer
Stravinsky and Spanish painters
Picasso and
Dalí to American writer
Hemingway.
[46]
On 14 June 1940, five weeks after the start of the
Battle of France, an undefended Paris fell to German occupation forces. The Germans marched past the
Arc de Triomphe on the 140th anniversary of
Napoleon's victory at the
Battle of Marengo.
[47] German forces remained in Paris until
the city was liberated in August 1944 after a resistance uprising, two and a half months after the Normandy invasion.
[48] Central Paris endured
World War II practically unscathed, as there were no strategic targets for Allied bombers (train stations in central Paris are
terminal stations; major factories were located in the suburbs). Also, German
General von Choltitz did not destroy all Parisian monuments before any German retreat, as ordered by
Adolf Hitler, who had visited the city in 1940.
[49]
In the post-war era, Paris experienced its largest development since the end of the
Belle Époque in 1914. The suburbs began to expand considerably, with the construction of large social estates known as
cités and the beginning of the business district
La Défense. A comprehensive express subway network, the
RER, was built to complement the Métro and serve the distant suburbs, while a network of freeways was developed in the suburbs, centred on the
Périphérique expressway encircling the city.
[50][51][52]
Since the 1970s, many inner suburbs of Paris (especially the northern and eastern ones) have experienced
deindustrialization, and the once-thriving
cités have gradually become ghettos for immigrants and oases of unemployment.
[53][54] At the same time, the city of Paris (within its
Périphérique expressway) and the western and southern suburbs have successfully shifted their economic base from traditional manufacturing to high-value-added services and high-tech manufacturing, generating great wealth for their residents whose per capita income is among the highest in Europe.
[55][56][57] The resulting widening social gap between these two areas has led to periodic unrest since the mid-1980s, such as the
2005 riots which were concentrated for the most part in the northeastern suburbs.
[58]
Diana, Princess of Wales, died at the
Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris on 31 August 1997, after a car crash in the
Pont de l'Alma tunnel.
[59]
[edit] 21st century
In order to alleviate social tensions in the inner suburbs and revitalise the metropolitan
economy of Paris, several plans are currently underway. The office of
Secretary of State for the Development of the Capital Region was created in March 2008 within the
French government. Its office holder,
Christian Blanc, is in charge of overseeing President
Nicolas Sarkozy's plans for the creation of an integrated
Grand Paris ("Greater Paris") metropolitan authority (see Administration section below), as well as the extension of the subway network to cope with the renewed growth of population in Paris and its suburbs, and various economic development projects to boost the metropolitan economy, such as the creation of a world-class technology and scientific cluster and university campus on the
Saclay plateau in the southern suburbs.
In parallel, President Sarkozy also launched in 2008 an international urban and architectural competition for the future development of metropolitan Paris. Ten teams, which bring together architects, urban planners, geographers, and landscape architects, will offer their vision for building a Paris metropolis of the 21st century in the
Kyoto Protocol era and will make a prospective diagnosis for Paris and its suburbs that will define future developments in Greater Paris for the next 40 years. The goal is not only to build an environmentally sustainable metropolis but also to integrate the inner suburbs with the central City of Paris through large-scale urban planning operations and iconic architectural projects.
Meanwhile, in an effort to boost the global economic image of metropolitan Paris, several skyscrapers (300 m (984 ft) and higher) have been approved since 2006 in the business district of
La Défense, to the west of the city proper, and are scheduled to be completed by the early 2010s. Paris authorities also stated publicly that they are planning to authorise the construction of skyscrapers within the city proper by relaxing the cap on building height for the first time since the construction of the
Tour Montparnasse in the early 1970s.
[edit] Geography
Paris is located in the north-bending arc of the
river Seine and includes two islands, the
Île Saint-Louis and the larger
Île de la Cité, which form the oldest part of the city. Overall, the city is relatively flat, and the lowest point is 35 m (115 ft)
above sea level. Paris has several prominent hills, of which the highest is
Montmartre at 130 m (427 ft).
[60]
Excluding the outlying parks of
Bois de Boulogne and
Bois de Vincennes, Paris covers an oval measuring 86.928 km
2 (34 sq mi) in area.
[citation needed] The city's last major annexation of outlying territories in 1860 not only gave it its modern form but also created the twenty clockwise-spiralling
arrondissements (municipal boroughs). From the 1860 area of 78 km
2 (30 sq mi), the city limits were expanded marginally to 86.9 km
2 (34 sq mi) in the 1920s. In 1929, the
Bois de Boulogne and
Bois de Vincennes forest parks were officially annexed to the city, bringing its area to the present 105.39 km
2 (41 sq mi).
[61]
[edit] Climate
Paris has the typical Western European
oceanic climate which is affected by the
North Atlantic Current. Over a year, Paris' climate can be described as mild and moderately wet.
Summer days are usually warm and pleasant with average temperatures hovering between 15 and 25 °C, and a fair amount of sunshine. Each year, however, there are a few days where the temperature rises above
32 °C (90 °F). Some years have even witnessed some long periods of harsh summer weather, such as the
heat wave of 2003 where temperatures exceeded
30 °C (86 °F) for weeks, surged up to
40 °C (104 °F) on some days and seldom cooled down at night. More recently, the average temperature for July 2011 was +17.6 °C, with an average minimum temperature of 12.9 ° and an average maximum temperature of 23.7 °C.
[62]
Spring and autumn have, on average, mild days and fresh nights, but are changing and unstable. Surprisingly warm or cool weather occurs frequently in both seasons.
In winter, sunshine is scarce; days are cold but generally above freezing with temperatures around
7 °C (45 °F). Light night frosts are however quite common, but the temperature will dip below
−5 °C (23 °F) for only a few days a year. Snowfall is rare, but the city sometimes sees light snow or flurries with or without accumulation. Recently, notably in 2009 and 2010, cold waves brought repeated heavy snowfalls (15 cm (5.91 in) in 2010) and temperatures plummeting to
−10 °C (14 °F) and
−20 °C (−4 °F) in the Paris suburbs.
Rain falls throughout the year, and although Paris is not a very rainy city, it is known for heavy sudden showers. Average annual precipitation is 652 mm (25.7 in) with light rainfall fairly distributed throughout the year. The highest recorded temperature is
40.4 °C (105 °F) on 28 July 1948, and the lowest is a
−23.9 °C (−11 °F) on 10 December 1879.
[63]
| Paris |
|---|
| Climate chart (explanation) |
|---|
| J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| Average max. and min. temperatures in °C |
| Precipitation totals in mm |
|
| [show]Imperial conversion |
|---|
| J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D |
| | | | | | | | | | | |
| Average max. and min. temperatures in °F |
| Precipitation totals in inches |
|
| [hide]Climate data for Paris (1971–2000) |
|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
|---|
| Record high °C (°F) | 16.1
(61.0) | 21.4
(70.5) | 25.7
(78.3) | 30.2
(86.4) | 34.8
(94.6) | 37.6
(99.7) | 40.4
(104.7) | 39.5
(103.1) | 36.2
(97.2) | 28.4
(83.1) | 21
(70) | 17.1
(62.8) | 40.4
(104.7) |
|---|
| Average high °C (°F) | 6.9
(44.4) | 8.2
(46.8) | 11.8
(53.2) | 14.7
(58.5) | 19.0
(66.2) | 22.7
(72.9) | 25.2
(77.4) | 25.0
(77.0) | 20.8
(69.4) | 15.8
(60.4) | 10.4
(50.7) | 7.8
(46.0) | 15.5
(59.9) |
|---|
| Average low °C (°F) | 2.5
(36.5) | 2.8
(37.0) | 5.1
(41.2) | 6.8
(44.2) | 10.5
(50.9) | 13.3
(55.9) | 15.5
(59.9) | 15.4
(59.7) | 12.5
(54.5) | 9.2
(48.6) | 5.3
(41.5) | 3.6
(38.5) | 8.5
(47.3) |
|---|
| Record low °C (°F) | −14.6
(5.7) | −14.7
(5.5) | −9.1
(15.6) | −3.5
(25.7) | −0.1
(31.8) | 3.1
(37.6) | 6
(43) | 6.3
(43.3) | 1.8
(35.2) | −3.1
(26.4) | −14
(7) | −23.9
(−11.0) | −23.9
(−11.0) |
|---|
| Precipitation mm (inches) | 53.7
(2.114) | 43.7
(1.72) | 48.5
(1.909) | 53
(2.09) | 65
(2.56) | 54.6
(2.15) | 63.1
(2.484) | 43
(1.69) | 54.7
(2.154) | 59.7
(2.35) | 51.9
(2.043) | 58.7
(2.311) | 649.6
(25.575) |
|---|
| Avg. precipitation days | 10.2 | 9.3 | 10.4 | 9.4 | 10.3 | 8.6 | 8 | 6.9 | 8.5 | 9.5 | 9.7 | 10.7 | 111.5 |
|---|
| Sunshine hours | 55.8 | 86.8 | 130.2 | 174.0 | 201.5 | 219.0 | 238.7 | 220.1 | 171.0 | 127.1 | 75.0 | 49.6 | 1,630 |
|---|
| Source: Meteo France,[64] |
[edit] Cityscape
Panoramic view over the western side of Paris, at dusk, from the top of the Tour Montparnasse. Panorama of Paris as seen from the
Eiffel Tower as full 360-degree view.
[edit] Architecture
Much of contemporary Paris is the result of the vast
mid-19th century urban remodelling. For centuries, the city had been a labyrinth of narrow streets and
half-timber houses, but, beginning with
Haussman's advent, entire quarters were leveled to make way for wide avenues lined with neo-classical stone buildings of
bourgeoisie standing. Most of this 'new' Paris is the Paris we see today.
The building code has seen few changes since, and the
Second Empire plans are in many cases still followed. The "
alignement" law is still in place, which regulates building façades of new constructions according to a pre-defined street width. A building's height is limited according to the width of the streets it borders, and under the regulation, it is difficult to get an approval to build a taller building.
Many of Paris' important institutions are located outside the city limits. The financial (
La Défense) business district; the main food wholesale market (
Rungis); schools (
École Polytechnique;
ESSEC;
INSEAD;
HEC); research laboratories (in
Saclay or
Évry); the largest stadium (the
Stade de France), and the government offices (Ministry of Transportation) are located in the city's suburbs.
[edit] Districts and historical centres
[edit] City of Paris
- Place de la Bastille (4th, 11th and 12th arrondissements, right bank) is a district of great historical significance, for not just Paris, but also all of France. Because of its symbolic value, the square has often been a site of political demonstrations.
- Place de la Concorde (8th arrondissement, right bank) is at the foot of the Champs-Élysées, built as the "Place Louis XV", site of the infamous guillotine. The Egyptian obelisk is Paris' "oldest monument". On this place, on either side of the Rue Royale, there are two identical stone buildings: The eastern one houses the French Naval Ministry, the western the luxurious Hôtel de Crillon. Nearby Place Vendôme is famous for its fashionable and deluxe hotels (Hôtel Ritz and Hôtel de Vendôme) and its jewellers. Many famous fashion designers have had their salons located here.
- Champs-Élysées (8th arrondissement, right bank) is a 17th-century garden-promenade-turned-avenue connecting Place de la Concorde and Arc de Triomphe. It is one of the many tourist attractions and a major shopping street of Paris.
- Les Halles (1st arrondissement, right bank) were formerly Paris' central meat and produce market, and, since the late 1970s, are a major shopping centre around an important metro connection station (Châtelet – Les Halles, the biggest in the world). The old Halles were destroyed in 1971 and replaced by the Forum des Halles. The central market of Paris, the biggest wholesale food market in the world, was transferred to Rungis, in the southern suburbs.
- Le Marais (3rd and 4th arrondissements) is a trendy Right Bank district. It is architecturally very well-preserved, and some of the oldest houses and buildings of Paris can be found there. It is a very culturally open place. It is also known for its Chinese, Jewish and gay communities.
- Montmartre (18th arrondissement, right bank) is a historic area on the Butte, home to the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur. Montmartre has always had a history with artists and has many studios and cafés of many great artists in that area.
[edit] In the Paris area
- La Défense (straddling the communes of Courbevoie, Puteaux, and Nanterre, 2.5 km (2 mi) west of the city proper) is a key suburb of Paris and one of the largest business centres in the world. Built at the western end of a westward extension of Paris' historical axis from the Champs-Élysées, La Défense consists mainly of business high-rises. Initiated by the French government in 1958, the district hosts 3,500,000 m2 (37,673,686 sq ft) of offices, making it the largest district in Europe developed specifically for business. The Grande Arche (Great Arch) of la Défense, housing a part of the French Transports Minister's headquarters, ends at the central Esplanade, around which the district is organised.
[edit] Monuments and landmarks
Three of the most famous Parisian landmarks are the 12th-century
cathedral Notre Dame de Paris on the
Île de la Cité, the
Napoleonic Arc de Triomphe and the 19th-century
Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower was a "temporary" construction by
Gustave Eiffel for the 1889
Universal Exposition, but the tower was never dismantled and is now an enduring symbol of Paris. The
Historical axis is a line of monuments, buildings, and thoroughfares that run in a roughly straight line from the city-centre westwards.
The line of monuments begins with the
Louvre and continues through the
Tuileries Gardens, the
Champs-Élysées, and the
Arc de Triomphe, centred in the
Place de l'Étoile circus. From the 1960s, the line was prolonged even farther west to the
La Défense business district dominated by a square-shaped triumphal
Grande Arche of its own; this district hosts most of the
tallest skyscrapers in the Paris urban area. The
Invalides museum is the burial place for many great French soldiers, including
Napoleon; and the
Panthéon church is where many of France's illustrious men and women are buried.
The former
Conciergerie prison held some prominent
Ancien Régime members before their deaths during the
French Revolution. Another symbol of the Revolution are the two
Statues of Liberty located on the
Île aux Cygnes on the Seine and in the
Luxembourg Garden. A larger version of the statues was sent as a gift from France to
America in 1886 and now stands in
New York City's harbour.
The
Palais Garnier, built in the later
Second Empire period, houses the Paris Opéra and the
Paris Opera Ballet, while the former palace of the
Louvre now houses one of the most renowned museums in the world. The
Sorbonne is the most famous part of the
University of Paris and is based in the centre of the
Latin Quarter. Apart from Notre Dame de Paris, there are several other ecclesiastical masterpieces, including the Gothic 13th-century
Sainte-Chapelle palace chapel and the
Église de la Madeleine.
Panorama of Paris which shows some of its landmarks
[edit] Parks and gardens
Two of Paris' oldest and famous gardens are the
Tuileries Garden, created in the 16th century for a palace on the banks of the
Seine near the
Louvre, and the
Left bank Luxembourg Garden, another former private garden belonging to a château built for
Marie de' Medici in 1612. The
Jardin des Plantes, created by
Louis XIII's doctor
Guy de La Brosse for the cultivation of medicinal plants, was Paris' first public garden.
A few of Paris' other large gardens are
Second Empire creations: The former suburban parks of
Montsouris,
Parc des Buttes Chaumont, and
Parc Monceau (formerly known as the "folie de Chartres") are creations of
Napoleon III's engineer
Jean-Charles Alphand. Another project executed under the orders of
Baron Haussmann was the re-sculpting of Paris' western
Bois de Boulogne forest-parklands; the
Bois de Vincennes, on the city's opposite eastern end, received a similar treatment in years following.
Newer additions to Paris' park landscape are the
Parc de la Villette, built by the architect
Bernard Tschumi on the location of Paris' former
slaughterhouses; the
Parc André Citroën, and gardens being laid to the periphery along the traces of its former circular "
Petite Ceinture" railway line:
Promenade Plantée.
[edit] Water and sanitation
Paris in its early history had only the
Seine and
Bièvre rivers for water. Later forms of irrigation were a 1st-century Roman aqueduct from southerly Wissous (later left to ruin); sources from the Right bank hills from the late 11th century; from the 15th century, an
aqueduct built roughly along the path of the abandoned Wissous aqueduct; also, from 1809, the
canal de l'Ourcq, providing Paris with water from less-polluted rivers to the northeast of the
capital, and "God's Tears", a bi-annual rainstorm, which stopped in the early 20th century as a natural phenomenon. Paris would have its first constant and plentiful source of drinkable water only from the late 19th century.
From 1857, the civil engineer
Eugène Belgrand, under
Napoleon III's
Préfet Haussmann, oversaw the construction of a series of new aqueducts that brought water from locations all around the city to several reservoirs built atop the Capital's highest points of elevation. From then on, the new reservoir system became Paris' principal source of drinking water, and the remains of the old system, pumped into lower levels of the same reservoirs, were from then on used for the cleaning of Paris' streets. This system is still a major part of Paris' modern water-supply network.
Paris has over 2,400 km (1,491 mi) of underground passageways
[65] dedicated to the evacuation of Paris' liquid wastes. Most of these date from the late 19th century, a result of the combined plans of the
Préfet Baron Haussmann and the civil engineer
Eugène Belgrand to improve the then-very unsanitary conditions in the Capital. Maintained by a
round-the-clock service since their construction, only a small percentage of Paris' sewer
réseau has needed complete renovation.
[citation needed]
In 1982, then mayor
Jacques Chirac introduced the motorcycle-mounted
Motocrotte to remove
dog faeces from Paris streets.
[66] The project was abandoned in 2002 for a new and better enforced local law which now fines dog owners up to 500
euros for not removing their dog faeces. It was estimated at the time of their removal, that the fleet of 70 Motocrottes were cleaning up only 20% of dog faeces on Parisian street – at an annual cost of £3million.
[67]
[edit] Cemeteries
Paris' main cemetery was located to its outskirts on its
Left Bank from the beginning of its history
[citation needed], but this changed with the rise of
Catholicism and the construction of churches towards the city-centre, many of them having adjoining burial grounds for use by their parishes. Generations of a growing city population soon filled these cemeteries to overflowing, creating sometimes very unsanitary conditions.
Condemned from 1786, the contents of all Paris' parish cemeteries were transferred to a renovated section of Paris' then suburban stone mines outside the
Left Bank "Porte d'Enfer" city gate (today
14th arrondissement's
place Denfert-Rochereau). Part of this network of tunnels and remains can be visited today on the official tour of the Catacombs. After a tentative creation of several smaller suburban cemeteries,
Napoleon Bonaparte provided a more definitive solution in the creation of three massive Parisian cemeteries outside the city tax wall called the
Wall of the Farmers-General. Open from 1804, these were the cemeteries of
Père Lachaise,
Montmartre,
Montparnasse, and later
Passy.
When Paris annexed all communes to the inside of its much larger ring of suburban fortifications in 1860, its cemeteries were once again within its city walls. New suburban cemeteries were created in the early 20th century: The largest of these are the
Cimetière Parisien de Saint-Ouen, the
Cimetière Parisien de Bobigny-Pantin, the
Cimetière Parisien d'Ivry, and the
Cimetière Parisien de Bagneux.
[edit] Culture
[edit] Entertainment and performing arts
The largest
opera houses of Paris are the 19th century
Opéra Garnier (historical
Paris Opéra) and modern
Opéra Bastille; the former tends towards the more classic ballets and operas, and the latter provides a mixed repertoire of classic and modern. In middle of 19th century, there were two other active and competing opera houses:
Opéra-Comique (which still exists to this day) and
Théâtre Lyrique (which in modern times changed its profile and name to
Théâtre de la Ville).
Theatre traditionally has occupied a large place in Parisian culture. This still holds true today, and many of its most popular actors today are also stars of French television. Some of Paris' major theatres include
Bobino,
Théâtre Mogador, and the
Théâtre de la Gaîté-Montparnasse. Some Parisian theatres have also doubled as concert halls. Many of France's greatest musical legends, such as
Édith Piaf,
Maurice Chevalier,
Georges Brassens, and
Charles Aznavour, found their fame in Parisian concert halls: Legendary yet still-showing examples of these are
Le Lido,
Bobino,
l'Olympia and
le Splendid.
The
Élysées-Montmartre, much reduced from its original size, is a concert hall today. The
New Morning is one of few Parisian clubs still holding jazz concerts, but the same also specialises in "indie" music. In more recent times, the
Le Zénith hall in Paris,
La Villette quarter and a "
parc-omnisports" stadium in
Bercy serve as large-scale rock concert halls.
Several yearly festivals take place in Paris, such as
Rock en Seine. Parisians tend to share the same movie-going trends as many of the world's global cities, that is to say with a dominance of Hollywood-generated film entertainment. French cinema comes a close second, with major directors (
réalisateurs) such as
Claude Lelouch,
François Truffaut,
Jean-Luc Godard,
Claude Chabrol, and
Luc Besson, and the more slapstick/popular genre with director
Claude Zidi as an example. European and Asian films are also widely shown and appreciated. A specialty of Paris is its very large network of small movie theatres. In a given week, the movie fan has the choice between around 300 old or new movies from all over the world.
Many of Paris' concert/dance halls were transformed into movie theatres when the media became popular beginning in the 1930s. Later, most of the largest cinemas were divided into multiple, smaller rooms: Paris' largest cinema today is by far
le Grand Rex theatre with 2,800 seats, whereas other cinemas all have fewer than 1,000 seats. There is now a trend toward modern multiplexes that contain more than 10 or 20 screens.
[edit] Cuisine
Paris' culinary reputation has its base in the diverse origins of its inhabitants. In its beginnings, it owed much to the 19th-century organisation of a railway system that had Paris as a centre, making the capital a focal point for immigration from France's many different regions and gastronomical cultures. This reputation continues through today in a cultural diversity that has since spread to a worldwide level thanks to Paris' continued reputation for culinary
finesse and further immigration from increasingly distant climes.
Hotels were another result of widespread travel and
tourism, especially Paris' late-19th-century
Expositions Universelles (World's Fairs). Of the most luxurious of these, the
Hôtel Ritz appeared in the
Place Vendôme in 1898, and the
Hôtel de Crillon opened its doors on the north side of the
Place de la Concorde, starting in 1909.
[edit] Tourism
Since 1848, Paris has been a popular destination by rail network, with Paris at its centre. Among Paris' first mass attractions drawing international interest were the above-mentioned
Expositions Universelles that were the origin of Paris' many monuments, namely the
Eiffel Tower from 1889. These, in addition to the capital's
Second Empire embellishments, did much to make the city itself the attraction it is today.
Paris receives around 28 million tourists per year
[68] (42 in the whole Paris Region),
[23] of which 17 million are foreign visitors.
[69] Its museums and monuments are among its highest-esteemed attractions; tourism has motivated both the city and national governments to create new ones. The city's most prized museum, the
Louvre, welcomes over 8 million visitors a year, being by far the world's most-visited art museum. The city's cathedrals are another main attraction:
Notre Dame de Paris and the
Basilique du Sacré-Coeur receive 12 million and eight million visitors, respectively. The
Eiffel Tower, by far Paris' most famous monument, averages over six million visitors per year and more than 200 million since its construction.
Disneyland Paris is a major tourist attraction for visitors to not only Paris but also the rest of Europe, with 14.5 million visitors in 2007.
The Louvre is one of the world's largest and most famous museums, housing many works of art, including the
Mona Lisa (
La Joconde) and the
Venus de Milo statue. Works by
Pablo Picasso and
Auguste Rodin are found in
Musée Picasso and
Musée Rodin, respectively, while the
artistic community of Montparnasse is chronicled at the
Musée du Montparnasse. Starkly apparent with its service-pipe exterior, the
Centre Georges Pompidou, also known as
Beaubourg, houses the
Musée National d'Art Moderne.
Art and artifacts from the
Middle Ages and
Impressionist eras are kept in
Musée Cluny and
Musée d'Orsay, respectively, the former with the prized tapestry cycle
The Lady and the Unicorn. Paris' newest (and third-largest) museum, the
Musée du quai Branly, opened its doors in June 2006 and houses art from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.
Many of Paris' once-popular local establishments have come to cater to the tastes and expectations of tourists, rather than local patrons.
Le Lido, the
Moulin Rouge cabaret-dancehall, for example, is a staged dinner theatre spectacle, a dance display that was once but one aspect of the cabaret's former atmosphere. All of the establishment's former social or cultural elements, such as its ballrooms and gardens, are gone today. Much of Paris' hotel, restaurant and night entertainment trades have become heavily dependent on tourism.
[edit] Sports
Paris' most popular sport clubs are the
association football club
Paris Saint-Germain FC, the
basketball team
Paris-Levallois Basket, and the
rugby union club
Stade Français. The 80,000-seat
Stade de France, built for the
1998 FIFA World Cup, is located in
Saint-Denis. It is used for football, rugby union and track and field athletics. It hosts annually
French national rugby team's home matches of the
Six Nations Championship,
French national association football team for friendlies and major tournaments qualifiers, and several important matches of the Stade Français rugby team.
In addition to
Paris Saint-Germain FC, the city has a number of other amateur football clubs:
Paris FC,
Red Star,
RCF Paris and
Stade Français Paris. The last is the football section of the omnisport club of the same name, most notable for its rugby team.
The Paris region currently boasts two teams in the top level of French rugby union,
Top 14. Currently, the most prominent side is Stade Français, which is also the only one of the two to be based in the city proper. The other Top 14 team in the region is
Racing Métro 92, currently based in the western suburb of
Colombes. Racing Métro is the successor to Racing Club de France, which contested the first-ever French championship final against Stade Français in 1892.
Paris also hosted the
1900 and
1924 Olympic Games and was venue for the
1938 and
1998 FIFA World Cups and for the
2007 Rugby World Cup.
Although the starting point and the route of the famous
Tour de France varies each year, the final stage always finishes in Paris, and, since 1975, the race has
finished on the Champs-Elysées.
Tennis is another popular sport in Paris and throughout France. The
French Open, held every year on the red clay of the
Roland Garros National Tennis Centre near the
Bois de Boulogne, is one of the four
Grand Slam events of the world professional tennis tour. The
2006 UEFA Champions League Final between
Arsenal and
FC Barcelona was played in the
Stade de France. Paris hosted the
2007 Rugby World Cup final at Stade de France on 20 October 2007.
[edit] Economy
French Ministry of Finance
With a 2009
GDP of
€552.1 billion
[17] (US$768.9 billion), the Paris region has one of the
highest GDPs in Europe, making it an engine of the global economy; were it a country, it would rank as the seventeenth-largest economy in the world, almost as large as the Dutch economy.
[70] The Paris Region is France's premier centre of economic activity: While its population accounted for 18.8% of the total population of
metropolitan France in 2009,
[71] its GDP accounted for 29.5% of metropolitan France's GDP.
[17] Activity in the
Paris urban area, though diverse, does not have a leading specialised industry (such as Los Angeles with entertainment industries or London and New York with financial industries in addition to their other activities). Recently, the Paris economy has been shifting towards high-value-added service industries (
finance, IT services, etc.) and high-tech manufacturing (electronics, optics, aerospace, etc.).
The Paris region's most intense economic activity through the central
Hauts-de-Seine département and suburban
La Défense business district places Paris' economic centre to the west of the city, in a triangle between the
Opéra Garnier,
La Défense (the largest dedicated business district in Europe.
[22]), and the
Val de Seine. Paris' administrative borders have little consequences on the limits of its economic activity: Although most workers commute from the suburbs to work in the city, many commute from the city to work in the suburbs. Although the Paris economy is largely dominated by
services, it remains an important manufacturing powerhouse of Europe, especially in industrial sectors such as automobiles, aeronautics, and electronics. Over recent decades, the local economy has moved towards high-value-added activities, in particular business services. The Paris Region hosts the headquarters of 33 of the
Fortune Global 500 companies.
[21]
The 1999 census indicated that, of the 5,089,170 persons employed in the
Paris urban area, 16.5% worked in business services; 13.0% in commerce (retail and wholesale trade); 12.3% in manufacturing; 10.0% in
public administrations and
defence; 8.7% in
health services; 8.2% in transportation and communications; 6.6% in education, and the remaining 24.7% in many other economic sectors. In the manufacturing sector, the largest employers were the
electronic and electrical industry (17.9% of the total manufacturing workforce in 1999) and the publishing and printing industry (14.0% of the total manufacturing workforce), with the remaining 68.1% of the manufacturing workforce distributed among many other industries.
Tourism and tourist related services employ 6.2% of Paris' workforce, and 3.6% of all workers within the
Paris Region.
[72] Unemployment in the Paris "immigrant
ghettos" ranges from 20 to 40%, according to varying sources.
[73]
[edit] Health
Health care and emergency medical service in the city of Paris and its suburbs are provided by the
Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), a public hospital system that employs more than 90,000 people (practitioners and administratives) in 44 hospitals. It is the largest hospital system in Europe.
[edit] Sociology
Paris Ouest (ie: Western Paris) is an expression referring to the wealthiest, most exclusive and prestigious residential area of France.
Located in the central and western part of Paris, it roughly follows Paris'
Voie Royale (
Royal Way) or
Axe historique (
historical axis): a line of monuments, buildings and thoroughfares that extends from the former
royal Palace of the
Louvre through the
Tuileries, the
Place de la Concorde, the
Champs Élysées, the
Place de l'Etoile and all the way to
Neuilly-sur-Seine.
Paris Ouest has long been known as French high society's favorite place of residence, comparable to New York's
Upper East Side, LA's
Beverly Hills[74] or London's
Mayfair and
Belgravia, to such an extent that the phrase
"Paris Ouest" has been associated with great
wealth,
elitism and social hegemony in French popular culture as well as in some masterpieces of French literature such as
Balzac's
La comédie humaine or
Proust's
In Search of Lost Time.
The cultural, social and economic influence
[75] of the area has played a prominent role throughout French history and is still highly vivid in nowadays' French elite.
Paris Ouest's standards of life were also highly influential in educating foreign elites, especially in Europe, Russia and Northern America (see
Frick Collection). And so
Paris Ouest should be seen as not only a geographic area but also a social attitude
[76] symbolized by French high society's
habits and way of life.
The "
Rive Gauche" (
Left Bank of the
Seine) generally implies a sense of bohemianism and creativity as it was the Paris of artists, writers, philosophers and students. The counterpart of the Rive Gauche of Paris is the
Rive Droite (
Right Bank), a term used to refer to a level of elegance and sophistication not found in the more bohemian Left Bank.
[edit] Demographics
City proper, urban area, and metropolitan area population from 1800 to 2010.
Demographics within the Paris Region
(according to the INSEE 2008 census)
| Note that the map above is outdated. It shows the extent of the urban and metropolitan areas of Paris as of the 1999 census. |
| Île-de-France departments |
| Areas | Population
2008 census | Area | Density | 1999-2008
pop. growth |
City of Paris
(department 75) | 2,211,297 | 105 km2 (41 sq mi) | 20,169 /km2 (52,240 /sq mi) | +0.45%/year |
Inner ring
(Petite couronne)
(Depts. 92, 93, 94) | 4,366,961 | 657 km2 (254 sq mi) | 6,647 /km2 (17,220 /sq mi) | +0.89%/year |
Outer ring
(Grande couronne)
(Depts. 77, 78, 91, 95) | 5,081,002 | 11,250 km2 (4,344 sq mi) | 452 /km2 (1,170 /sq mi) | +0.68%/year |
Île-de-France
(entire region) | 11,659,260 | 12,012 km2 (4,638 sq mi) | 971 /km2 (2,510 /sq mi) | +0.71%/year |
| Statistical Areas (INSEE 2008 census) |
| Areas | Population
2008 census | Area | Density | 1999-2008
pop. growth |
Urban area
(Paris agglomeration) | 10,354,675 | 2,845 km2 (1,098 sq mi) | 3,640 /km2 (9,400 /sq mi) | +0.70%/year |
Metro area
(Paris metropolitan area) | 12,089,098 | 17,175 km2 (6,631 sq mi) | 704 /km2 (1,820 /sq mi) | +0.71%/year |
The population of the city of Paris was 2,125,246 at the 1999
census, lower than its historical peak of 2.9 million in 1921. The city's population loss mirrors the experience of most other core cities in the developed world that have not expanded their boundaries. The principal factors in the process are a significant decline in household size, and a dramatic migration of residents to the suburbs between 1962 and 1975.
Factors in the migration include
de-industrialisation, high rent, the
gentrification of many inner quarters, the transformation of living space into offices, and greater affluence among working families. The city's population loss was one of the most severe among international municipalities and the largest for any that had achieved more than 2,000,000 residents. These losses are generally seen as negative for the city; the city administration is trying to reverse them with some success, as the population estimate of July 2004 showed a population increase for the first time since 1954, reaching a total of 2,144,700 inhabitants.
[edit] Density
Paris is one of the most densely populated cities in the
world. Its density, excluding the outlying woodland parks of
Boulogne and
Vincennes, was 24,448 inhabitants per square kilometre (63,320/sq mi) in the 1999 official census, which could be compared only with some
Asian megapolis. Even including the two woodland areas, its population density was 20,164 inhabitants per square kilometre (52,224.5/sq mi), the fifth-most-densely populated commune in France following
Le Pré-Saint-Gervais,
Vincennes,
Levallois-Perret, and
Saint-Mandé, all of which border the city proper.
The most sparsely populated quarters are the western and central office and administration-focussed
arrondissements. The city's population is densest in the northern and eastern arrondissements; the
11th arrondissement had a density of 40,672 inhabitants per square kilometre (105,340/sq mi) in 1999, and some of the same arrondissement's eastern quarters had densities close to 100,000/km
2 (260,000/sq mi) in the same year.
[edit] Paris agglomeration
The city of Paris covers an area much smaller than the urban area of which it is the core. At present, Paris' real urbanisation, defined by the
pôle urbain (urban area) statistical area, covers 2,845 km
2 (1,098 sq mi),
[77] or an area about 27 times larger than the city itself. The administration of Paris' urban growth is divided between itself and its surrounding départements: Paris' closest ring of three adjoining departments, or petite couronne ("small ring") are fully saturated with urban growth, and the ring of four departments outside of these, the grande couronne
départements, are only covered in their inner regions by Paris' urbanisation. These eight
départements form the larger administrative
Île-de-France région; most of this region is filled, and overextended in places, by the Paris aire urbaine.
The Paris agglomeration has shown a steady rate of growth since the end of the late 16th century
French Wars of Religion, save brief setbacks during the
French Revolution and
World War II[citation needed]. Suburban development has accelerated in recent years: With an estimated total of 11.4 million inhabitants for 2005, the
Île-de-France région shows a rate of growth double that of the 1990s.
[78][79]
[edit] Immigration
By law, French censuses do not ask questions regarding ethnicity or religion, but do gather information concerning one's country of birth. From this it is still possible to determine that Paris and its
aire urbaine (metropolitan area) is one of the most multi-cultural in Europe: At the 1999 census, 19.4% of its total population was born outside of
metropolitan France.
[80] At the same census, 4.2% of the Paris
aire urbaine's population were recent immigrants (people who had immigrated to France between 1990 and 1999),
[81] in their majority from
Asia and
Africa.
[82] 37% of all immigrants in France live in the Paris region.
[73]
The first wave of international migration to Paris started as early as 1820 with the arrivals of German peasants fleeing an agricultural crisis in their homeland. Several waves of immigration followed continuously until today: Italians and central European Jews during the 19th century; Russians after the
revolution of 1917 and Armenians fleeing
genocide in the Ottoman Empire;
[83] colonial citizens during
World War I and later; Poles between the two world wars; Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese, and North Africans from the 1950s to the 1970s; North African Jews after the independence of those countries; Africans and Asians since then.
[84]
The Paris metropolitan region or "aire urbaine" is estimated to be home to some 1.7 million Muslims of all races, making up between 10%–15% of the area's population. However, without official data, the margin of error of these estimates is extremely high as it is based on one's country of birth (someone born in a Muslim country or born to a parent from a Muslim country is considered as a "potential Muslim").
[85] According to the North American Jewish Data Bank, an estimated 310,000 Jews also live in Paris and the surrounding Île-de-France region, an area with a population of 11.7 million inhabitants. Paris has historically been a magnet for immigrants, hosting one of the largest concentrations of immigrants in Europe today.
[86][87][88]
[edit] Immigrants and their children in départements of Île-de-France (Greater Paris)
According to
INSEE, French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies, responsible for the production and analysis of official statistics in France, 20% of people living in the city of Paris are immigrants and 41.3% of people under 20 have at least one immigrant parent.
[89] Among the young people under 18, 12.1% are of
Maghrebi origin, 9.9% of
Subsaharan African origin (not including persons from French West Indies) and 4.0% of
South European origin.
[90] About four million people, or 35% of the population of the
Île-de-France, are either immigrants (17%) or have at least one immigrant parent (18%).
[91]
| Département | Immigrants | Children under 20 with at least one immigrant parent |
|---|
| Number | % département | % Ile-de-France | Number | % département | % Ile-de-France |
| Paris (75) | 436'576 | 20 | 22.4 | 162'635 | 41.3 | 15.4 |
| Seine-Saint-Denis (93) | 394'831 | 26.5 | 20.2 | 234'837 | 57.1 | 22.2 |
| Hauts-de-Seine (92) | 250'190 | 16.3 | 12.8 | 124'501 | 34 | 11.8 |
| Val-de-Marne (94) | 234'633 | 18.1 | 12 | 127'701 | 40 | 12.1 |
| Val-d’Oise (95) | 185'890 | 16.1 | 9.5 | 124'644 | 38.5 | 11.8 |
| Yvelines (78) | 161'869 | 11.6 | 8.3 | 98'755 | 26.4 | 9.3 |
| Essonne (91) | 150'980 | 12.6 | 7.7 | 94'003 | 29.6 | 8.9 |
| Seine-et-Marne (77) | 135'654 | 10.7 | 7 | 90'319 | 26 | 8.5 |
| Île-de-France | 1'950'623 | 16.9 | 100 | 1'057'394 | 37.1 | 100 |
(source : Insee, EAR 2006)
Reading: 436 576 immigrants live in Paris, representing 20 % of Parisians and 22.4 % of immigrants in Ile-de-France. 162 635 children under 20 with at least one immigrant parent live in Paris, representing 41.3% of the total of children under 20 in Paris and 15.4 % of the total of children under 20 with at least one immigrant parent in Ile-de-France.
[edit] Administration
Paris, its administrative limits unchanged since 1860 (save for the addition of two large parks), is one of a few cities that have not evolved politically with its real demographic growth; this issue is at present being discussed in plans for a "Grand Paris" (Greater Paris) that will extend Paris' administrative limits to embrace much more of its urban tissue.
[92]
[edit] Capital of France
Paris is the seat of France's national government. For the executive, the two chief officers each have their own official residences, which also serve as their offices. The
President of France resides at the
Élysée Palace in the
8th arrondissement, while the
Prime Minister's seat is at the
Hôtel Matignon in the
7th arrondissement. Government ministries are located in various parts of the city; many are located in the 7th arrondissement, near the Matignon.
The two houses of the French Parliament are also located on the
Left Bank. The upper house, the
Senate, meets in the
Palais du Luxembourg in the
6th arrondissement, while the more important lower house, the
Assemblée Nationale, meets in the
Palais Bourbon in the
7th. The
President of the Senate, the second-highest public official in France after the President of the Republic, resides in the "Petit Luxembourg", a smaller palace annex to the
Palais du Luxembourg.
[citation needed]
France's highest courts are located in Paris. The
Court of Cassation, the highest court in the judicial order, which reviews criminal and civil cases, is located in the
Palais de Justice on the
Île de la Cité, while the
Conseil d'État, which provides legal advice to the executive and acts as the highest court in the administrative order, judging litigation against public bodies, is located in the
Palais Royal in the
1st arrondissement.
[citation needed]
The
Constitutional Council, an advisory body with ultimate authority on the constitutionality of laws and government decrees, also meets in the
Palais Royal.
[citation needed]
[edit] City government
Paris has been a
commune (municipality) since 1834 (and also briefly between 1790 and 1795). At the 1790 division (during the
French Revolution) of France into communes, and again in 1834, Paris was a city only half its modern size, but, in 1860, it annexed bordering communes, some entirely, to create the new administrative map of twenty
municipal arrondissements the city still has today. These municipal subdivisions describe a clockwise spiral outward from its most central, the
1st arrondissement.
[citation needed]
In 1790, Paris became the
préfecture (seat) of the
Seine département, which covered much of the Paris region. In 1968, it was split into four smaller ones: The city of Paris became a distinct
département of its own, retaining the Seine's departmental number of 75 (originating from the Seine
département's position in France's alphabetical list), while three new
départements of
Hauts-de-Seine,
Seine-Saint-Denis and
Val-de-Marne were created and given the numbers 92, 93, and 94, respectively. The result of this division is that today Paris' limits as a
département are exactly those of its limits as a
commune, a situation unique in France.
[citation needed]
[edit] Municipal offices
Each of Paris' twenty arrondissements has a directly elected council (
conseil d'arrondissement), which, in turn, elects an arrondissement mayor. A selection of members from each arrondissement council form the
Council of Paris (
conseil de Paris), which, in turn, elects the
mayor of Paris.
In
medieval times, Paris was governed by a merchant-elected municipality whose head was the
provost of the merchants. In addition to regulating city commerce, the provost of the merchants was responsible for some civic duties such as the guarding of city walls and the cleaning of city streets. The creation of the
provost of Paris from the 13th century diminished the merchant Provost's responsibilities and powers considerably.
A direct representative of the king, in a role resembling somewhat the
préfet of later years, the Provost (
prévôt) of Paris oversaw the application and execution of law and order in the city and its surrounding
prévôté (county) from his office in the
Grand Châtelet. Many functions from both provost offices were transferred to the office of the crown-appointed
lieutenant general of police upon its creation in 1667. For centuries, the
prévôt and magistrates of the Châtelet clashed with the administrators of the
Hôtel de Ville over jurisdiction;
[93] the latter notably included the
quartiniers, each of whom was responsible for one of the sixteen
quartiers (which were in turn divided into four
cinquantaines, each with its
cinquantainier, and those in turn were divided into
dizaines, administered by
dizainiers):
All of these men were in principle elected by the local bourgeois. At any one time, therefore, 336 men had shared administrative responsibility for street cleaning and maintenance, for public health, law, and order. The quartiniers maintained the official lists of bourgeois de Paris, ran local elections, could impose fines for breaches of the bylaws, and had a role in tax assessment. They met at the Hôtel de Ville to confer on matters of citywide importance and each year selected eight of "the most notable inhabitants of the quarter", who together with other local officials would elect the city council.[94]
Even though in the course of the 18th century these elections became purely ceremonial, choosing candidates already selected by the royal government, the memory of genuine municipal independence remained strong: "The Hôtel de Ville continued to bulk large in the awareness of bourgeois Parisians, its importance extending far beyond its real role in city government."
[95]
Paris' last
Prévôt des marchands was assassinated the afternoon of the 14 July 1789 uprising that was the
French Revolution Storming of the Bastille. Paris became an official "commune" from the creation of the administrative division on 14 December the same year, and its provisional "Paris commune" revolutionary municipality was replaced with the city's first municipal constitution and government from 9 October 1790.
[96] Through the turmoil of the 1794
Thermidorian Reaction, it became apparent that revolutionary Paris' political independence was a threat to any governing power: The office of mayor was abolished the same year, and its municipal council one year later.
Although the municipal council was recreated in 1834, for most of the 19th and 20th centuries, Paris — along with the larger
Seine département of which it was a centre — was under the direct control of the state-appointed
préfet of the Seine, in charge of general affairs there; the state-appointed
Prefect of Police was in charge of police in the same jurisdiction. Save for a few brief occasions, the city did not have a mayor until 1977, and the Paris Prefecture of Police is still under state control today.
Despite its dual existence as
commune and
département, Paris has a single council to govern both; the Council of Paris, presided over by the mayor of Paris, meets as either as a municipal council (
conseil municipal) or a departmental council (
conseil général), depending on the issue to be debated.
Paris' modern administrative organisation still retains some traces of the former Seine
département jurisdiction. The
Prefecture of Police (also directing Paris' fire brigades), for example, has still a jurisdiction extending to Paris'
petite couronne of bordering three
départements for some operations such as fire protection or rescue operations, and is still directed by France's national government. Paris has no municipal police force, although it does have its own brigade of traffic wardens.
[edit] Capital of the Île-de-France région
As part of a 1961 nation-wide administrative effort to consolidate regional economies, Paris as a
département became the capital of the new
région of the District of Paris, renamed the
Île-de-France région in 1976. It encompasses the Paris
département and its seven closest
départements. Its regional council members, since 1986, have been chosen by direct elections.
The prefect of the Paris
département (who served as the prefect of the Seine
département before 1968) is also prefect of the Île-de-France
région, although the office lost much of its power following the creation of the office of mayor of Paris in 1977.
[edit] Intercommunality
Few of the above changes have taken into account Paris' existence as an
agglomeration. Unlike in most of France's major urban areas such as
Lille and
Lyon, there is no
intercommunal entity in the Paris urban area, no intercommunal council treating the problems of the region's dense urban core as a whole; Paris' alienation of its suburbs is indeed a problem today, and considered by many
[who?] to be the main causes of civil unrest such as the suburban riots in 2005. A direct result of these unfortunate events is propositions for a more efficient metropolitan structure to cover the city of Paris and some of the suburbs, ranging from a socialist idea of a loose "metropolitan conference" (
conférence métropolitaine) to the right-wing idea of a more integrated
Grand Paris ("Greater Paris").
One of the main reasons for such incoherence has been the fear felt by the French State in front of such a huge agglomeration and the desire to tap its wealth.
[citation needed] Since the Middle Ages and particularly since the 1649 troubles (La Fronde), Paris has been considered as a source of danger. The authoritarian king Louis the XIVth built Versailles as a new political center, away from the dangerous city crowds. The conflict between the State and the City reached a climax with the Revolution of 1871 (La Commune) : the French Assembly in Bordeaux decided Paris would no longer be the capital city, while the Paris Commune discussed declaring Paris independent of France. Since then, one of the foundations of the centralized French State has been to widely distribute Paris wealth while depriving the agglomeration and keeping it divided into 8 departments and 1 200 communes. (For an analysis of the long hostility against Paris, see
[2][verification needed] ). Of the 22 metropolitan French regions, 19 are regularly subsidized — mostly by Paris resources — while Paris suburbs lack necessary equipment.
[edit] Education
In the early 9th century, the emperor
Charlemagne mandated all churches to give lessons in reading, writing and basic arithmetic to their parishes, and cathedrals to give a higher-education in the finer arts of language,
physics,
music, and
theology; at that time, Paris was already one of France's major cathedral towns and beginning its rise to fame as a scholastic centre. By the early 13th century, the
Île de la Cité Notre-Dame cathedral school had many famous teachers, and the controversial teachings of some of these led to the creation of a separate Left-Bank
Sainte-Genevieve University that would become the centre of Paris' scholastic
Latin Quarter best represented by the
Sorbonne university.
Twelve centuries later, education in Paris and the Paris region (
Île-de-France région) employs approximately 330,000 persons, 170,000 of whom are teachers and professors teaching approximately 2.9 million children and students in around 9,000 primary, secondary, and higher education schools and institutions.
[97]
[edit] Primary and secondary education
Paris is home to several of France's most prestigious high-schools such as
Lycée Louis-le-Grand,
Lycée Henri-IV and
Lycée Condorcet. Other high-schools of international renown in the Paris area include the
Lycée International de Saint Germain-en-Laye and the
École Active Bilingue Jeannine Manuel.
[edit] Higher-education
As of the academic year 2004–2005, the Paris Region's 17 public universities, with its 359,749 registered students,
[98] comprise the largest concentration of university students in Europe.
[99] The Paris Region's prestigious
grandes écoles and scores of university-independent private and public schools have an additional 240,778 registered students, that, together with the university population, creates a grand total of 600,527 students in higher education that year.
[98]
[edit] Universities
The cathedral of
Notre-Dame was the first centre of higher-education before the creation of the
University of Paris. The
universitas was chartered by King
Philip Augustus in 1200, as a corporation granting teachers (and their students) the right to rule themselves independently from crown law and taxes. At the time, many classes were held in open air. Non-Parisian students and teachers would stay in hostels, or "colleges", created for the
boursiers coming from afar.
Already famous by the 13th century, the University of Paris had students from all of Europe. Paris'
Rive Gauche scholastic centre, dubbed "
Latin Quarter" as classes were taught in Latin then, would eventually regroup around the college created by
Robert de Sorbon from 1257, the
Collège de Sorbonne. The University of Paris in the 19th century had six faculties: law, science, medicine, pharmaceutical studies, literature, and theology.
Following the
1968 student riots, there was an extensive reform of the University of Paris, in an effort to disperse the centralised student body. The following year, the former unique University of Paris was split between thirteen autonomous universities ("Paris I" to "Paris XIII") located throughout the City of Paris and its suburbs. Each of these universities inherited only some of the departments of the old University of Paris, and are not generalist universities. Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne, Paris II Pantheon-Assas, Paris-Descartes, and Paris-Nanterre, inherited the Law School;
Paris Descartes University inherited the School of Medicine as well; Pierre and Marie Curie University and Paris-Diderot the scientific departments, the
Paris-Sorbonne University inherited the Arts and Humanities, etc.
In 1991, four more universities were created in the suburbs of Paris, reaching a total of seventeen public universities for the Paris (
Île-de-France)
région. These new universities were given names (based on the name of the suburb in which they are located) and not numbers like the previous thirteen:
University of Cergy-Pontoise,
University of Évry Val d'Essonne,
University of Marne-la-Vallée, École supérieure Robert De Sorbon and
University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
[edit] Grandes écoles
The Paris region hosts France's highest concentration of the prestigious
grandes écoles – specialised centres of higher-education outside the public university structure. The prestigious public universities are usually considered
grands établissements. Most of the
grandes écoles were relocated to the suburbs of Paris in the 1960s and 1970s, in new campuses much larger than the old campuses within the crowded city of Paris, though the
École Normale Supérieure has remained on rue d'Ulm in the
5th arrondissement.
The Paris area has a high number of engineering schools, led by the prestigious Paris Institute of Technology (
ParisTech) which comprises several colleges such as
École Polytechnique,
École des Mines,
AgroParisTech,
Télécom Paris,
Arts et Métiers, and
École des Ponts et Chaussées. There are also many business schools, including
INSEAD,
ESSEC,
HEC and
ESCP Europe. The administrative school such as
ENA has been relocated to
Strasbourg, the political science school
Sciences-Po is still located in Paris'
Left bank 7th arrondissement. The Parisian school of journalism
CELSA department of the
Paris-Sorbonne University is located in Neuilly-sur-Seine .
The
grandes écoles system is supported by a number of preparatory schools that offer courses of two to three years' duration called
Classes Préparatoires, also known as
classes prépas or simply
prépas. These courses provide entry to the grandes écoles. Many of the best prépas are located in Paris, including
Lycée Louis-le-Grand,
Lycée Henri-IV,
Lycée Saint-Louis,
Lycée Janson de Sailly, and
Lycée Stanislas.
[100] Two other top-ranking
prépas (
Lycée Hoche and
Lycée privé Sainte-Geneviève) are located in
Versailles, near Paris. Student selection is based on school grades and teacher remarks.
Prépas are known to be very demanding in terms of work load and psychological stress.
[edit] Libraries
The
Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) operates libraries in Paris, among them François-Mitterrand Library, Richelieu Library, Louvois, Opéra Library, and Arsenal Library.
[101]
The American Library in Paris opened in 1920. It is a part of a private, non-profit organization.
[102] The modern library originated from cases of books sent by the American Library Association to U.S. soldiers in France.
[103] An incarnation existed in the 1850s.
[104]
[edit] Transport
Paris is the head of barge and ship navigation on the Seine and is the fourth most important port in France (after Marseille, Le Havre, and Dunkerque). The Loire, Rhine, Rhone, Meuse and Scheldt rivers can be reached by canals connecting with the Seine. Paris is also a major rail, highway, and air transportation hub. Three international airports,
Orly,
Roissy and
le Bourget, serve the city. The city's subway system, the
métro, was opened in 1900.
Paris has been building its transportation system throughout history and continuous improvements are on-going. The Syndicat des transports d'Île-de-France (STIF), formerly
Syndicat des transports parisiens (STP) oversees the transit network in the region.
[106]
The members of this syndicate are the
Île-de-France region and the eight departments of this region. The syndicate coordinates public transport and contracts it out to the
RATP (operating 654
bus lines, the
Métro, three
tramway lines, and sections of the
RER), the
SNCF (operating
suburban rails, one
tramway line and the other sections of the RER) and the
Optile consortium of private operators managing 1,070 minor bus lines.
The
Métro is Paris' most important transportation system. The system, with 300 stations (384 stops) connected by 214 km (133.0 mi) of rails, comprises 16 lines, identified by numbers from 1 to 14, with two minor lines, 3bis and 7bis, so numbered because they used to be branches of their respective original lines, and only later became independent. In October 1998, the new
line 14 was inaugurated after a 70‑year hiatus in inaugurating fully new métro lines. Because of the short distance between stations on the Métro network, lines were too slow to be extended further into the suburbs, as is the case in most other cities. As such, an additional express network, the
RER, has been created since the 1960s to connect more-distant parts of the urban area. The RER consists in the integration of modern city-centre subway and pre-existing suburban rail. Nowadays, the RER network comprises five lines, 257 stops and 587 km (365 mi) of rails.
In addition, the
Paris region is served by a light rail network of four lines, the
tramway:
Line T1 runs from
Saint-Denis to
Noisy-le-Sec,
line T2 runs from
La Défense to Porte de Versailles,
line T3 runs from Pont du Garigliano to Porte d'Ivry,
line T4 runs from
Bondy to
Aulnay-sous-Bois. Six new light rail lines are currently in various stages of development.
The new ferry service
Voguéo was inaugurated in June 2008, on the rivers Seine and Marne. Paris is a central hub of the national rail network. The six major railway stations —
Gare du Nord,
Gare Montparnasse,
Gare de l'Est,
Gare de Lyon,
Gare d'Austerlitz, and
Gare Saint-Lazare — are connected to three networks: The
TGV serving four
High-speed rail lines, the normal speed
Corail trains, and the suburban rails (
Transilien). Paris is served by two major airports:
Orly Airport, which is south of Paris; and the
Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, in
Roissy-en-France, which is one of the busiest in the world and is the hub for the unofficial
flag carrier Air France. A third and much smaller airport,
Beauvais Tillé Airport, located in the town of
Beauvais, 70 km (43 mi) to the north of the city, is used by charter and low-cost airlines. The fourth airport,
Le Bourget, nowadays hosts only business jets, air trade shows and the aerospace museum.
The city is also the most important hub of France's
motorway network, and is surrounded by three orbital freeways: the
Périphérique, which follows the approximate path of 19th-century fortifications around Paris, the
A86 motorway in the inner suburbs, and finally the
Francilienne motorway in the outer suburbs. Paris has an extensive road network with over 2,000 km (1,243 mi) of highways and motorways. By road, Brussels can be reached in three hours, Frankfurt in six hours and Barcelona in 12 hours. By train, London is now just two hours and 15 minutes away, Brussels can be reached in 1 hour and 22 minutes (up to 26 departures/day), Amsterdam in 3 hours and 18 minutes (up to 10 departures/day), Cologne in 3 hours and 14 minutes (6 departures/day), and Marseille, Bordeaux, and other cities in southern France in three hours.
[edit] Cycling
Paris offers a
bike sharing system called
Vélib' with more than 20,000 public bicycles distributed at 1,450 parking stations, which can be rented for short and medium distances including
one way trips.
[edit] International relations
Paris has
numerous partner cities,
[107][108] but according to the motto "Only Paris is worthy of Rome; only Rome is worthy of Paris.",
[109][110][111] the only
sister city of Paris is
Rome.
[edit] Gallery
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ INSEE local statistics, including Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes.
- ^ a b (French) Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques. "Commune : Paris (75056) – Thème : Évolution et structure de la population". http://www.recensement-2008.insee.fr/chiffresCles.action?codeMessage=5&plusieursReponses=true&zoneSearchField=PARIS&codeZone=75056-COM&idTheme=3&rechercher=Rechercher. Retrieved 2011-08-31.
- ^ "Unité urbaine 2010 : Paris (00851)" (in French). Insee. http://www.recensement.insee.fr/chiffresCles.action?zoneSearchField=PARIS&codeZone=00851-UU2010&idTheme=3. Retrieved 2011-10-20.
- ^ a b "Aire urbaine 2010 : Paris (001)" (in French). Insee. http://www.recensement.insee.fr/chiffresCles.action?codeMessage=5&plusieursReponses=true&zoneSearchField=PARIS&codeZone=001-AU2010&idTheme=3&rechercher=Rechercher. Retrieved 2011-10-20.
- ^ Stefan Helders, World Gazetteer. "World Metropolitan Areas". http://www.world-gazetteer.com/wg.php?x=&men=gcis&lng=en&dat=32&srt=pnan&col=aohdq&va=&pt=a. Retrieved 2007-01-18.
- ^ Josef Gugler, World cities beyond the West: globalization, development, and inequality, 2004 (p. 396)
- ^ Frederick Converse Beach, George Edwin Rines, The Americana, Volume 16, 1912.
- ^ Frannie Léautier, World Bank, Cities in a globalizing world: governance, performance, and sustainability, 2006. (p. 115)
- ^ Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) Study Group and Network, Loughborough University. "The World According to GaWC 2010". http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/world2010t.html. Retrieved 2010-04-19.
- ^ PricewaterhouseCoopers Media Centre – Emerging market city economies set to rise rapidly in global GDP rankings says PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Ukmediacentre.pwc.com (2009-11-02). Retrieved on 2010-12-16.
- ^ "Global Power City Index 2009" (PDF). http://www.mori-m-foundation.or.jp/english/research/project/6/pdf/GPCI2009_English.pdf. Retrieved 2011-09-25.
- ^ The Wealth Report 2010 | Knight Frank | Citi Private Bank. Knight Frank. Retrieved on 2010-12-16.
- ^ Greenest cities in Europe. City Mayors (2010-03-03). Retrieved on 2010-12-16.
- ^ "Monocle, Issue June 2010". Monocle.com. 2010-03-26. http://www.monocle.com/specials/35_cities/. Retrieved 2011-09-25.
- ^ Economist Intelligence Unit
- ^ ECA-international.com
- ^ a b c (French) Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques. "Produits Intérieurs Bruts Régionaux (PIBR) en valeur en millions d'euros" (XLS). http://www.insee.fr/fr/ppp/bases-de-donnees/donnees-detaillees/pib-va-reg/pib-va-reg-pib-1990-2009.xls. Retrieved 2010-11-09.
- ^ According to Eurostat : 490,946 million PPS for Île-de-France ; 376,451 million PPS for Greater London (Inner and Outer London)
- ^ According to PricewaterhouseCoopers : 565 $BN for London ; 564 $BN for Paris
- ^ According to PricewaterhouseCoopers
- ^ a b Fortune. "Global Fortune 500 by countries: France". CNN. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2011/countries/France.html. Retrieved 2011-07-22.
- ^ a b Logistics-in-Europe.com, Vertical Mail. "Paris Île-de-France, a head start in Europe". http://www.logistics-in-europe.com/pidf-gb/index.html. Retrieved 2007-10-04.
- ^ a b c d e Martine Delassus, Florence Humbert, Christine Tarquis, Julie Veaute (February 2011). "Paris Region Key Figures". Paris Region Economic Development Agency. http://www.paris-iledefrance.cci.fr/images/publications/pdf/chiffres_cles_en/2011/chiffres_cles_en_2011_complet.pdf. Retrieved 2011-07-21. (PDF file)
- ^ "Innovation Cities Top 100 Index 2011: City Rankings". 2 Think Now. October 2011. http://www.innovation-cities.com/. Retrieved 2011-10-21.
- ^ The City of Antiquity, official history of Paris by The Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau
- ^ (French) Georges Dottin (1920). La Langue Gauloise : Grammaire, Textes et Glossaire. Paris: C. Klincksieck. isbn = 2051002088.
- ^ "English Version of "Presentation of the City"". http://www.paris.fr/portail/english/Portal.lut?page_id=8125. Retrieved 2009-04-30.
- ^ It is unlikely that Paris' modern appellation of Ville Lumière was given to the capital of France because it was a centre of education, ideas and culture, as it had been such a centre since the Middle Ages. It is more likely, however, that, aside from the apparition of street lighting at night, Paris became known as Ville Lumière in the second half of the 19th century, when baron Haussmann, who had been put in charge by emperor Napoléon III of the drastic transformation of Paris into a modern city, tore down whole quartiers of houses & narrow streets dating back to the Middle Ages, and opened large avenues which let light (lumière) come into the former medieval city.
- ^ a b "M. Abecassis: French of the present and the past: the representation of the Parisian vernacular in Maurice Chevalier's songs". Linguistik-online.com. http://www.linguistik-online.com/25_05/abecassis.html. Retrieved 2010-06-15.
- ^ Dictionnaire de la langue française, Larousse étymologique, Librairie Larousse, Paris, 1971, p. 535
- ^ a b c Mairie de Paris. "Paris, Roman City – Chronology". http://www.paris.culture.fr/en/ow_chrono.htm. Retrieved 2006-07-16.
- ^ "celticgrounds.com". celticgrounds.com. http://www.celticgrounds.com/chapters/appendix/celtic_tribes.htm. Retrieved 2010-06-15.
- ^ Mairie de Paris. "Paris, Roman City – The City". http://www.paris.culture.fr/en/. Retrieved 2006-07-16.
- ^ The Role of Trade in Transmitting the Black Death. TED Case Studies.
- ^ Plague. 1911 Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
- ^ Vanessa Harding (2002). "The dead and the living in Paris and London, 1500–1670.". P. 25. ISBN 0-521-81126-0.
- ^ Loire Valley: Land of a thousand chateaux, CNN.com
- ^ Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day, Britannica Online Encyclopedia
- ^ Bayrou, François, Henri IV, le roi libre, Flammarion, Paris, 1994, pp. 121–130, (French).
- ^ "Consulted 29 November 2008". The Victorian Web. 2007-08-10. http://www.victorianweb.org/history/hist7.html. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
- ^ "Battle of Paris 1814". Napoleonistyka.atspace.com. http://napoleonistyka.atspace.com/Paris_1814.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
- ^ Amicale Généalogie, La Petite Gazette Généalogique. "Le Cholera" (in French). http://www.amicale-genealogie.org/Histoires_temps-passe/Epidemies/chol01.htm. Retrieved 2006-04-10.
- ^ Jones, Colin (2005) Paris: The Biography of a City (New York, NY: Penguin Viking), pp. 318–319.
- ^ In Benedict Anderson (July–August 2004). "In the World-Shadow of Bismarck and Nobel". New Left Review. http://www.newleftreview.net/?view=2519. :
"In March 1871, the Commune took power in the abandoned city and held it for two months. Then Versailles seized the moment to attack and, in one horrifying week, executed roughly 20,000 Communards or suspected sympathizers, a number higher than those killed in the recent war or during Robespierre’s ‘Terror’ of 1793–94. More than 7,500 were jailed or deported to places like New Caledonia. Thousands of others fled to Belgium, England, Italy, Spain and the United States. In 1872, stringent laws were passed that ruled out all possibilities of organizing on the left. Not until 1880 was there a general amnesty for exiled and imprisoned Communards. Meantime, the Third Republic found itself strong enough to renew and reinforce Napoleon III's imperialist expansion—in Indochina, Africa, and Oceania. Many of France’s leading intellectuals and artists had participated in the Commune (Gustave Courbet was its quasi-minister of culture, Rimbaud and Pissarro were active propagandists) or were sympathetic to it. The ferocious repression of 1871 and after was probably the key factor in alienating these milieux from the Third Republic and stirring their sympathy for its victims at home and abroad."
- ^ Jones, Colin (2005) Paris: The Biography of a City (New York, NY: Penguin Viking), p. 334.
- ^ Jones, Colin (2005) Paris: The Biography of a City (New York, NY: Penguin Viking), pp. 388–391
- ^ Humphrys, Julian (June 2010). BBC History magazine. Bristol Magazines Ltd. ISSN 1469-8552.
- ^ Overy, Richard (2006). Why the Allies Won. Pimlico. pp. 215–216. ISBN 1845950658.
- ^ Bell, Kelly. "Dietrich von Choltitz: Saved of Paris From Destruction During World War II". www.TheHistoryNet.com. http://www.historynet.com/magazines/world_war_2/3031316.html. Retrieved 2007-11-17.
- ^ (French) Émilie Willaert, professor of History and Geography. "La région parisienne en chantier". http://www.cndp.fr/revueTDC/913-81441.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-03.
- ^ (French) Jérome Toulza, Université de Marne-la-Vallée. "La conception du RER" (PDF). http://www.univ-mlv.fr/mastergu/Docs_IMO/Memimo_0304/Toulza.PDF. Retrieved 2008-08-03. [dead link]
- ^ Mathieu Flonneau (2006). "City infrastructures and city dwellers: Accommodating the automobile in twentieth-century Paris". The Journal of Transport History. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3884/is_200603/ai_n17181949/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1. Retrieved 2008-08-03.
- ^ (French) Thomas Sauvadet. "Les jeunes de la cité – Processus de ghettoïsation et mode de socialisation" (PDF). Université Paris 8. http://www.univ-paris8.fr/sociologie/fichiers/sauvadet-journalparis8.pdf. Retrieved 2008-08-03.
- ^ (French) Hervé Vieillard-Baron, professor at the Université Paris 8. "Les quartiers sensibles, entre disqualification visible et réseaux invisibles". http://fig-st-die.education.fr/actes/actes_2005/viellard-baron/article.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-03.
- ^ (French) "Roland de Laage (Devoteam) : "L'Ouest parisien, ce sont des départements technologiques à haute valeur ajoutée"". Journal du net. 16 January 2006. http://www.journaldunet.com/solutions/0601/060116_prestas-hauts-de-seine-delaage.shtml. Retrieved 2008-08-03.
- ^ (French) Pierre Beckouche. "Une région parisienne à deux vitesses – L'accroissement des disparités spatiales dans l'Île-de-France des années 1980". Strates – Matériaux pour la recherche en sciences sociales. http://strates.revues.org/document1155.html. Retrieved 2008-08-03.
- ^ "Disposable income per NUTS level 2 regions in Europe". Eurostat. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page?_pageid=1996,39140985&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&screen=detailref&language=en&product=REF_TB_regional&root=REF_TB_regional/t_reg/t_reg_eco/tgs00026. Retrieved 2008-08-03.
- ^ "Special Report: Riots in France". BBC News. 2005-11-09. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/4417096.stm. Retrieved 2007-11-17.
- ^ Whitney, Craig R. (31 August 1997). "Diana Killed in a Car Accident in Paris". The New York Times: p. 1. http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/31/world/diana-killed-in-a-car-accident-in-paris.html. Retrieved 10 July 2011.
- ^ "Montmartre". Paris-walking-tours.com. http://www.paris-walking-tours.com/montmartre.html. Retrieved 2009-01-06.
- ^ Mairie de Paris (2007-11-15). "Note: 100 ha.=1 km2". Paris.fr. http://www.paris.fr/portail/english/Portal.lut?page_id=8125&document_type_id=5&document_id=29918&portlet_id=18748. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
- ^ Météo gratuite, prévisions météo de Météorologic. Meteorologic.net. Retrieved on 2010-12-16.
- ^ (French) Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques. "Géographie de la capitale – Le climat". http://www.paris.fr/portail/accueil/Portal.lut?page_id=4946&document_type_id=5&document_id=3076&portlet_id=10579. Retrieved 2006-05-24.
- ^ "Climatological Information for Paris, France". Meteo France. August 2011. http://climat.meteofrance.com/chgt_climat2/climat_france?CLIMAT_PORTLET.path=climatstationn%2F75114001.
- ^ Mairie de Paris. "Les égouts parisiens" (in French). http://www.paris.fr/portail/Environnement/Portal.lut?page_id=1313&document_type_id=5&document_id=2158&portlet_id=3139. Retrieved 2006-05-15.
- ^ 100 MOTOCROTTES !. Cavi.univ-paris3.fr. Retrieved on 2010-12-16.
- ^ Henley, Jon (12 April 2002). "Merde most foul". The Guardian (UK). http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/12/worlddispatch.jonhenley. Retrieved 29 July 2010.
- ^ "Le Tourisme à Paris - Chiffres clés 2010". Asp.zone-secure.net. http://asp.zone-secure.net/v2/index.jsp?id=1203/1515/14072&lng=fr. Retrieved 2011-09-15.
- ^ http://www.paris.fr/viewmultimediadocument?multimediadocument-id=33133
- ^ World Bank. "Gross domestic product 2008" (PDF). http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GDP.pdf. Retrieved 2010-11-09.
- ^ "Population des régions au 1er janvier" (in French). Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques. http://www.insee.fr/fr/themes/tableau.asp?ref_id=CMRSOS02137. Retrieved 2010-11-09.
- ^ "Les emplois dans les activités liées au tourisme: un sur quatre en Île-de-France" (in French) (PDF). Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques. http://www.insee.fr/fr/insee_regions/idf/rfc/docs/alapage234.pdf. Retrieved 2006-04-10.
- ^ a b Paris Riots in Perspective. ABC News. 4 November 2005.
- ^ [1] eyes of an American-born on one of the district of the area: the exclusive 16th arrondissement
- ^ For instance, Paris is the world's fashion design capital thanks to Paris Ouest's customers who historically make it up
- ^ Sociologists Michel and Monique Pinçon-Charlot's works highlight that trend
- ^ "Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques" (in French). http://www.insee.fr/fr/themes/document.asp?reg_id=20&ref_id=17915&page=alapage/alap374/alap374_tab.htm#tab1. Retrieved 2011-10-20.
- ^ Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques. "Enquêtes annuelles de recensement 2004 et 2005" (PDF). http://www.insee.fr/fr/ffc/docs_ffc/IP061058.pdf. Retrieved 2006-04-10.
- ^ "Enquêtes annuelles de recensement: premiers résultats de la collecte 2004" (in French) (PDF). Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques. http://www.insee.fr/fr/ffc/docs_ffc/IP1000.pdf. Retrieved 2006-04-10.
- ^ Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques. "Aire urbaine 99 : Paris – Migrations (caractère socio-économique selon le lieu de naissance)" (in French). http://www.recensement.insee.fr/RP99/rp99/wr_page.affiche?p_id_nivgeo=M&p_id_loca=001&p_id_princ=MIG3&p_theme=ALL&p_typeprod=ALL&p_langue=FR. Retrieved 2006-07-06.
- ^ Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques. "Aire urbaine 99 : Paris – Migrations (caractère démographique selon le lieu de résidence au 01/01/90)" (in French). http://www.recensement.insee.fr/RP99/rp99/wr_page.affiche?p_id_nivgeo=M&p_id_loca=001&p_id_princ=MIG2&p_theme=ALL&p_typeprod=ALL&p_langue=FR. Retrieved 2006-07-06.
- ^ Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques. "Flux d'immigration permanente par motif en 2003" (in French). http://www.insee.fr/fr/ffc/chifcle_fiche.asp?tab_id=498. Retrieved 2006-06-25.
- ^ "Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. III. French Government and the Refugees". American Philosophical Society, James E. Hassell (1991). P. 22. ISBN 0-87169-817-X.
- ^ Cité Nationale de l'Histoire de l'Immigration. "Histoire de l'immigration en France" (in French). http://www.histoire-immigration.fr/index.php?lg=fr&nav=14&flash=0. Retrieved 2006-06-25.
- ^ Yves Charles Zarka, L'Islam en France, "Les contours d'une population susceptible d'être musulmane d'après la filiation", Michèle Tribalat, p.27
- ^ Muslims and city politics: When town halls turn to Mecca. The Economist (2008-12-04). Retrieved on 2010-12-16.
- ^ World Jewish Population | Latest Statistics. SimpleToRemember.com. Retrieved on 2010-12-16.
- ^ Muslim population in European cities, 23 November 2007
- ^ Les immigrés et leur famille en Île-de-France, Note rapide Société, n° 552, Juin 2011
- ^ Michèle Tribalat, Les jeunes d'origine étrangère in Revue Commentaire, juin 2009, n°126, p.434
- ^ Les descendants d'immigrés vivant en Île-de-France, IAU Idf, Note rapide Société, n° 531
- ^ (French) 20mins.fr. "Sarkozy relance le projet d'un Grand Paris". http://www.20minutes.fr/article/169001/Paris-Sarkozy-relance-le-projet-d-un-Grand-Paris.php. Retrieved 2008-04-13.
- ^ Léon Bernard, The Emerging City: Paris in the Age of Louis XIV (Duke University Press, 1970), p. 34.
- ^ David Garrioch, The Making of Revolutionary Paris (University of California Press, 2002: ISBN 0-520-23253-4), p. 128–29.
- ^ Garrioch, The Making of Revolutionary Paris, p. 132.
- ^ Henry E. Bourne. "Improvising a Government in Paris in July 1789". The American Historical Review. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762%28190501%2910%3A2%3C280%3AIAGIPI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V&size=LARGE. Retrieved 2006-09-14.
- ^ (French) La Préfecture de la Région d'Île-de-France. "L'enseignement". Archived from the original on 24 August 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070824203147/http://www.idf.pref.gouv.fr/donnees/enseignement.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-09.
- ^ a b Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Paris – Île-de-France (2006). "Paris Region : key figures 2006" (PDF). Archived from the original on 22 July 2006. http://web.archive.org/web/20060722235423/http://www.paris-iledefrance.cci.fr/pdf/eco_regionale/chiffres_cles/2006/anglais/cc_2006_en_15-21.pdf. Retrieved 2006-07-04.
- ^ (French) Céline Rozenblat, Patricia Cicille, Delegation for Spatial Planning and Regional Action (Datar) (2006). "Les villes européennes – Analyse comparative (page 42)" (PDF). http://www.diact.gouv.fr/Datar_Site/DATAR_Metropoles.nsf/76f84e7666af90b6c125655a0046b83c/30207c6b28edd873c1256e59003d0619/$FILE/Villes%20europ%C3%A9ennes.pdf. Retrieved 2006-07-04.
- ^ "L'étudiant League Table 2008". Letudiant.fr. http://www.letudiant.fr/palmares/classement-prepa/maths-spe-mp.html?crit_region=&crit_ecole=Panier. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
- ^ "How to find us." Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved on 21 January 2009.
- ^ "History of the Library." American Library in Paris. Retrieved on 21 January 2009.
- ^ "The American Library in Paris." The New York Times. 29 June 1930. Retrieved on 21 January 2009.
- ^ "American Library in Paris." The New York Times. 23 March 1855. Retrieved on 21 January 2009.
- ^ "Recherche". LeMonde.fr. http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2009/02/07/saint-lazare-terminus-des-mecontents_1152202_3224.html#ens_id=628859. Retrieved 2011-09-15.
- ^ Syndicat des Transports d'Île-de-France (STIF). "Le web des voyageurs franciliens" (in French). http://www.stif-idf.fr. Retrieved 2006-04-10.
- ^ "Les pactes d'amitié et de coopération". Mairie de Paris. http://www.paris.fr/portail/accueil/Portal.lut?page_id=6587&document_type_id=5&document_id=16468&portlet_id=14974. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
- ^ "International relations : special partners". Mairie de Paris. http://www.paris.fr/en/city_government/international/special_partners.asp. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
- ^ "Twinning with Rome". http://www.paris.fr/portail/english/Portal.lut?page_id=8139&document_type_id=5&document_id=29903&portlet_id=18784. Retrieved 2010-05-27.
- ^ "Les pactes d'amitié et de coopération". Mairie de Paris. http://www.paris.fr/portail/accueil/Portal.lut?page_id=6587&document_type_id=5&document_id=16468&portlet_id=14974. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
- ^ "International relations: special partners". Mairie de Paris. http://www.paris.fr/en/city_government/international/special_partners.asp. Retrieved 2007-10-14. [dead link]
[edit] Further reading
[edit] External links
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| - Ankara, Turkey1
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- Gibraltar, Gibraltar4
- Nicosia, Cyprus2
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- Podgorica, Montenegro
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| - Astana, Kazakhstan1
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- Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh2, 3
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- Tbilisi, Georgia1
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- Tskhinvali, South Ossetia2, 3
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