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Paris Match
A warm welcome at the Gare du Nord
British hacks queue up to bash the French capital
This week, Eurostar trains destined for Paris will leave from London's beautiful St Pancras, described by some commentators as the world's finest railway station. The trains are likely to run straight into a typically French strike (more of which in another post), but the faster link between the cities has sparked a rash of articles about what awaits Londoners at the other end of the tracks - and not all of it flattering.
Rising crime in parts of Paris is given some prominence.
Bringing The Left Bank To The Banlieue
Aubervilliers - it's not the boulevard St Germain...
France's leading intellectuals regularly preach the merits of integrating the impoverished suburbs into the fabric of Parisian life. When Nicolas Sarkozy, then Interior Minister, took a hard line on violent crime in the Paris banlieue, the denizens of France's top colleges were among the first to criticise Sarko for his lack of "solidarity" with the youth of the housing estates surrounding Paris.
Moreover, France's various intellectuals regularly grumble that the historic centre of Paris has become a living museum. The "gauche caviar's" favourite stomping ground, the left-bank neighbourhood of St-Germain, comes in for particular criticism: Philosophers' cafés and artists' garrets have given way to designer boutiques and apartments for rich foreigners. You'd get the impression that they'd be eager to get away from the place.
But when some Paris academics were invited to walk the walk by relocating from their cosy rive gauche offices to a new campus in the grim northern banlieue of Aubervilliers, the radical thinkers didn't ponder long before declaring that the proposals were a move too far.
Marxist Town Planning
How to ensure that Europe's beautiful old cities remain vibrant cultural and economic centres for the third millennium? It's a puzzle that has intrigued politicians for years.
One far-left Spanish novelist who lived in Paris has come up with a novel approach to the challenge: "De-Europeanise" the French capital, throwing its portes open to a new generation of immigrants (mostly from Africa) who will "destroy" Paris in order to recreate it for the 21st century.
Poodle Or Pit Bull?
Transport strikes first big test for President Sarkozy
At this moment, members of France's Communist-linked CGT trade union are marching on one of Paris' main boulevards in one of the biggest protests in five years. Public transport in the capital and throughout the country is at a standstill as the first major strike of Nicolas Sarkozy's Presidency takes grip.
The strikers are protesting against proposed reforms to their retirement benefits, which allow some transport workers to retire at fifty. Sarkozy's government wants to raise the retirement age in line with the private sector and public sector in other European nations. With a hefty parliamentary majority and a stunning personal success in the Presidential elections, he believes he has the mandate to reform France. The unions - increasingly anachronistic, with dwindling membership, but eager to stamp their authority on the new era - claim Sarkozy has misread France's mood.
