Paris City

Facts about Paris, France
Paris, the largest city of France is known for its beauty and culture. Here are some facts about this enchanting city.

Mademoiselle Victorine - A Novel
When Victorine Laurent joins the chorus of the grand Paris Opera, she expects to become the mistress of a wealthy, married man; this is what young women without family must do to survive in the decedent City of Light.

Paris Underdog Battles Bastion of Elite Culture
Comédie Française decides to make MC 93 its entry point into suburbs

Museums Branch Out
For first time in France, Paris's museums launch plans to replicate themselves in provincial cities

Funeral Parlour Resurrected As Modern Art Hq Aims to Refresh Lifeless Paris Scene
Politicians hope to draw tourists to 19th arrondissement better known for poverty and gang culture

Riot Police Sent in to Contain Parisian Gang War
Parisian police are struggling to contain a suburban gang war that has left one dead

Culture: Louvre Draws a Veil Over Artistic Neglect With Bold New Islamic Wing
Giant glass Muslim headscarf design in the heart of Paris reflects secular republic debate

Rêves électriques
Roger Browning: Paris already has great public transport and a bike-hire scheme. No need to clog up the streets with electric cars, then

Paris Plans Help-yourself Green Car Hire
After popularity of self-service bicycles, Paris introduces 4,00 electric cars to pick up and drop off anywhere in the city

A Nouvel skyscraper for Paris
French prize-winning architect, Jean Nouvel, wins a commission to build a new 300-meter skyscraper on the outskirts of Paris.

French Socialists Locked in Battle
Mayor of Paris, sparks ideological row by declaring himself an unashamed liberal in favor of the free-market

Three Strikes and Out
Why Parisians have a spring in their step

Sarkozy Promises Tough Stance on Rioters
French president vows to take tough stance against rioters after third night of violence in rundown Paris suburb spreads to south-western city of Toulouse

Scores of Police Hurt in Paris As Riots Spread Through Suburbs
Some 70 police are injured in the Paris suburbs as rioting youths fire guns and hurl petrol bombs at officers

Paris Transport Workers Join Strike Over Pensions
French commuters walked or cycled to work today as transport workers went on strike in protest at government plans to change public sector pensions

High-rise Vision Sparks Paris Revolt
A dizzying controversy will grip the French capital this week as its mayor tries to convince recalcitrant Parisians of the beauty of high-rise buildings.

Strong demand for apartments in Paris
The average square meter price of old and unoccupied apartments increased by 8,3 % p.a. and stood at € 5 970/ US$ 7,0545 during the 2nd quarter 2007 in Paris "intramuros" which includes the City’s twenty districts ("arrondissements"). These were the key figures that the "Paris Notary Chamber" released on its press conference on 3rd October 2007.

Musicals Storm Paris
Go to London for the musicals and Paris for the food, the old saying went. While the French capital excelled at dining, museums and new-wave cinema, it didn't care for sing along shows.

Books or Boutiques: a Battle for the Left Bank's Soul
The battle is on to keep the Left Bank, once the cultural powerhouse of the French capital where Juliette Greco sang, Miles Davis played and Michel Foucault philosophised, from becoming an enclave of designer boutiques and clothes shops.

Mayor Causes Stink on Homeless
Argenteuil, a Paris suburb of 100,000, has long tried to deter its homeless population of 15, particularly the four or five who sleep near the emergency exits of a shopping centre.

Chirac Finally Faces Corruption Allegations
Ex-president questioned as immunity comes to end - Party officials said to have been on Paris city payroll

Champs Elysées 'declining Into Oxford St'
Paris mayor rejects plan for high street store in bid to recapture old atmosphere.

Paris Loses Its Heart to Modern Art
The city's art fair has long lagged behind London. But now it is chic again - and the big players are rolling in.

Paris Syndrome Hits Japanese
Japanese tourists feel so let down by Paris shop assistants that they need treatment for a type of depression known as 'Paris Syndrome'.

Paris Reclaims Classical Heritage With Hall Revamp
For decades it was the stain on Paris's reputation as a city of the arts. The capital of literature and philosophy - whose politicians had invested millions building daring new homes for opera, theatre and library collections - had shamefully neglected classical music.

Grand Designs in Paris
Couture fashion week began in Paris yesterday, the biannual event in which some of the world's most famous designers show the world's most expensive clothes to some of the world's wealthiest or most famous clients.

Paris Alert for 'biggest Riot Ever'
Intercepted text messages lead police chief to draft in 3,000 men and ban gatherings.

Worlds Apart - Paris Suburb on the Divide Between Hope and Despair
On Sunday mornings, the covered market opposite the station in the leafy suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois - barely half an hour's drive from central Paris - spills opulently on to the streets and boulevards.

Disabled Woman Set on Fire As Paris Riots Spread
· Passengers caught in blaze as youths ambush bus · New attacks thwart hopes that troubles may be over

French Unrest Spreads Outside Paris
A disabled person was badly burned in an attack on a city bus and more than four hundred cars were torched during an eighth night of rioting in Paris suburbs.

Cost of Dying Soars in Paris
Paris has always been one of France's most expensive places to live. Now, city hall figures confirmed yesterday, it is one of the most expensive places to die.

Fires of 'civil War' Erupt in Paris
Police in street battles after two teenagers die in chase.

Sheer Chic Ysl in Paris
Stefano Pilati's YSL has a courtly, timeless quality which keeps faith with the values of this most chic of Parisian labels.

Paris Revolts Over Morbid Artwork
An incomprehensible screed of words carved by a grief-stricken schizophrenic French farmer into his bedroom floor has become Paris's most controversial new art exhibit.

Galliano Steals the Show in Paris
Paris haute couture week, which began yesterday, was dogged by bad omens even before the city's Olympic disappointment.

IOC Praises Paris But Rival London Still in the Games
Paris was yesterday confirmed as favourite to host the 2012 Olympics after the International Olympic Committee published a glowing appraisal of the city's plans for the summer games.

Paris, City of the Dead
Hywel Williams: Sartre barely makes the top 100 national figures in a poll, but he was the last great French intellectual.

Paris Mall to Get Classical New Look
Classical realism triumphed over radical innovation yesterday when the mayor of Paris chose a little-known French architect to oversee a full-scale revamp of the capital's huge but crumbling mall complex, Les Halles.

Ten Hurt in Paris Embassy Bombing
Ten people were injured yesterday when a parcel bomb exploded outside the Indonesian embassy in Paris, the first such attack in the French capital for nearly a decade. The device, planted beside an outside wall of the three-storey 19th-century building in the smart 16th arrondissement,...

Paris's New Slant on Underground Movies
Clandestine group reveals how it built its cinema beneath the city. There are, at most, 15 of them. Their ages range from 19 to 42, their professions from nurse to window dresser, mason to film director. And in a cave beneath the streets of Paris, they built a subterranean cinema whose discovery this week sent the city's police into a frenzy.

In a Secret Paris Cavern, the Real Underground Cinema
Police in Paris have discovered a fully equipped cinema-cum-restaurant in a large and previously uncharted cavern underneath the capital's chic 16th arrondissement. Officers admit they are at a loss to know who built or used one of Paris's most intriguing recent discoveries.

Racist Attacks Cast Shadow Over French Liberation Celebrations
Paris partied to celebrate the 60th anniversary of liberation from Nazi occupation yesterday, but its mayor warned that, faced with a recent surge in racist and anti-semitic attacks, the city needed to recover the courage it had shown in the summer of 1944. "If, 60 years ago, our elders...

'You Can't Know How Wonderful It Was to Finally Battle in the Daylight'
Next week France will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the uprising that liberated Paris from its Nazi occupiers. Jon Henley talks to Madeleine Riffaud, a Resistance fighter who helped save the city.

Key Changes May Spell End for the Paris Concierge
Paris town hall says up to 2,000 of the 35,000 concierges' jobs in the capital are disappearing each year.

Galliano's Simplicity Pleases Paris
There was a surprise at Christian Dior yesterday - you could actually see the clothes. British designer John Galliano, who has turned the French house into one of the most profitable in the business, used to pile on the outfits creating an impenetrable mass of fabric. But for...

Vinyl giant born of cardboard roots
Jacques Brel was born in 1929 to middle-class parents in a Brussels suburb. He was destined to join his father in the family's cardboard factory, but fled his home to play in the city's cafes. He abandoned Belgium in 1953 for Paris.

Pigalle Faces Clean-up After a Century of Sleaze
Brel, Brassens and Piaf immortalised it in song; Lautrec caught it on canvas. Now Paris has finally decided to clean up Pigalle, the city's fabled sleaze centre for more than a century, and not all the locals are happy about it. "It's a crying shame," said Mamie Irène, 82, who has...

Degas's Little Dancer Takes to the Paris Stage
Degas's most famous sculpture, of a little Parisian dancer, came to life as a ballet at the Paris Opera last night. La Petite Danseuse, with a cast of 60, pays tribute to the model who posed for La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans, the only sculpture Degas exhibited in his lifetime...

British designers prove a hit in Paris
Paris may be acknowledged as the home of the best fashion in the world, but the past two days of shows in the French capital have proved that it is British designers who currently dominate the city.

Cabbies Fume As Paris Hails 1,500 New Taxis
"There'll be trouble," spat the man behind the wheel as we hurtled through the pre-lunch traffic earlier this week, pedestrians hopping hastily aside and other motorists left gesturing Gallically in our wake. "Whore of my testicles, there'll be trouble. Eighteen years I've been in this...

We'll always have Paris
In Paris, they always seem to be dreaming up nice things for the people who live there. Last summer the mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, spent £2.5m transforming quays along the Seine into a temporary beach, with sand, loungers, umbrellas and games for children. It proved so popular he's going to do it again this year.

Strike keeps Eurostar stuck in Paris
London-bound Eurostar trains have been unable to leave Paris so far today because of a strike by catering staff working for Momentum, a company hired by Eurostar to provide restaurant services on board the train.

Vive la Vélorution
Socialist mayor brings a virtual seaside to the Seine. A week ago, the car-hating Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, was wondering whether there would be enough visitors to his new beachside resort on the Seine's right bank to justify closing the city's busiest expressway and laying down grass and sand on the pavements for sunbathing and picnics.

Protesters Take to the Streets of Paris
Rival May Day marches by supporters and opponents of far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen took to the streets of Paris today, with his detractors expected in far greater numbers. Police said between 10-12,000 supporters of Mr Le Pen, the National Front leader and presidential challenger,...

Paris aims to cut wait for homes
Paris city council is to set up its own property management firm and rent guarantee scheme for private rentals.

Paris Buys Up Posh Flats for Poor to Rent
The Paris city council has quietly bought more than a dozen upmarket apartment blocks in the most well-to-do districts to turn them into council flats, it emerged yesterday. To the consternation of rightwing councillors and some wealthier residents, the Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoe,...

Parisians Bid Adieu to Street Name Not Desired
A bitter year-long battle that pitted a modern-day leftwing mayor against the die-hard defenders of France's imperial past ended yesterday when a short and otherwise unremarkable Paris street changed its name. In a brief ceremony, the rue de Richepance, on the border of the chic 1st and...

Future shaky for Gallic big wheel
Several hundred angry fairground workers converged on Paris's big wheel yesterday to pledge their support - and muscle - to its owner in the latest instalment of a saga gripping the city. The proprietor of la grande roue , Marcel Campion, ignored a court order to dismantle the...