French Crossroads: The Incredible Shrinking Paris
About 120,000 locals have fled for greener pastures over the past decade.
Paris might be one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, but living here is a whole other story. Life in Paris can be brutal and expensive, so much so that the city has seen its population decline by 122,919 over the past decade.
In a 6-part series dubbed “The Flight of Parisians,” the newspaper Le Parisien sounded the alarm over the shrinkage being experienced by the capital city: “Year after year, INSEE (the government statistics agency) figures confirm an underlying trend: Parisians are packing their bags and going to live elsewhere.” Indeed, there are now fewer people within the confines of Paris than in 2000.
Naturally, such a serious journalistic undertaking started the only way one can begin such a weighty topic: With an obligatory reference to Emily In Paris. (“Emily, the American heroine of the hit Netflix series, will she soon be the emblem of the new Parisian population?”)
While there was talk of people fleeing Paris during Covid, the trend actually goes back almost a decade when the number of people leaving began to exceed the number of people arriving. Many people are simply relocating to the region around Paris, but many are also moving further afield to regions like Bordeaux, Lyon, and Toulouse where life is less expensive and more reasonable in general.
Indeed, there is a whole business, called Paris Je Te Quitte, dedicated to helping families GTFO of Paris and restart their lives in the wild and savage lands of France that lay beyond.
This flight has serious consequences. Schools have 20% fewer students. And more local businesses are closing, leading to increased vacancies in those sidewalk storefronts. Though not the ones that Emily visits.
Paris Needs Babies!
In the wake of the Parisien series, politicians are naturally doing their best to use the trend to their advantage.
Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who recently finished 25th in a field of 9 candidates for president, tried her best to put a happy face on the news of this exodus from Paris. She called this trend “necessary” so that the Parisians who stay could “live better.” The resulting “de-densification” of Paris would give everyone a bit more elbow room, according to remarks she made during a radio interview that were reported by Le Figaro.
Fewer people will mean more parks, more gardens, fewer cars, and more nature. The result will be a Paris that is even more attractive, Hidalgo attempted to convince herself and her listeners. Of course, this also triggered a new round of people complaining about the decay and dirtiness of Paris on Twitter under the hashtag #saccageparis (the sacking of Paris).
Part of the problem is that between people leaving and people who stay, the birth rate has sharply declined. Le Parisien noted that annual births have fallen from 31,977 in 2001 to 23,763 in 2022.
Former Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë apparently predicted this would be the case once he was no longer mayor. One of the hallmarks of his stint as mayor through 2014 was that Parisians liked to stay up all night to get lucky.
“I find that I was a mayor during whose mandate Parisians were dynamic in making babies,” he said toward the end of his term in office. “I am an aphrodisiac mayor.”
But all hope is not lost. Young people, students, foreigners, and other people too dim to know better are still coming to Paris to experience the romance and adventures they imagine await them there. So much so that The Sunday Times dared to ask the once unthinkable: Is Paris Cooler Than London? (Note: Article also includes obligatory Emily In Paris reference.)
In saying nice things, Journalist Hattie Crisell also manages to offer a treasury of backhanded compliments (“the national sport of being rude to foreigners is floundering. Today’s waiters might smile when your French fails you, rather than roll their eyes and spit in your croque monsieur.”) She also trots out some references that may be impenetrable and unpronounceable (“the Shoreditchisation of Paris”) to anyone who is not 24 and living in the London city center.
On the positive side, one can now get cocktails in Paris that are almost as good as the London, veggie burgers, and a growing range of trendy neighborhoods and restaurants.
Which should please tourists and foreigners. But I doubt the hipsterfication of Paris will do much to stem the tide of Parisians fleeing, no matter how good the Pumpkin Spice Lattes are.
Great Reads
Monet’s less heralded bro gets a moment in the artsy spotlight. The Local asks the perennial question: Is it a pain au chocolat or a chocolatine? (Answer: chocolatine). George Clooney is remaking the French spy show The Bureau and it will be interesting to see if he keeps the same vibe as the original (a lot of people sitting around tables talking and pushing carts with folders around an office) or if he will Americanize it with lots of guns and fighting and violence. Archivists at France’s National Library discovered previously unknown encoded letters by Mary Queen of Scots. And the New York Times has a profile of French Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, who is only the second French PM and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor.
Chris O’Brien
Le Pecq