Has the sun gone down on the City of Light? Is it overrated?
I’ve been living in Paris these last 20 years. I could write volumes on the great things about this place, from the architecture to the restaurants, from the number of public holidays to all the beautiful villages in easy reach. I’m not a negative person and I don’t agree with most of the peeves people normally trot out. When I say “people”, I’m not just talking about foreigners. Parisians themselves are quick to point out that they were not born and bred here – “I’m not Parisian, I come from Normandie!”. But if you live or work in Paris, you’re a Parisian so you can’t dodge the complaints levelled at you.
The old chestnuts
I don’t generally go along with the cliché complaints directed towards to the city. Sure it’s expensive and overcrowded, but this is hardly surprising for a major Western European capital city. Sure there are pickpockets, but you are more likely to be relieved of your wallet or phone in London or Rome.
“Parisians are rude” is the other one. I think I found them ruder when I first arrived than I do now. Whether this is just because I’m used to it now or whether they’ve actually changed is difficult to say. I positively dislike the false American-style attitude of shop assistants back in England these days, being asked at the till how our day is going etc, and I prefer the more detached attitude on the part of French shop workers. I guess English and Americians might find this attitude cold and haughty (“hautaine” in French). But since I’ve been here a new generation has replaced the old, and the young dream to escape to London or New York. They are all too ready to pounce on any whiff of an English or American accent to switch to English, and are generally well disposed towards visitors from across the channel or Atlantic.
“Paris syndrome”
This is a term which originated in Japan to describe Japanese tourists’ severe shock of disappointment when they find that reality does not match their romanticised expectations. I just watched a video by Japanese youtuber Miho Koshikawa (video link if you understand japanese) where she spells out five points that the Japanese are likely to be shocked by when they come here:
- Parisians are aggressive – they have short tempers and are always quarelling with each other in shops or from behind the wheel
- Paris is full of pickpockets – watch our for gypsies on the metro
- Paris is dirty – there might be litter bins every 200 metres but Parisians just drop their litter where they want, and their dogs foul the pavements
- Customer service – shop workers chat to each other while you wait to speak to them. You almost feel you’re intruding
- Administration – the infamous French bureaucracy to apply for any paperwork (to be fair, this isn’t really a problem from passing visitors)
Even if these are true, you can quickly get used to or adapt to them. There are however just a couple of genuine negatives for me.
Public glamour, private squalor
The first negative is the feeling that behind the beautiful public façade, Paris is in decay. They might have to industrially clean the brickwork of apartment blocks in Paris every 10 years, but behind the picture-postcard exteriors everything is rotten. Water damage from leaking pipes is the bane of all tenants and landlords here.
And under street level the “caves” (basement storage rooms) are damp, and the metro feels unhygienic compared with say London, Hong Kong or Tokyo. It’s loud too (though not as loud as London’s tube which is ridiculous).
Most people who work here actually live outside central Paris (by which I mean the 20 arrondissements hemmed in by the périphérique ring road), and have to suffer a long commute. There are certainly some very attractive suburbs (like Versailles and Saint-Germain-en-Laye) but the affluence of Paris also masks the existence of out-of-site ghettos in the outskirts – places like Saint-Denis, Clichy-sous-Bois, Sevran, Grigny – where youth unemployment is crushingly high, and are frequent flashpoints for rioting which can spill over into Paris itself.
Paris is parochial
Compared with the dynamism and open-mindedness of London, Paris seems staid, sedate, stagnant. In terms of cuisine it is inward looking. The wines in “Nicolas” are mainly French, with only a small corner shelf reserved for imports. Of course there are Asian supermarkets where one can buy Asian ingredients, but it’s frustrating not to be able to find fresh chillis or chicken cuts with the skin on at our local supermarket or butcher. The streets on a Friday night in central districts like Saint-Germain-des-Prés and the Quartier Latin seem dead. “Where are all the young people” is a common interrogation, and “la fuite des jeunes” (the exodus of young people) is a real issue.
There are many beautiful cities in the former Eastern block like Czech, Hungary, Romania and Croatia which are now accessible and still very affordable. But reading through the points above again, I really can’t complain and I look forward to many more years living in (or at least visiting) the City of Light!