I find myself asking this question a lot. Is Paris really a French city? Is Paris really an international city? Is Paris cosmopolitan? Of course, there’s no simple answer.
I’ll start by saying that sometimes in Paris, I forget that I’m actually in France. Within a five minute walking distance of my apartment, for example, restaurants include two Lebanese places, several sushi shops, numerous Chinese take-out traitteurs, a Greek souvlaki place, a Filipino grocery, Thai, Indian, a schmancy Japanese restaurant, and a crepe and sandwich stand. The most famous place to eat lunch in the Marais is a falafel stand on a street that’s filled with Jewish bakeries. And perhaps least Parisian of all (or at least stereotypically, traditionally Parisian) is the 13th arrondissement, Paris’ Chinatown. When I ate lunch there, I was the only non-Asian client, and I heard not a word of French in the restaurant. On top of this, 40% of the student body at Sciences Po is comprised of international students, so it can be quite easy to forget you are in France.
That is, until you step out onto the Boulevard Saint-Germain and look up at those Parisian balconies. Or until you stumble into a cobblestone plaza where cafe tables full of people slowly sipping wine and sexily smoking cigarettes spill onto the sidewalk. Or until you walk past an old man with 2 baguettes under his arm. Or until you offer your seat on the bus to an 80-year-old woman in high heels and a blazer clutching a copy of Le Monde. Or until you notice the cheapest ready-made sandwich at the grocery store is a goat cheese and tomato panini. Or until you look at the ingredients on a bag of frozen potato slices, and the only two items in it are potatoes and duck fat (seriously). Then you know you’re in France.
Still, it’s more complicated than that. Although census data indicates that 20% of Paris’ inhabitants are immigrants, and that 40% have at least one parent who is an immigrant, this diversity isn’t always evident when walking around Paris. Fancier and more central areas, like Saint-Germain and the Marais, can seem very homogeneously French/Caucasian. As you take the Metro further and further out, even within limits of central Paris, the trains are filled more and more by immigrants – you’ll hear less French and you’ll see fewer Caucasians. Even further out, in the banlieues (suburbs) of the northeast, neighborhoods are overwhelmingly made up of immigrants. These are areas many French people often point to as “problem quarters,” and they were the site of a string of violent and destructive riots in 2005. There are also real and fairly widespread problems with racism and xenophobia, especially towards Muslims from North Africa. And, in 2006, 55% of French citizens agreed that there were “too many foreigners in France.”
So although Paris may be diverse on paper, something makes me hesitate from deeming it “cosmopolitan.” Although sushi may be trendy, and although its streets are filled with people from all over the world, Paris is certainly not the melting pot of, say, New York or London. When I see high school kids, waiting for school to start again after lunch, segregated by race – white kids by the door, girls with veils across the street, black kids to the left – and when I am taught in class that North Africans are the “worst” and most “problematic” immigrant group because they don’t speak French and because they don’t seek work, I am shocked and disheartened. I don’t wish to paint all Parisians or all of the French as racist – they certainly aren’t! I only mean to say that there are definite tensions between the French’s fierce pride for and desire to preserve their culture, and the extreme diversity of Paris. I sympathize with this dilemma, because, after all, the distinctly French feel of Paris is, in large part, why it is so terribly charming. Still, diversity brings excitement and energy to a city, and I would welcome just a bit more of this melting pot-ness here in Paris.
