DISEASE, CRIME AND REVOLT

THE SHAME OF PARIS, CITÉ JEANNE D'ARC

(BUILT IN 1884)

"The modern Court of Miracles... those who live there have fallen 

to the last rung of misery."

-- Belinda Carter, Paris treizième

Rue Jeanne d'Arc seen from the church steps (toward 1900) 

The posthumous account of a man who
 spent his youth among the most indigent
of the capital — notably of Cité Jeanne d'Arc — 
and tells what he has seen...

Disease  

In its dark, funereal corridors, among the stairs, corners and sordid recesses and in the midst of its shadow, the infection lurks and prowls, always in search of prey, the devouring specter: tuberculosis.

 -- A Kid, autobiographical novel by Auguste Brepson, 1927

Crime: 

The young man

in the postcard below

wears the cummerbund

of the "apaches,"*

the first modern street gangs.

*From the frightening reputation of the American West's Apaches 

The cummerbund, often red

Zoom (please scroll down)

The costume was that métro diggers who won major strikes in 1901 often wore. The apaches appropriated it for its prestige and by evoking strikers, to show that they did not work.

Revolt: The cité becomes a bastion (in May 1934), announcing the turbulence that leads to the victory of the Socialist Popular Front:*

(In power, 1936-1939)

* Wikipedia and this blook

"The besieged of Cité Jeanne d'Arc surrendered this morning" (in French) / zoom

When a Communist deputy from the 13th urges workers to vote, he is assaulted and arrested. Residents build barricades at both entrances to the cité and light fires in front of them (surely remembering La Commune), throw everything the can get their hands on at the police (as in the early 1830's and 1848), and push them back twice. 

The whole neighborhood has risen up, acclaiming the defenders of the cité who sing the Internationale and acclaim the soviets.

-- Paul Vaillant-Couturier, editor of l'Humanité (the Communist daily),

cited in Histoire et histoires du 13e, n° 6, winter 2011.

# # #

Remains of the cité: this plaque... 

On the corner of rues Jeanne d'Arc / Docteur Victor Hutinel

 [...] hovels in a neighborhood that undergoes rapid industrialization [...] A center of revolt as much as of squalor and delinquency, the Cité Jeanne d'Arc brings muscular repression, but also philanthropy.

In 1934 a movement that announces the Popular Front appears: the insurgents raise barricades [...].

And the name "Résidence Jeanne d'Arc," for this City-run housing for the elderly:

That is the sole trace.

*     *     *

Next,

A Third-World revolutionaries' training ground

VANISHED INDUSTRY

TAKE THE SAY RAFFINERIE, THE WORLD'S MAIN SUGAR REFINERY AND A HOUSEHOLD WORD 

(1832*-1968)

*An example of capitalism's take-off after the Revolution of 1830

The plant

Zoom (a series of photos of the time)

Zoom (for more pictures, please scroll down)

This aerial view of 1950 shows the establishment's extent. In fact it was much larger, since the part that is now a park with a supermarket is cut off. 

The establishment covered both sides of rue Jeanne d'Arc, which had been built for repression after the working-class insurrection of June, 1848.

When a riot broke out in 1934 (please read on), the street was finally used as intended: 

      Adapted from a map of 1892 / zoom

 # # #

A worker remembers:

"We held on thanks to coffee and sugar, which we consumed on the spot because we were searched at the exit.

My fingers bled and I would cry every night." 

-- Suzanne Chaveau, employed at Say from 1942 /
 cited in The Say refinery or Jamaica in  Paris, 2012 (in French)

Paris treizième

Working hours: 6 a.m.- 6 p.m., six days a week.

Accidents, explosions and fires: This explosion led to 41 victims,

some of whom were buried alive.

(In 1908)

Explosion at the Say refinery, Paris treizième

It was Say's third catastrophe since 1904, and other establishments had their own.

-- A Rich Industrial Past," Histoire et histoires du 13e," n° 19, 2020 (in French)

The explosion of October 10, 1915, « Paris treizième »

"The President of the Republic Raymond Poincaré on the site of the catastrophe"

"Unfortunately accidents are not rare," says the text.

# # #

The trace of the refinery now

History of Paris

The Say refinery

"An industrialist from Nantes, Louis Say in 1832 buys the terrain of the 'Jamaican refinery,' then in Ivry, behind the barrier derrière of the Two-Windmills [useless erudition]: All the area in front of us. Its cauldrons produce two or three tons of sugar daily as of 1832, and its success makes it world-size with the arrival of 'indigenous' [?] beet sugar; the Say refinery is famous for its social works: In 1863 Constant Say creates bonuses and retirements for the infirm and elderly, and in 1868 a fund to help the sick and wounded. In 1900, this manufactory, which closed in 1968, was the world's most important, with 600t. [tons?] per day." 

The sign mentions palliatifs, 

not working conditions and accidents.  

*    *    *

Next,

A Third-World revolutionaries' training ground

A THIRD-WORLD REVOLUTIONARIES' TRAINING GROUND

FOREIGN WORKERS LIVED IN THIS CHEAPEST OF NEIGHBORHOODS, ON THE TUMULTUOUS LATIN QUARTER'S EDGE

Zoom

"Chou En Lai lived in this building during his stay in France from 1922 to 1924"

Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, who both worked at Renault,

shared a 10-meter room minutes from Cité Jeanne d'Arc.

Zoom

Zoom

Chou would help Deng become "the architect of modern China" (initiator of Chinese state capitalism) after the death of Mao Zedong (in 1976).

They may have crossed paths with Ho Chi Minh, who did odd jobs while writing/illustrating/publishing a Vietnamese political paper and who lived for a time near place d'Italie, the roundabout at the end of the street:

Later Aimé Césaire, poet of the Négritude movement and Communist deputy from Martinique, would live two streets away.

Zoom (© Assemblée nationale)

24 rue Albert Bayet

 Those plaques alone recall the tie 

between the neighborhood and the storms to come.

*     *     * 

Next,

A walk through an outskirt that used to be chilling