III.4. "BARBÈS DON'T PANIC"

MENU: 3.4. "Barbès don't panic"

IMMIGRANT DISTRICTS OF THE NORTH ARE CALLED "NO-GO ZONES," NOTABLY MAGHREBIAN BARBÈS

From Le Figaro, the main conservative daily / zoom (video after ad)

Here's another way of seeing the ribbon of Muslim shops that lie along the métro tracks:

     Adapted from a Google plan

Discover a "no-go zone"

(or that is said to be)

• Back to the wine tax

• The darkness of a past that is forgotten now

• A métro station and a movie theater

• Toward La Goutte d'Or

• The media: fear, exoticism, misery and bias

• (Not very) threatening youth

• Take another look 

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Next,

Back to the wine tax

BACK TO THE WINE TAX

 

THE CITY WALL BROUGHT A FAMOUS EDGINESS, WHICH CAME FROM THE UNTAXED WINE ON ITS OUTER, NORTHERN SIDE

The counter-culture was like that of Belleville, but later and more important.

Adapted from a Google map

Cover, La vie Montmartre by Georges-Boudet-Taillandier, 1897 / zoom 

The Exterior Boulevards replace that wall:

. 

Night brings out its past. Cabarets and theaters are on the boulevard's — the wall's — untaxed northern side. Most of the fast foods, cafés and restaurants nestle next to them, their lights brightening the dark:

In the background, the Moulin Rouge

The southern side has no theaters or cabarets, so few cafés or restaurants. It remains in shadow. 

That there should be a large store for musical instruments in this theater district makes sense. It probably replaces an older establishment, settled on the taxed-wine side of the wall, since its clients would not have come to drink. 

Most light comes from sex shops, brothels' heirs. The cost of wine there was irrelevant, since the wealthy clients did not care. 

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Next,

The darkness of a past that is forgotten now

 

3.4.2. THE DARKNESS OF A PAST THAT IS FORGOTTEN NOW

ZOLA's THE DRINKING DEN BEGINS WITH THE PROTAGONIST, GERVAISE, SEEKING HER MAN IN THE THRONG PASSING THROUGH THE TOLL GATE:  

"When she raised her eyes above that interminable grey wall that surrounded the town like a band of desert...  

 She saw flowing, between the two squat pavilions of the toll gate, an uninterrupted stream of men, cattle, wagons, that descended from the heights of Montmartre and la Chapelle. There was the stamping of herds [...] an endless march of workers going to their jobs, their tools on their backs, their loaf under their arms; the crowd was engulfed in Paris [...]."

 -- Novel set in the 1850's, published in 1877. 

Translation and underlining mine

The poverty that came with industrialization brought dives, brothels...  

L'Absinthe by Degas, 1875,  zoom

Rue des Moulins by Toulouse-Lautrec, 1894 / zoom

And violence. Gervaise lives near the wall,"behind which, at night, she sometimes heard the murdered scream."

#  #  #

The bar where she destroys herself through drink gave the name "L'Assommoir"* to a square a few steps north of the Barbès métro, just outside the former toll gate.

*"Assommer:" to knock out

L'Assommoir by André Capellani, 1909 / YouTube

"Standing in front of l'Assommoir, Gervaise was pensive.

If she had two cents, she would go in and drink a drop. It might make her less hungry. Ah! She'd drunk a drop or two! But it had been so pleasant. And, from afar, she contemplated the drunkenness machine, feeling that her disaster came from there, and dreaming of ending it all with brandy, when she had the means."

She dies of delirium tremens.

# # #

The modern site does not fit that novel

about poverty and desperation,

just as today's pickpockets and petty drug dealers

pale next to the murderers 

whose victims' screams begin the story.

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Next,

A métro station and a movie theater

A MÉTRO STATION AND A MOVIE THEATER

THE DISREGARDED AREA THAT LIES ALONG THE TRACKS HARBORS MONUMENTS THAT ARE ENTIRELY OUTSIDE TOURISTIC CIRCUITS

The aerial métro...

A bank highlights its ATM machine with a photo.

And a 1920's cinema, the Louxor: the main gay discothèque of the 1980's, abandoned in 1988, almost sold to the Tati department store, restored by the City in 2013 and now as "Le Grand Rex," a movie theater again. 

Zoom

See it as you leave the station: 

 

                            Gone from the web

For an account (in French)

 and photos from the past, please click.

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Next,

Toward La Goutte d'Or

TOWARD LA GOUTTE D'OR

ON LEAVING THE METRO YOU WILL COME UPON A LARGE BOULEVARD

(BOULEVARD ROCHECHOUART)

You immediately pass a barbershop, the first of many...

Take your first left:

(On rue Caplat)

Another barbershop                                    North African textiles

# # #

La Goutte d'Or begins at the crossroads, with a canteen that could be in Dakar on rue des Gardes, whose other establishments are traditionally French or upscale African:

Thiéy Ndakarou 2

        10 rue des Gardes

Little Africa

6bis, rue des Gardes

The first Black concept store

Before entering that vast neighborhood,

a few words more on Barbès.   

 

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Next,

The media: fear, exoticism, misery and bias

THE MEDIA: FEAR, EXOTICISM, MISERY AND BIAS

FEAR, THE RIGHT'S STOCK IN TRADE  

Le Figaro, the main conservative daily / zoom

"The owner of the Barbès kiosk closes definitively after an aggression" 

• Electoral poster of the xenophobic National Rally:

"The choice of security"

#  #  #

Exoticism and misery, issues on the left:

• "With the marabouts of Barbès" 

• Barbès, lost girls' city, podcast and written summary (in French)

• Streetpress, an Internet monthly

"In the documentary series Rixes, Adama Camara, a militant, rapper and former prisoner, meets youth and families whose lives have been overturned by gang warfare. Find six episodes here."

"We need to hear forgotten voices to fight against the incomprehension and caricature of our lives."

#  #  #

"On the traces of African Paris":* The Office of Tourism views the Château Rouge market:

*A message for Parisians when covid kept visitors away

A Black couple wears expensive gear: 

In 15 years of visiting La Goutte d'Or,

I have seen one person dressed that way. 

 By suggesting a middle-class ambiance,

the photo and write-up ignore the different energy.

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Next,

(Not very) threatening youth

(NOT VERY) THREATENING YOUTH

"UP TO NO GOOD!" OR "IS THIS MY COUNTRY?" SOME THINK ON DISCOVERING THE YOUNG NORTH AFRICANS MASSED

AROUND THE MÉTRO

One took my purse from a bag I hadn't closed. Salaud! ["Jerk!"] I cried. He gave it back.

A careless teen bumped into me with his bike, and I fell down. Immediately he and three youths from the sidewalk helped me up saying "Are you all right, ma'am?" "Really all right?"

The police

• This merchant says:"These kids have i-phones that cost a month's pay. But the police don't do anything, they say the judge will let them go. 
  But me personally, I've been here 25 years, 
  we know each other, 
  I've never had a problem."

Abdel ben Ahmed, Fataha Market, 53 rue de la Goutte d'Or

• Tolerating a degree of minor illegality helps prevent worse crime, but the omni-present police do make arrests:

• Cops and kids know each other, but dialogue seems far away. "'There's The Beard, The Elf, Spartacus, Red and Bear Head,' says Mahamé, without dropping his smile. 'But the worst is Mario,' shyly chimes in one of his pals."

-- Why are they so mean? "Streetpress" (in French)

• The cops feel disrespected: 

"Refusing to take a complaint = illegal. Let's educate the police," says the message below:

• "They're anarchists, they don't like us, they think we're uneducated," said a policeman who was not much older than the boys, when I asked what it meant.

# # #

Cops and kids would benefit from meetings guided

by experienced adults of their backgrounds. 

But as a visitor,

just close your handbag or empty your back pocket, 

and walk by:

The youths are not interested in you.

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Next,

Take another look