VIII. A PAST THAT IS FORGOTTEN AND INDELIBLE

MENU: 8. A past forgotten and indelible

THE MAY DAY PARADE IN HONOR OF LABOR BEGINS AT  THE 13TH'S CITY HALL

A mayor who believes that "social services are the fortune of the poor" has made this overlooked district a leader in those services, in revegetation and in unstandardized arts. 

A tragic past and the struggles it brought underlie that success. 

# # #

• In the footsteps of "demons"

• Small businesses that Communards would value

• Lost industry's traces

• A district that leans left

• More gifts from City Hall

• The obscure 13th, a place to pitch your tent?

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VIII.1.
In the footsteps of "demons"

VIII.5. A DISTRICT THAT LEANS LEFT

 

THESE STRIKERS ARE DEMONSTRATING AT PLACE D'ITALIE

(MAY 2024)

The ambiance favors them.

• Part of the Social-Democratic City
• Posters and signs
• Start of the City's May Day parade in front of City Hall

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Part of a Social-Democratic City

 

THE CHURCH WHERE THE LAST BATTLE WAS FOUGHT

 

BUILT IN 1855-1858 IN ANTICIPATION OF ANOTHER INSURRECTION, THE SPACE LARGE ENOUGH TO HOLD SOLDIERS, HORSES AND CANNONS MUST BE THE SITE IN THE "WEST"...

--  Gérard Conte, Elements of the History of the Commune in the 13th arrondissement, 1981,

    based on archival records (in French)

Where Sérisier and his men went on to pursue the fight. 

  

The huge space around Notre-Dame de la Gare. 

Toward 5 p.m., the battle lost, they faded into their neighborhood.

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The passage by which the survivors fled

PART OF A SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC CITY

THE EMPHASIS EXISTS WHEREVER THE LEFT HAS BEEN ELECTED

FOR OR AGAINST / greening and pedestrianizing 500 small streets / Vote March 23

BUDGET 2025 a cantine fee from 0.13€, unchanged for 10 years

BUDGET 2025 / TRANSPORT PASS REIMBURSED FOR UNDER 18s, SENIORS AND HANDICAPPED

A center for city-wide youth opened in the 13th in March, 2025

Interpreting some of them in their own way:

FESTIVAL OF ECOLOGICAL COMBAT, Accent on the ocean!

(Third edition, June 14-21, 2015) 

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Posters and signs

VIII.1. IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF "DEMONS"

 MENU: 8.1. In the footsteps of "demons"

THE STREETS BY WHICH THE COMMUNARDS FLED SHOW HOW THE AREA'S SPECIFICITY IS THE RESULT OF THEIR TIMES 

We start with the passage by which they fled.

Harald Wolff

The huge space behind the church, built to let the army assemble with horses and cannons, must be the place "in the west" where fiery Serizier and his battalion of "demons" fought their last battle (for the context, please click back here, here and here), and the path behind it where survivors fled.

The route:

Adapted from a map of about 1900 / zoom

The first street:

          Photo by Eugène Adjet, 1925 / zoom

N° 204 rue du Château des Rentiers

N° 120: The caretaker of a City-run establishment for seniors chats with a resident.

 In brief

• The church where the last battle was fought 
• The passage by which survivors fled 
• City-run residences for seniors or the handicapped align
• Another residence. Greening. Sculptures. Bikes. Gyms. Gardens
• More social services. More gardens. Local engagement
• Election posters in a real democracy

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The church where the last battle was fought

 

POSTERS AND SIGNS

A HAMMER AND SICKLE NEXT TO A BUS TERMINAL AT THE TOP OF A SLOPE, WHICH ONE SEES ALMOST FROM THE RIVER

July 2025

Back to the area where the Communards fled

(In 2024-2025 unless otherwise said)

 2022, space leading to the series of parks on the site of  a Say sugar refinery

"For public services against the Europe of money"

                                                      Before the legislative elections of June 2024 on the railing of parc de Choisy

"Where do you think you're going if you go right?"

 

Elections 2024, corner rues Sthrau / Nationale

"Racists vote. And you?"  "Where are you on June 9?" (The day of the European elections) "The rich vote. And you?"

November 2024, corner rues Tolbiac / Baudricourt

"The Dignity of Work" / "Movement of Communist Youth of France" / "Solidarity with Palestine"

June 2024, corner  rue de Tolbiac / rue du Château des Rentiers

"Against fascism!" / The force to change it all!" (France Unbowed) / "Animal reign"

Place d'Italie, January 2025

Left: Join the Communist revolution / Middle: Health school transport research justice culture finance leisure information: Public Service Forum  / Right: Billionaires will not defeat us 

February 2025, railing of parc de Choisy

"To change it all, Popular Front" (a left-wing coalition) 

May 2025

"MEETING internationalist revolutionary,"

"They want your retirement and your children... Not a life, not a penny for their wars"

 June 2025, market under the aerial métro

"ACQUIT Anasse Kazib and all supporters of Palestine"

Rue Ponscarme

July 2025

I have lived here 15 years

and have seen no right-wing signs.

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Start of the City's May Day parade

in front of City Hall

THE PASSAGE BY WHICH SURVIVORS FLED

OF COURSE ALL OF PARIS HAS CHANGED SINCE LA COMMUNE'S TIME, BUT RARELY AS MUCH AS HERE 

A medical Laboratory is on one side of the passage, and a medical center is a few steps away.  

A sculpture and trees soften the aridity of low-cost construction:

Place Souham

The passage ends with a mosaic of the area's métro map:

A father points his tennis racket as he explains it to his son.

Across the street:

• This cheerful café

Le Père Fecto

• Then an intersection, in the middle of which is island whose greenery was recently enriched (in 2025). On the other side is a City-run kindergarten.

Intersection, rues Jean Coly and Château des Rentiers

Signs in front of it show activist parents:

"We love public school" "Maintain the freedom of school directors not to be saddled by extra tasks."

Next to it is a street closed off to enlarge the greenery (in summer, 2025):

Sérizier, who was too well-known to go home, took refuge "in a house on rue du Château des Rentiers," the next street. 

-- Comte, Elements...

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City-run residences for seniors or the handicapped align

ELECTION POSTERS IN A REAL DEMOCRACY

AN AMERICAN OBSERVES: IN CONTRAST TO THE UNITED STATES...

Main parties present their candidates (farther along rue Nationale).

• Voting is on Sunday.

• Voting sites are numerous.

• There is no gerrymandering. 

• Businesses cannot contribute.  

• Candidates are elected by direct popular vote (as opposed to the American two-tiered system that favors conservatives). 

•  Far-right media are far less prominent.  

• The parliamentary system allows a number of parties.

As well:

• Students are admitted to the top universities on the basis of competitive national examinations and receive salaries as government officials (they teach for at least three years after receiving their diplomas). 

• Government-run health care is free for life-and-death cases and relatively inexpensive for the rest. 

• There are no privately-run prisons.

Americans who before Trump's second presidency said

"We are the world's most admired democracy,"

knew nothing of European systems. 

End of this section.

 

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Next section,

VIII.2.

Small businesses that Communards would have valued

VIII.2. SMALL BUSINESSES THAT COMMUNARDS WOULD HAVE VALUED

 

"ART IS ANYTHING DONE WITH PASSION THAT ADDRESSES THE PUBLIC" THEY SAID 

They would approve the little shops that now line the routes where fighting had been intense and through which they scattered. 

Adapted from a Google map

Having made the page I realized that all were founded by immigrants or their descendants. When I asked why, they said:

• Being hired by a company or rising within it can be difficult.

• Diplomas from outside the European Union are not recognized in France. 

• Transplanting oneself into a new culture already takes initiative, and once there one must invent one's way.

• Immigrants are willing to work the 12-14 hours a day that a small business requires. *

*A Cameroonian shop owner in another neighborhood sleeps there when she must finish an order.

• Compatriots or family who are already there often have shops. Newcomers may work for them and so be introduced to the trade. Such entourages also lead offspring to follow the same path.  

 

  # # # 

Just behind the church:

• The only stationary store in the vicinity from which one can send a fax or buy The New York Times (since 2005).

Bureau Vallée

10 rue Jeanne d'Arc

 Fanny and Robert Ho, Chinese

• Asian and organic products (since 2002).

Boutique Bio et Bien-être

19 place Jeanne d'Arc

From left to right: Aline Ly, from Laos: She is familiar with Asian medicine and chooses the products; Sophie Dmitreff, owner, whose grandmother came from Russia in 1924; Barbara Raab, whose grandparents were Austrian and Czechoslovakian. 

=

Date syrup and birch sugar 

# # #

Beyond the crossroad

(On rues du Château des Rentiers and Nationale)

• A pharmacy

Pharmacie Nationale

128 rue Nationale

"Thank you, Catherine!" said this client. The pharmacist is Asian. A majority are of immigrant origin. 

Valerie Marquiès (of Spanish and Moroccan origine) shows how to use a blood pressure monitor. 

New York's Union Square neighborhood

 is as far from the center as the 13th,

and one might expect a comparable ambiance.  

But pharmacies are part of a chain, the very young employees know nothing and the clients are anonymous. Here, employees are professionals who inform and know the customers. 

• A few steps on: a couturier who also does alterations and reparations (since 2000).

Marcel Bayo Lukombo

Bayocreamode

12 rue Dr Victor Huntinel (corner of rue Nationale)

 

Fugitives must have taken this important way. 

• On the parallel street, a Chinese restaurant* (since 1986):

*For more about it, please click.

La Mer de Chine

159 rue du Château des Rentiers

The menu explains the dishes' origins and health benefits.

Simon, who replaced his older brother in 2021.

That a restaurant should maintain itself in a neighborhood where many elderly residents lack the means to dine out and where at night there is very little traffic surprises.Its durability comes from excellence.

# # #

On a street that barricades once covered (rue de Tolbiac), Lin, from Cambodia and Roy, from Spain have opened an excellent eyewear store. Flamenco music quietly plays as you walk in.

Lin et Roy

75 rue Tolbiac 

And across from it, Hamid Amin foresees the moment when sales by chains and the web will force him to sell the hardware store that his mother, from Réunion, founded in 1986. But for the moment... 

Burhanie decor shop

70 rue Tolbiac 

• Monsieur Amin and his friend Mohammed ("Momo"), a retired laborer who now transports children and does odd jobs:

Momo working for me.

• A shop where every inch is used:  

• One evening as I waited while Monsieur Amid wrapped a package for the man behind the counter I overheard this conversation...

"If the government changes the retirement age there'll be demonstrations, covid is always present and in any case we'll all die some day, we don't know when or how, but it will come." 

Those somber subjects were evoked with as much good humor as at the bar of a café. 

# # #

There's a mall ten minutes away. 

The salespeople are polite,

but one feels that for them it's just a job. 

These shops are different.  

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Back to the walk. 

At the end of rue du Château des Rentiers

is a sign that invites you to enter 

 "The garden of the Say refinery."  

At the end of rue du Château des Rentiers.

Please read on.

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Next,

VIII.3

Lost industry's traces