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 Mappy

     

A "no-go zone"

(or that is said to be)

• Back to the wine tax

• A dark forgotten past

• 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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Back to the wine tax

BACK TO THE WINE TAX

 

THE CITY WALL BROUGHT A COUNTER-CULTURE LIKE THAT OF BELLEVILLE...

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

...due to the untaxed wine sold on its exterior, northern side:

Adapted from a Google map

 The Exterior Boulevards replace it.

# # #

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 was irrelevant there, since the wealthy clients did not care. 

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A dark forgotten past

 

A DARK FORGOTTEN PAST

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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A métro station and a movie theater

A MÉTRO STATION AND A MOVIE THEATER

THE DISCREDITED AREA THAT LINES THE TRACKS HARBORS TWO MONUMENTS MOST TOURISM EXCLUDES

The aerial métro, symbole of Barbès

A bank highlights its ATM machine with a photo.

Stephane Lagoutte / Le Monde

     Adapted from the official (RATP) map  

As you leave the station, turn right and look through the barrier... 

 

                     Unknown photographer

Zoom

For an account (in French)

 and photos from the past, please click.

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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

# # #

La Goutte d'Or begins at the crossroads, with a canteen that could be in Dakar... 

Thiéy Ndakarou 2

        10 rue des Gardes

On a street...

...whose other establishments are upscale, both French or African: 

  

Chaussettes orphelines

2 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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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

Zoom

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