You are in:
- Archives » 2007 » October 2007
Bringing The Left Bank To The Banlieue
Aubervilliers - it's not the boulevard St Germain...
France's leading intellectuals regularly preach the merits of integrating the impoverished suburbs into the fabric of Parisian life. When Nicolas Sarkozy, then Interior Minister, took a hard line on violent crime in the Paris banlieue, the denizens of France's top colleges were among the first to criticise Sarko for his lack of "solidarity" with the youth of the housing estates surrounding Paris.
Moreover, France's various intellectuals regularly grumble that the historic centre of Paris has become a living museum. The "gauche caviar's" favourite stomping ground, the left-bank neighbourhood of St-Germain, comes in for particular criticism: Philosophers' cafés and artists' garrets have given way to designer boutiques and apartments for rich foreigners. You'd get the impression that they'd be eager to get away from the place.
But when some Paris academics were invited to walk the walk by relocating from their cosy rive gauche offices to a new campus in the grim northern banlieue of Aubervilliers, the radical thinkers didn't ponder long before declaring that the proposals were a move too far.
The Times has a rundown on the story, and criticism of the philosophers of the elite College of Higher Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS). The college is moving from the boulevard Raspail in the swish 6th arrondisement to a former industrial site in the Seine-St-Denis town of Aubervilliers, at the heart of the dreaded "93" department.
The building currently used by the school is being closed for the removal of asbestos.
The Times reports,
"The academics said a delegation had visited the new site in Aubervilliers and was “appalled”. “No inhabitants. No green spaces. Practically no trees. No businesses. No cafés. No restaurants,” they said in a blog."
"Philosophers, historians, economists and sociologists have lined up to denounce the suburb as a cultural desert... They say Seine-Saint-Denis (...) is a “zone lacking all the necessary tools for intellectual work”.
Le Monde carries a letter from some of the protesting academics, who claim that the new campus is too far away to be easily accessible by visiting students from other left-bank universities (and vice-versa). Public transport in and out of Aubervilliers is dodgy: There is a bus line running from the equally grotty La Chapelle metro stop in Northern Paris.
The academics accuse the state of plotting the move because of high rents and property prices in central Paris. Others, like on young sociologist quoted in the Nouvel Observateur's books blog, mutter darkly that the government is attempting to break up the great tradition of radical French social thought, forged in the "events" of May 1968.
Its left bank location, they argue, "brings fruitful synergies between the schools and their Paris partners - universities, grands écoles, research centres and so on". One commentator has
Currently, EHESS and the other school lined up for the move contribute to a "campus" of great learning centres in the heart of the city, they say, which prevents Paris from becoming a "museum city". One commentator has described the 5th-6th arrondisement intellectual neighbourhood as a kind of Parisian "Silicon Valley" (though one which produces hare-brained ideas rather than iPods).
What will become of Paris's critical and creative spirit if this cluster of schools is moved? And, they conclude, once EHESS goes, who will be next?
Their opponents have little sympathy for the academics' plight, remarking that the profs are more worried about missing out on long lunches in the rive gauche's agreeable cafés and pain poilane sandwiches from Le Bon Marché.
Others argue that the EHESS's academics are protesting against a valuable opportunity to bring their education to the people and to improve the image of a run-down neighbourhood.
ADDED 15.30 GMT:
Middle class French workers have a tradition of opposing moves to unfashionable districts: A few years ago, when the Finance Ministry moved to (reasonably pleasant) Bercy in the east of Paris, the gripes of civil servants made it seem as if they had been banished to Siberia. Other complaints from private sector workers accompanied moves to new developments across the Seine from Bercy, in the 13th arrondisement.
The French government more than compensated by building a 14th Metro line, the super-fast "Méteor" which whisks fonctionnaires from Madeleine to the new Bibliotheque François Mitterand in minutes.
Plus, the line 14 trains are driverless - so there's a guaranteed service, even when other "civil servants" are on strike... perhaps that's what the academics fear for Aubervilliers?
