GRAND PARIS
The government and local authorities are joining forces to achieve the Grand Paris project, bidding to turn Paris into a more human city but also a more global one, like London or New York. Often seen by Parisians themselves as a mere plan to improve the transports network, the Grand Paris project reaches much further. With a sixth of France’s population and a third of the national revenue, the Paris region can no longer be content with a national role and must strengthen its international attractiveness. Around the river Seine, the urbanisation will be completely reconsidered to build a lasting and pleasant city. Grand Paris will develop around poles and will not be as centralised as it is today. Depressed or isolated areas are a key concern and suburbs will be integrated to a Parisian project as a whole the way the old faubourgs became an integral part of the town in the 19th century.
As from 2011, the ministry of Town will create a Grand Paris label to help the general public identify what is being done. Architectural programmes are already underway like a new City of Justice in the 17th arrondissement.
PARIS CITY OF LIGHT
Paris is called the City if light because it was the first to use lamp-posts in the streets of the city. They were introduced in the 17th century by Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie, the first lieutenant of police of Paris. La Reynie’s motivation was not to bring more comfort to his fellow-Parisians but to curb criminality. He had been named as a result of an edict by Louis XIV Prime minister Colbert reorganising the police: “The police consists in securing the rest of the public and the individual and to protect the city against trouble makers”, the edict read. La Reynie, who stayed in office for 30 years between 1667 and 1697, was a firm-handed man. His methods turned Paris into the cleanest city in Europe at the time and the decisions were financed by a tax known as the “mud and lanterns tax”. Among his other innovations were the first traffic and parking regulations, the paving of streets and water supply.
In 1892, a street of the 4th arrondissement was named after La Reynie.
France’s capital city and a legendary stage on the Tour de France, Paris is also the world capital of cycling, as it is within the confines of this city or within immediate proximity to it that the sport of cycling was developed and moulded to boast its present day splendour. Paris-Roubaix, Paris-Tours, Paris-Bourges, Paris-Brussels, Bordeaux-Paris, Paris-Brest-Paris, Paris-Marseilles, les Six jours de Paris, such is the wealth of illustrious cycling races, existing or extinct, that have been launched from or finished in the City of Light.
It is moreover within the urban area of Paris, in the Saint-Cloud Park, that the first road cycling race was officially recorded in 1868, won by the English rider James Moore. Six months later, the first inter-city race took our pioneer riders from Paris to Rouen. It was once again an English rider, G.P. Mills, who won the race.
Originally, races were largely confined to tracks in specially-constructed ve¬lodromes that flourished in and around Paris: the Buffalo in Neuilly; the Parc des Princes, where a certain Henri Desgrange set the world’s first one hour cycling record in 1893; the Cipale at Vincennes, the only cycling track that still exists today in the capital…
It was even in Paris, opposite the head offices of “L’Auto” sports newspaper, at number 10 rue du Faubourg-Montmartre, that the International Cycling Union (UCI) was created, by the very same two people who were to dream up the Tour de France two years later.
Henri Desgrange, editor of “L’Auto”, and Victor Goddet, the magazine’s treasu¬rer, already directed events at the Parc des Princes. They were soon to manage the Winter Velodrome. But in 1902, sales of “L’Auto” were scraping along and suffered from fierce competition with rival publications the “ Petit Journal ” and “ Vélo ” edited by Pierre Giffard. The idea of the Tour was concocted in a brasserie called the Zimmer, “Place du Châtelet” (Chatelet Square) in Paris, where the two managers had invited Géo Lefèvre, the magazine’s chief cycling reporter, to join them. It was Lefè¬vre who casually suggested the idea. For this threesome, soon to loop around the entire country of France, and eager to see the cyclists so fêted by the press, converting Paris to their cause was not an easy task.
Indeed, it was from Montgeron that the first Tour was to be launched in 1903, and in the town of Avray that the finish was staged. In fact, the Prefect (of Police) Lépine had banned cycling races in the capital: the originator of the competition for inventors that was to be named after him was a friend of Pierre Giffard, who could not tolerate the idea that a great race be launched from in front of the head office of a rival newspaper.
In reality, Louis Lépine was far from being opposed to cycling: he created police bike squads and developed the “Tiger Brigades” that were to become so popular on television. He invented the driving licence and city speed limits too (12 km/h in 1896!), but also banned women from cycling in Paris, which was considered most unladylike. To this day there exists an underground velodrome, in a furniture shop near to the Opéra district of Paris, where these ladies were able to cycle to their heart’s content, far from prying eyes…
THE EIFFEL TOWER
Initially called the 300-Me¬tre Tower, this puddle iron tower was built by Gustave Eiffel and his engineers for the 1889 Universal Exhi¬bition. The Eiffel Tower is the most familiar landmark in Paris and is recognised world-wide as the symbol of France. It is the ninth most visited monument in France, and the most visited fee-paying monument in the world, with 6,893 million visitors in 2007.
THE CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES
Is considered to be the most beautiful avenue in Paris and the most beautiful avenue in the world by Parisians. The name is French for “Elysian Fields”, the place of the blessed in Greek mythology.
