L'occupation populaire de la rue : un frein à la gentrification ?

Abstract

Based on the case studies of two working-class and migrant neighbourhoods of Paris, the Bas-Belleville (10th-11th arrondissements) and Château-Rouge (18th), this paper shows the importance of working-class use of street and public space. This use is characterised by many people standing in the street where there is a concentration of cheap shops for immigrants. This concentration creates an urban centrality in which streets are a really sociable place for working-class people of all national origins. In the two neighbourhoods that were studied, this use of public space by immigrants tended to hide the on-going process of gentrification. If this process has been delayed and slowed down in these neighbourhoods compared with the rest of Paris, it nevertheless really does exist today, driven by the gentrifiers’ will to appropriate public space. Therefore, working-class use of public space and gentrification are competing directly with each other. In Paris, the left-wing municipality tends to support the gentrifiers by a general policy of embellishment of the city and standardisation of manners in public space, at the expense of working-class practices.

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