Season 2 Episode 8 - CENTRES (SEASON FINALE)
For our final episode, we’ll be picking up where the Utopia episode left off. How do residents take ownership of their cities?
A question that I asked each resident was where their personal city center was, where was the heart of the city to them. And how did they come to feel that way? This episode we’re exploring the many different Parises that exist for its residents. Some of them reached to the city’s past for the answers, some reach into their own pasts, while still others saw the city’s heart in Paris’s future.
In this episode I’ll also be responding to some listener questions about themes from past episodes and how we went about certain aspects of the show. Look for that at the end of the episode.
Season Voice Over Credits:
Anne Graham : Anne, Louis Graham : Bernard, Mirette Khorshed : Saïda, Julia Lanigan : Alice, Ahmed Omran : Yassine, Yusef Audeh : Mehdi, Amarillys Rodriguez : Isabelle, Djenet Bousbaine : Samia, Larry Vale : Jean-Claude, Vanessa Decembre : Océane, Joey Swerdlin : Franck, Cory Lee Jacobs : Hervé, Samantha Adler de Oliveira : Nava, Sam Ellison : Eric, Anne Spirn : Françoise, Tom Bergeron : Frank, Patrick Sylvain : ShuckOne, Aurora Kazi Bassett : Jennifer, Amah Edoh : Mawena, Rosemary Booth : Jacqueline, Ellen Shakespeare : Esther, Iris Zhou : Aurélie, Tiffany Ferguson : Steffi, Lily Bui : Evelyne, Kaija Langley : Dannii, Lawrence Barriner : Anthony, and Bruno Perreau : James Holston excerpt
Script
[INTRO]
Jess 0:00
This is Here There Be Dragons. I’m your host Jess Myers.
[MUSIC]
For our final episode we’ll be picking up where the Utopia episode left off. How do residents take ownership of their cities? What are the safe havens and domestic spaces that residents make for themselves?
[MUSIC]
The residents that I spoke with are a mix of Parisian natives, transplants from other parts of France, and immigrants. They live in the 20 arrondissements of Paris proper and in the many banlieues surrounding the city. Many split their time between both sides of the periphérique. I asked each of them where is their personal city center, where was the heart of the city to them. How did they come to feel that way? This episode we’ll exploring the many different Parises that exist for its residents. Some reached to the city’s past for the answers, some reached into their own pasts, while still others saw the city’s heart in Paris’s future.
In this episode, I’ll also be responding to some listeners’ questions about things from past episodes and how we went about certain aspects of the show. So look out for that at the end of the episode.
The urbanism of Paris and France generally has a very strong sense of centrality. The 20 districts of the city spiral out like a snail shell from the two small islands floating in the bend of the river Seine, the Île de la Cité and the Ile Saint Louis. These islands were once all that Paris was. The famous Notre Dame Cathedral sits on the edge of the Ile de la Cité making it the center of the entire city. The point from which everything seems to evolve. For many in Paris and in France this center holds strong symbolic significance so much so that the highest honor for French citizens is to have their funeral mass as Notre Dame.
[MUSIC from the attentats ceremony]
ADELIE 2:20
“Notre-Dame, personne n’y va…’’
[TRANSLATION]
Notre-Dame, nobody really goes there. It's true that when a president dies, they have a mass at Notre-Dame. Symbolically, it remains really important. It’s a political symbol, at least for a white, Christian part of the population. After the terror attacks, the first mass was at Notre-Dame. When there are important or painful events, people go to Notre-Dame. For example, after the Air France crash about 5 or 6 years ago, the memorial mass was at Notre-Dame. There was a priest, a rabbi, an imam, a pastor and readings from several religions. The memorial ceremony, the ceremony that represents the highest honor is at Notre Dame. It was Air France that organized the service out of respect for the victims, they organized it at Notre-Dame, not at the Sacré-Coeur .
Jess 3:16
Due to its fame and grandeur Notre-Dame and the center city islands are almost exclusively the domain of tourists. As we heard in the last episode, with Les Halles- Châtelet, sometimes the centre is exactly the place that people avoid. But for Alice, the centre took on another layer of significance because of a challenging year she spent there.
ALICE 3:46
“Et donc cette année que j’ai passé à Paris est une année assez particulière, dans le sens où j’ai fréquenté beaucoup les milieux de la drogue. Vraiment…”
[TRANSLATION]
That year that I spent in Paris was pretty weird because I spent a lot of time with people who do drugs. A lot.
I had to leave Paris because my first time here went so badly. I joined my mom in Guyane because I'd become a drug addict. It was right after high school, I was going to university. I never really went to classes but I walked around Paris a lot. We took acid and walked through the streets, we walked through Paris back and forth. I have a lot of memories from that, especially walking through Paris. That was incredible. A supernatural Paris, a gorgeous Paris. I had very few unpleasant encounters. Paris was always magical. I have amazing memories in Paris and that's why I love Paris. That year was both terrible and extremely important for me, in my love for this city.
‘‘C’est embêtant parce que j’en vois plusieurs…’’
[TRANSLATION]
It's pretty funny, there's a lot of things that happened in my life around St. Michel, because my mother lives there, because I lived there during a pretty weird year. There’s something extremely touristy, so Parisian. It’s completely overrated and yet people live there. There’s the Ile de la cité, with the courthouse, I have a buddy who’s been through there a few times. A lot of things happened in that particular place. There’s something symbolic in that place. It’s true that as a Parisian you almost never go to places like that. It’s not a place where I go or live. It’s a place where I can understand how outsiders see Paris.
Jess 5:09
Like Alice, Françoise is also a native of the city. She was born at Châtillon a banlieue on the southwestern edge of the city, and moved to 14th arrondissment when she was 18. And 40 years later, that’s still where she calls home. Like Alice, she loves Paris for the way she feels there, for the way she discovers it. For her, the act of discovery is also an act of homecoming.
FRANÇOISE 5:36
‘‘Et puis je pense à autre chose là par rapport à ce que je disais juste avant, je pense qu’à Paris, puisque vous êtes architecte et que j’imagine votre étude à avoir avec l’espace,… ’’
[TRANSLATION]
What I like about Paris and what I think doesn't really exist anywhere else, is that there's a lot of spaces that are neither in the street nor at home. There are in-between spaces. Spaces that are semi-public. They're very complex, very rich, historically and I find that very exciting, there's a full spectrum of sensations between how exposed you are in public spaces like in the street and the intimacy of your home. I love it so much, all those passages, and small streets, all those courtyards. In Paris you push [open] a door, you [end up] below a house, you end up in a courtyard, or in a passageway. And this creates such a feeling of intimacy. And when it's shared, it also means protection, and that also creates the feeling of security that you can have in Paris, to feel secure but adventurous at the same time.
Jess 6:47
Shuck, who came to Paris from Point à Pitre on the French Caribbean island, Guadeloupe, discovered the heart of the city through its veins. He discovered a sense of belonging not on the streets but in the underground.
SHUCK 7:11
‘‘si je dois en sortir un, je dirais que c'est la ville…’’
[ TRANSLATION ]
If I were to choose a place in particular, I'd say it's the blood vessels of the city, its arteries, the underground, these places that allowed me to follow an artistic trend, movement, current: the metro. Even today I like taking the metro because it gives me a chance to observe society, to be able to draw a caricature of it.
Jess 7:42
For many of the residents that I spoke to their center had very little to do with places they still visit but places where they left live formative memories. For Anthony, those memories are particularly strong from their years in the university.
ANTHONY 8:02
‘‘Bah je dirais les endroits où… bah tout simplement les endroits où j’ai le plus évolué en fait. …’’
[ TRANSLATION ]
[A center] is simply the places where I've spent the most time. When I was in college, in the 13th at Tolbiac. Whenever I’d get off the metro in that place, I feel a little nostalgic, I remember the walk to school. So many things happened there. There's also my boyfriend's apartment in Montmartre, we've spent a lot of time in that area, we know all of the restaurants, all the bars. There's a real emotional past there.
NAVA 8:32
‘‘Là-bas je vais pas souvent. J’aime beaucoup le canal et j’aimais beaucoup beaucoup le 18e où j’étais, donc c’est vraiment là où j’ai, je me suis…’’
[ TRANSLATION ]
I never lived near the canal but I've always liked that place, its openness. It's the same thing with the Pont des Arts, near the Beaux-Arts, I think it has to do with how the water creates an open space. The water is very very important. It's full of life.
Jess 9:00
Like most city dwellers, Jacqueline lived in an apartment for most of her life before buying land at Boulouch, to the south of Paris. But in ’94, she still lived in her Paris apartment for most of the year, meaning that for her, Paris’ parks and gardens are her crucial lifeline.
JACQUELINE 9:25
‘‘Ah non j’aime bien par exemple quand je peux, c’est aller encore au Palais Royal,...’’
[ TRANSLATION ]
When I have time, I like to go to the Palais Royal and its gardens. I like walking below the archways, sitting there. I also often go to the Luxembourg gardens. I like taking the bus there. Walking on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. I like sitting at a terrace and having a drink there. I've remained very Parisian. There are neighborhoods in Paris that I really like. I like the banks of the river, the Tuileries, and the Vert-Galant garden but now that's a little far for me. Back in the day, I used to love going there.
Jess 10:10
For other residents I spoke to, the center wasn’t about what existed but what could exist. Big infrastructure investments like the ones put forward in the Grand Paris plan, had the possibility to connect Paris and the banlieue, completely reshaping the city for residents on both sides of the peripherique. For Anne and Samia, this means not only new connections between towns but also between people.
ANNE 10:38
‘‘lle est très multiple et c’est vrai que moi j’espère aussi que les nouveaux réseaux de transports qui sont en train de se construire au pourtour de, donc le grand paris express ...’’
[ TRANSLATION ]
I hope that the new transport networks that are being built around the outskirts of the Paris expressway will allow people to [explore] differently. It will allow the people who live in this area to have new mobility, new rights, and in the same way they’ll allow people who live more centrally to come and discover all the resources and wonders of these areas, which are quite astonishing.
SAMIA 11 :12
‘‘Voilà y a plein de choses qui se passent maintenant, des pépites d’entreprise et ça s’appelle « Plaine Commune »…’’
[TRANSLATION]
There are many things going on here these days. There's a political merging that tries to bring together 25 towns so that it's more dynamic, culturally, economically, socially. They call it Plaine Commune. They're trying to make these towns viable. I keep up to date with what's going on in those cities, in the theatres, the concerts, debates about history, about the banlieues, about memory, because that's very important to me. There are really some very very interesting things that are open to the public.
Jess 11:51
There is one last account about ownership and the city that I’d like you to hear. Just as we started with a church, with Notre-Dame, we are going to end with one, too. Instead of being at the center of Paris, we are going to its highest point. La Basilique du Sacré Cœur de Montmartre, or just the Sacré Cœur is a very hilly neighborhood of Montmartre. In the 18th arrondissement right at the north edge of the city. Just like everything in Paris, it’s a very complicated place. La Sacré Cœur is a votive church, designed in 1875, and completed in 1914. It was built as both a penance and a vow. The penance was for seeding Paris to Germany after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The vow was a promise from the bourgeois ruling class of Paris to never let a revolt like the Paris Commune of 1871 ever happen again. The Paris Commune of 1871 was a historic revolt for the working class citizens of Paris seized their city against the wealthy ruling bourgeois class for nearly two months. It ended with the Army of Versailles, murdering and executing, something between 6,000 and 12,000 Parisians in a week-long bloody tirade called the Semaine Sanglante . Essentially, the Sacré Cœur is a monument justifying those murderers. There is an ongoing debate as to whether to tear it down entirely to honor those who gave their lives during the Paris Commune.
[ MUSIC ]
Jess 13:38
But as we talked about last episode, just because a project was built for a certain set of values, doesn’t mean those values are respected by the people who use it. In my interview with Steffi, she told me how people from the banlieue, the banlieusards who are often discriminated against in the city center, use the stairs of the Sacré Cœur as a place to hang out. From this point of Montmartre, you can see the whole city. And in this moment, their ownership of the city can’t be denied or taken away. I’d like you to listen to Steffi’s story and her own words first.
STEFFI 14 :24
‘‘Le Sacré-Cœur, pas tant pour l’église parce que je suis pas très à l’aise autour des monuments religieux, dedans dehors je suis pas très à l’aise, mais les marches du Sacré-Cœur, c’est important pour moi. C’est un endroit important pour moi parce que… parce qu’on voit tout Paris de là. On voit tout Paris et pareil, je pense que ça ressemble vachement à ma manière d’apprécier Paris. C’est que j’y vais souvent. En fait le Sacré-Cœur, j’aime beaucoup cet endroit, le Sacré-Cœur parce que déjà c’est ouvert donc ça ferme jamais. Évidemment le, enfin le jardin ferme, mais les marches ne ferment pas, donc c’est toujours accessible, pendant la journée y a plein de touristes c’est insupportable et le soir y a des banlieusards. Y a des banlieusards qui viennent se caler là pendant trois heures, parfois ils s’embrouillent et parfois ils sont juste là dans leur voiture et ils font rien, ils sont juste là… et j’aime bien le Sacré-Cœur pour ça, parce que c’est un espèce de… c’est comme un espèce de choc de culture où tout d’un coup un endroit hyper hyper symbolique pour la ville de Paris et pour les touristes. Ce mélange d’un coup la nuit il appartient, il appartient un peu aux banlieusards et là je me retrouve.’’
[ TRANSLATION ]
The Sacré Coeur, not because of the church because I don't feel very comfortable around religious monuments, but the steps in front of the Sacré Coeur. They’re really important for me. You can see all of Paris from there, and that's kind of how I like Paris. I often go there, I like [it] because it never closes. You can always go on the steps, they're always accessible. During the day it's unbearable there are so many tourists, but in the evenings you have people from the banlieue. Some come and hang out for hours, sometimes they get into fights, sometimes they're just in their cars and don't do anything, they're just there. That's one of the reasons why I like the Sacré Coeur, there's like a culture shock and it's very symbolic of Paris. It's a mix and at night it kinda belongs to those people from the banlieue and I feel good there.
[ MUSIC ]
Jess 17 :09
Like Steffi, many of the residents I spoke to felt a sense of safety and belonging in the parts of the Parisianal region where they’ve carved out a little piece of the ownership. For Steffi, it‘s the steps of the Sacré Coeur, where perched above the city and surrounded by the people from the volume. She feels the city belongs to her. For others, it is small as their street corner, or their block, or place where their contribution to the culture of the city is valorized. For the entire year of the season, we discussed different signals in public space that make people feel vulnerable or unwelcome. But there are also so many influences that allow residents to feel safe. And this safety doesn’t necessarily come from police, or military intervention. You might remember that at the end of the last few episodes, I asked for your questions and comments. One of the questions we got is exactly this question of how safety is signal in public space.
ANNA 18 :12
This is Anna, calling in from Hong Kong. As another American abroad, I am really interested in false perceptions of safety by outsiders. Are there signals that as Amerian people, you read it safe that French people do not, and es versa. And what are some ideas about safety that people within Paris mistake when they cross over into neighborhoods they are unfamiliar with?
Jess 18 :38
This is a very great question, but as an American, I really can’t speak to the French experience on this, which is why ‘‘Here There Be Dragons’’ really revolves around primarily residents’ experiences. But I can speak to similarities that I heard in my interviews and I’ve seen in my research. So, one question is about police practices. Does the presence of the police, the presence of the military make people feel more welcome in public space or more safe ? And the answer to that is a resounding ‘’No’’. In episode one, if you remember, most people say that seeing soldiers in the street, or seeing lots of police in the street make them feel like something is always wrong. Another question is, you know, whose safety do the police protect? So, there is a saying that you shouldn’t feel uncomfortable round the police if you haven‘t done anything wrong. But it really isn’t that simple. So, in 2002, the former administrator of interior, Nicolas Sarkozy, pulled the policy from Rudy Giuliani, former New York Mayor’s playbook. And instituted some policies of zero-tolerant policing in Paris which really ramped up the amount of contact that police officers were making with residents and citizens. And there are many accounts of what happened because of this fallout of policy and I encourage people to definitely read those excellent accounts like Didier Fassin, enforcing order, an ethnography of urban policing is an excellent source of talking about essentially what happened on the ground when zero-tolerant policy came to Paris. And essentially, it follows this trajectory of colonial policing where the police developed this antagonist relationship with the immigrants, and especially with French people of North African, or Arab descent. And especially with young people as well.
One last thing that I’d like to bring up about signaling safety is the question of safe spaces that Esther brought up in episode three about communitarianism. The term safe spaces essentially comes out of American college-age students advocating for spaces that are safe for minorities or marginalized students on campus. Safe space has become is kind of meme that characterizes students who want a censor or want to be babied, or essentially don’t want to listen to views that are opposing to theirs . What I’d like to point out is that every space is a safe space to someone. And these spaces are historically safest for the people who have the most power and least amount of accountability towards other people. So, as an example, if you are in a corporate space that doesn’t take seriously reporting about sexist and racist acts that happened in that space. Then that space in fact becomes a safe space for sexist and racist acts. And essentially, people who are experiencing or are the victims of those acts. Because it’s saying to them, “Your job is on the line, your likability is on the line” if they continue to report them. So what I am hoping the podcast is done with is that: one person’s safety or one person’s safe space can actually be a hostile space for someone else. Essentially that, the idea of safe space is quite personal, but also ties into the history of systemic oppression, and that can really play into who feels the safest in a space.
[ MUSIC ]
Jess 22:36
The last question comes from Léopold, who I interviewed for a show but he also interviewed me for his podcast, Archipelago. He asked me what I thought about safety and security rhetoric being used as a political tool to enable discriminatory policy to get public support.
Jess 22:56
[Answer]
I think it is very manipulative. But what it does is say everyone has one kind of fear. Everyone has one kind of sense of insecurity. And we can only respond to that sense of insecurity in one way. But what I think is so interesting coming out of this conversation is the way that insecurity or safety in a way that people feel safe or don’t feel safe has relatively little to do with what a police officer can take care of. So it’s just like I was talking to one woman who was describing how their new gendarmerie, new police station opened close to their house. So there are huge groups of armed men standing around in the street where she lives. She would walk by in a short skirt and see that the police officers standing on the sidewalk were were checking her out.
Léopold 23:53
With weapons.
Jess 23:54
Yeah, and that was like how does that feel any different from the teenage boys who standing in front of the high school doing the same thing? And it’s just like a woman being able to wear a short skit and have it not being an issue is not something the police can really respond to. So how can we make…and I think this gets to the heart of just hearing other people speak about safety and bring that to the forefront is saying: If we just can get the understanding of what’s going through people’s heads when they see us look at them in the street. How can we as individuals make public space safer for each other by just not being… being a little less horrible to each other. We have a better understanding of what people are going through.
[ MUSIC ]
Jess 24:57
So that was the interview that I did with Léopold in the middle of my field research many months before I started editing this podcast. You can hear the entire interview on the the Funambulist podcast, Archipelago. It came out about three months ago. Something that I’d like to emphasize is that security rhetoric is very manipulative. And it is also the driving force in much of our global politics right now, often at the cost of everything else. And this is what I was reflecting on when I heard about the shooting that happened on the Champs Élysées. When the shooter, a 39-year-old French citizen murdered the police officer and wounded to others. It seems the hyper-nationalist anti-immigrant political party – La Front National – stands the benefit from this tragedy. Despite the fact, that no immigrant was committing a crime. It also seems that nationalist anti-immigrant parties across the west benefit anytime these tragedies occur. And yet, when we turn to our most hateful rhetoric to protect us when we turn to our largest bombs, to our highest walls, to our strictest travel bans, they just don‘t seem to protect us as we had hoped. Perhaps it’s because the people they put in power, never truly had our safety at heart. Perhaps that‘s because true safety has very little to do with discrimination and isolation. I don’t have all the answers on how we can begin to take each other’s individual scent of safety into consideration. And I’ll still continue to post writings and clips on HTBD podcast website so look out for them there. And if you still have questions or comments, please continue to send them to htbdpodacst@gmail.com. This is only the beginning of a discussion that I hoped this series was able to inspire. And I hope this conversation can continue long after this episode ends.
[ MUSIC ]
Jess 27:03
Thanks for listening this has been the second season of Here There Be Dragons. But not only is it the second season of this podcast, it is also my master’s thesis for my degree in city planning in MIT. Each one of your comments, your questions and contributions have become a part of my research and my thesis committee and for that I thank you. I’d also like to thank my sponsors at MIT Council for the Arts who made this season possible, to my wonderful producer Adélie Pozjman-Pontay,who edited this podcast from a ocean away, and to my thesis advisor Anne Spirn, my second reader Renée Green, and everyone who agreed to be interviewed for this show, so to Adelie, Alexandre, Alice, Alison, Anne, Anthony, Aurélie, Bernard, Daina, Dannii, Eric, Esther, Evelyne, Franck, Frank, Françoise, Hervé, Isabelle, Jacob, Jacqueline, Jean-Claude, Jennifer, Léopold, Mawena, Mehdi, Nava, Océane, Saida, Samia, Shuck, Steffi, and Yassine. As well as for Fabrice d’Almeida, Sylvie Tissot, Maurice Blanc, Mehemmed Amadeus Mack. Thank you to everyone who voiced the English translations. Full credit will be up on the website. And I’d also like to thank Cory Jacobs for his music and his trio Octopus 2000 for the theme music for the show. Be sure to check out their EP on Bandcamp.
As always subscribe and rate us on iTunes, Soundcloud, and Stitcher or follow us on twitter at @dragons_podcast. And check out our website https://www.htbdpodcast.com for more Here There Be Dragons. We will be sending out the second newsletter next week. So if you haven’t subscribed, go ahead and do that the bottom of our web page. Lastly, for this season, I’m your host Jess Myers, thank you for joining me for these stories of fear, identity, and urban life.