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Paris - History

Middle ages

Paris lost its position as seat of the realm during occupation of the English-allied Burgundians during the Hundred Years’ War, but regained its title when Charles VII reclaimed the city in 1437. Although Paris was capital once again, the Crown preferred to remain in its [citation needed]. During the , Paris was a stronghold of the , culminating in the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre (1572). re-established the royal court in Paris in 1594 after he converted to Roman Catholicism (with this historic sentence: Paris is well worth a Mass). During the Fronde, Parisians rose in rebellion and the royal family fled the city (1648). King Louis XIV then moved the royal court permanently to Versailles in 1682. A later, Paris was the centre stage for the Revolution, with the Storming of the Bastille in 1789 and the overthrow of the monarchy in 1792[citation needed].

[edit] Nineteenth

The Industrial Revolution, the Second Empire, and the Belle Époque brought Paris the greatest development in its history. From the 1840s, rail transport allowed an unprecedented flow of migrants into Paris attracted by employment in the new industries in the suburbs. The city underwent a massive renovation under Napoleon III and his préfet Haussmann, who levelled entire districts of narrow, winding medieval streets to create the network of wide avenues and neo-classical façades of modern Paris. This programme of “Haussmannization” was designed to make the city both more beautiful and more sanitary for its inhabitants, although it did have the added benefit that in case of future revolts or revolutions, cavalry charges and rifle fire could be used to deal with the insurrection while the rebel tactic of barricading so often used during the Revolution would become obsolete.[13]

Cholera epidemics in 1832 and 1849 affected the —the 1832 epidemic alone claimed 20,000 of the then population of 650,000.[14] Paris also suffered greatly from the siege which ended the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871): in the chaos caused by the fall of Napoleon III’s government, the Commune of Paris (1871) sent many of Paris’ administrative centres (and city archives) up in flames while 20,000 Parisians were killed by fighting between Commune and Government forces in what became known as the semaine sanglante (Bloody Week).[15]

Paris recovered rapidly from these events to host the famous Universal Expositions of the late nineteenth .[16] The Eiffel Tower was built for the Revolution centennial 1889 Universal Exposition, as a “temporary” display of architectural engineering prowess but remained the world’s tallest building until 1930, and is the city’s best-known landmark, while the 1900 Universal Exposition saw the opening of the first Paris Métro line. Paris’ World’s Fairs also consolidated its position in the tourist industry and as an attractive setting for international technology and trade shows.[16]

[edit] Twentieth

During World War I, Paris was at the forefront of the war effort, having been spared a German invasion by the and British victory at the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. In 1918-1919, it was the scene of Allied victory parades and peace negotiations. In the inter-war period Paris was famed for its cultural and artistic communities and its nightlife. The city became a gathering place of artists from around the world, from exiled Russian composer Stravinsky and Spanish painters Picasso and Dalí to American writer Hemingway.[17]

In June 1940, five weeks after the start of the Battle of France, Paris fell to German occupation forces who remained there until the city was liberated in August 1944, two months after the Normandy invasion.[18] endured World War II practically unscathed, as there were no strategic targets for Allied bombers (train stations in are terminal stations; major factories were located in the suburbs), and also because of its cultural significance. German General von Choltitz did not destroy all Parisian monuments before any German retreat, as ordered by Adolf Hitler, who had visited the city in 1940.[19]

In the post-war era, Paris experienced its largest development since the end of the Belle Époque in 1914. The suburbs began to expand considerably, with the construction of large social estates known as cités and the beginning of the business district La Défense. A comprehensive express subway network, the RER, was built to complement the Métro and serve the distant suburbs, while a network of freeways was developed in the suburbs, centred on the Périphérique expressway circling around the city.[20][21][22]

Since the 1970s, many inner suburbs of Paris (especially the north and eastern ones) have experienced deindustrialization, and the once-thriving cités have gradually become ghettos for immigrants and oases of unemployment.[23][24] At the same time, the city of Paris (within its Périphérique ring) and the western and southern suburbs have successfully shifted their economic base from traditional manufacturing to high value-added services and high-tech manufacturing, generating great wealth for their residents whose per capita income is among the highest in Europe.[25][26][27] The resulting widening social gap between these two areas has led to periodic unrest since the mid-1980s, such as the 2005 riots which largely concentrated in the northeastern suburbs.[28]

[edit] Twenty-first

In order to address social tensions in the inner suburbs and revitalise the metropolitan economy of Paris, several plans are currently under way. The office of Secretary of State for the Development of the Capital Region was created in March 2008 within the government. Its office holder, Christian Blanc, is in charge of overseeing President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans for the creation of an integrated Grand Paris (”Greater Paris”) metropolitan authority (see Administration section below), as well as the extension of the subway network to cope with the renewed growth of population in Paris and its suburbs, and various economic development projects to boost the metropolitan economy such as the creation of a world-class technology and scientific cluster and university campus on the Saclay plateau in the southern suburbs.

In parallel, President Sarkozy also launched in 2008 an international urban and architectural competition for the future development of metropolitan Paris. Ten teams gathering architects, urban planners, geographers, landscape architects will offer their vision for building a Paris metropolis of the 21st in the post-Kyoto era and make a prospective diagnosis for Paris and its suburbs that will define future developments in Greater Paris for the next 40 years. The goal is not only to build an environmentally sustainable metropolis but also to integrate the inner suburbs with the central City of Paris through large scale urban planning operations and iconic architectural projects.

Meanwhile, in an effort to boost the image of metropolitan Paris in the global competition, several supertall skyscrapers (300 m (984 ft) and higher) have been approved since 2006 in the business district of La Défense, to the west of the city proper, and are scheduled to be completed by the early 2010s. The City of Paris authorities also made public they are planning to authorise the construction of skyscrapers within the city proper by relaxing the cap on building height for the first time since the construction of the Tour Montparnasse in the early 1970s.

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