Paris, the forbidden city

Ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government demolished historic neighborhoods under the pretext of rehabilitating dangerous old homes. Residents received scant compensation, and many were moved to the outskirts of the city, where public transport and amenities were poor.

In Paris, the situation is strikingly similar. In the run-up to the 2024 Olympics, the city has embarked on a vast cleansing operation, pushing homeless people and migrants out of the central arrondissements and moving them to areas on the outskirts of the capital.

This policy of social cleansing is also based on the rehabilitation of old, supposedly dangerous housing. In reality, it is a policy of exclusion, which systematically removes the poor and minorities from the more central and tourist areas to the outskirts of the city, where they become invisible to residents and tourists alike.

Just as Beijing once was, Paris has become a forbidden city for the working classes and the most precarious.