Expatica France is pleased to offer a historical and cultural tour of Paris from City of Light expert Thirza Vallois. We continue our tour in the eighteenth arrondissement, in the area known as la Goutte-d'Or.

Undoubtedly, Montmartre steals the show in the 18th arrondissement, but
 if you want a taste of today's ethnically multi-cultured Paris, the Goutte-d'Or further east will be your destination, a tiny patch of Africa, transplanted to Paris.The neighbourhood  is also one of the last remnants of genuine working-class village life. If you come over on Saturday morning, you will have to negotiate the crowds, which are  part of the atmosphere,  and will enjoy the colourful food market held under the elevated railway tracks along Boulevard de la Chapelle - a pretty sight, though filled with the incessant clatter of passing trains.

 Turn left into rue des Islettes, where the famous washouse of La Goutte-d'Or once stood, a red-brick building, reeking with steam. It is around this working-class hub that the life of Emile Zola's Gervaise rotated and from where Nana set out on her journey up the echelons of society. La Goulue, a creature of real flesh and blood, immortalised at the Moulin Rouge by Toulouse-Lautrec, was also the daughter of a laundress from La Goutte-d'Or - Zola's creatures were all true to life.
 Today rue de la Goutte-d'Or, to your right, is predominantly a North
 African enclave,  conspicuously empty of women, as are the enclave's cafés.

The first North Africans came here in the early years of the  20th century, but the big wave of immigration arrived in the 1950s, often to work in the automobile industry. By the end of the decade, the Goutte-d'Or was so heavily populated with Algerians that it became the FLN headquaters during the Algerian War.

 In the middle of this North African enclave, behind an iron age at no.
 42, the countrified Villa Poissonnière, seems like a bit of Montmartre
 placed here by mistake. On either side stand lovely old houses, some
 attractively enhanced by ceramics, each with its exquisite, pocket-size
 garden filled with the twittering of birds. The site is believed to
 have been the property of a winegrower, ideally situated on a
 south-facing slope. Indeed, in the Middle Ages, the wines of La Goutte
 d'Or had attained such renown that during a European contest at the
 time of Saint Louis, they shared third prize with those of Alicante and
 Laconia. The first prize went to Cyprus, the 'Pope' of wines, and the
 second prize to Malaga, the 'Cardinal' of wines.

The wine of La Goutte d'Or was crowned the 'King' of wines, which also tells us something about the position of the royal authorities in the hierarchy of
 medieval Europe and their struggle to gain independence from Rome. It
 was customary at the time for the City of Paris to present the King
 with wine from La Goutte d'Or on his birthday. It is believed the
 neighbourhood was named 'a drop of gold' after its much prized wine.

 Continue to rue Pierre l'Ermite. At the end of the street stands the
 neo-Gothic church of Saint Bernard de la Chapelle, unknown to most
 Parisians prior to the summer of 1996, when it made the headlines as a
 stronghold of resistance to the measures of expulsion taken by the
 authorities against African workers devoid of work permits (referred to
 as sans papiers). Having occupied the church, they engaged in a long-haul hunger strike, supported by the media, a substantial portion of the public and humanitarian organisations, members of which joined them in the church.

Early in the morning of 23 August, they were taken by surprise, when the police stormed the church and dislodged the strikers. On the same street the sculptured bourgeois façade at no. 3 is evidence that well-to-do people -  successful shopkeepers and suppliers of other services to the poor - also lived in the neighbourhood, unbothered by the proximity of the slums, as was often the case in Paris in the past.

 Rue Myrrah is the gateway to Black Africa, a genuine neighbourhood
 catering for genuine locals, who have their traditional African
 costumes made to measure, for example, at no. 25. Here women deck the
 streets in plenty, slender Africans carved like sculptures, walking
 down the street in their traditional headdresses and robes, often with
 a baby tied to their back. West Indians have also moved in  here and
 have opened several restaurants. The best is yet to come, on rue des
 Poissonniers, where Black Africa, the West Indies and Haiti, all
 converge at the Marché Dejean, a truly dazzling feast to the eye,
 overflowing with an exotic bounty of seafood and fruit, the like of
 which can be seen nowhere else in Paris.

 This is an excerpt from Thirza Vallois's Around and About
 Paris series (volume 3 - New Horizons: Haussmann's Annexation).     Around and About Paris (volume 1, 2 and 3) is published by Iliad Books, UK
For more information, and to order Thirza Vallois's titles, go to Link: www.thirzavallois.com