How over-tourism turned a chic Paris neighbourhood into a theme park

Telegraph

3 days ago

Michèle Barrière has had a lifelong love affair with Montmartre, living a stone's throw from the Moulin Rouge for the past 30 years.
She has frequented its ivy-clad cafes and pastel houses for twice as long and has always embraced the changes to her beloved 'butte', as locals call the hilltop area with sweeping views of Paris.
'But enough is enough,' said the 72-year-old as she marched past souvenir shops and tour groups with her corgi, Valentine.
'Montmartre has become an amusement park, and we are the attractions. Soon they'll be throwing us peanuts,' she scoffed. 'It's Disneyland.'
With its cobbled streets, windmills, vineyard, funicular railway, and bohemian history, Montmartre has long been popular with foreign visitors. The white-domed Sacré-Coeur basilica and the portrait artists of Place du Tertre have been a magnet for decades.
But many among the district's 27,000 residents now say cohabitation with millions of tourists, who outnumber them 423 to one, has reached breaking point.
Last year, the Sacré-Coeur was the most visited monument in France, ahead of the Eiffel Tower, with 11 million visitors. Montmartre now has an even denser tourist zone per capita than Venice.
'It has got totally out of hand. I have nothing against tourists per se, but now my prevailing feeling is one of hostility,' said Ms Barrière, an author of historic and culinary detective works.
'Sometimes I can't even reach my front door due to these hordes.'
To prove her point, she shooed a tour group coming up the Rue de l'Abreuvoir with a royal wave as if they were pesky pigeons. Valentine, the corgi, looked on placidly.
Eric Durand, a photographer, resident and member of the Association for the Defence of Montmartre and the 18th Arrondissement, said tourism had gone into overdrive since the end of the Covid lockdowns.
'Before, it was mainly felt on weekends when the weather was nice. Since the end of the pandemic, and even more so since the Olympic Games [last summer], it's been like this all year round,' referring to the crowds of tourists outside his home.
He said the influx of tourists started with the 2001 cult movie Amélie. Tourists continue to flock to the Café des Deux Moulins, where scenes showing the heroine at work were shot.
The Netflix series Emily in Paris brought even more tourists, who seek out sites that feature in the show such as La Maison Rose restaurant, or the Wall of Love in a garden off the Place des Abbesses with 'I love you' written in a myriad of languages on ceramic tiles.
'We saw it on the show and on TikTok so we thought it would be fun to come,' said Jen Park, a New Yorker who posed with her husband Bruce in a pit-stop during their trip to attend a wedding in Paris.
Then last year, the Paris Olympics brought the road bike race to Montmartre with images beaming around the world of cyclists hurtling up Rue Lepic with a crowd of 55,000 cheering them on.
As if that wasn't enough extra publicity, on Sunday July 27, the final stage of the Tour de France will make a detour via Montmartre for the first time ever, before riders finish on the Champs-Elysées. Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, personally announced the news.
'It's obviously great for business, but I do understand local residents' gripes about the number of people,' said Julien Ogeard, the 34-year-old manager of Le Nazir, whose boss is a cycling fan and is thrilled the Tour will pass by their cafe.
'My fear,' said Mr Durand, 'is that the tourists are now moving down the hill and saturating other areas, particularly Abbesses, which has become one long line of tourist terraces.'
He added: 'We already had one amusement park at the top, now we risk having a second below.
'Montmartre is losing its soul. I'm thinking of moving out, and I'm not the only one.'
Revolt has been brewing since the recent introduction of new traffic restrictions. There are fears it will force families to leave, and drive small shops that serve residents, such as butchers and greengrocers, out of business.
Meanwhile, they say gas-guzzling tourist sidecars and Citroen 2CVs continue to hurtle down cobbled streets, scaring people.
Others complain about rocketing real estate prices, with flats selling for up to €15,000 (£13,000) per square metre. Tourist rentals, meanwhile, are pushing out local families, who are leaving en masse.
Between 20 and 30 per cent of properties are Airbnb listings, 'and that's not counting undeclared rentals,' said Brice Moyse of Immopolis agency and president of the Lepic-Abbesses shopkeepers' association.
'In the neighbourhood, long-term rentals have disappeared,' he told Le Monde newspaper.
In recent months, banners have appeared in windows with messages such as 'Forgotten residents!', 'Let the Montmartrois live!' and 'Behind these façades there are people'. But also, on school buildings: 'No to class closures!'
'It's the same problem across Paris: the socialist town hall takes decisions without ever properly consulting residents,' said Béatrice Dunner, a translator who has lived in the neighbourhood since 1976.
As president of the Association for the Defence of Montmartre and the 18th Arrondissement, she is drawing up a white paper she hopes the candidates the city's mayoral elections next year will adopt. She said Amsterdam, Barcelona and Majorca were models.
Ms Dunner's proposed measures include higher tourist taxes on hotels and tougher regulations and checks on tourist accommodation, as well as limiting tourist group sizes. Other options are a ban on tour guide intercoms and pre-empting more commercial leases to avoid yet more shops selling Chinese-made Emily in Paris berets.
'We also need to decide, at the national level, whether we want yet more tourists,' Ms Dunner added.
Last year, the Paris region welcomed 22.6 million visitors.
In one bastion of resistance, at La Cave des Abbesses, a group of residents popped the cork off a bottle of crémant de Bourgogne and handed out glasses of red as the clock struck the aperitif hour of 6pm.
'We still meet up and it is still a life for locals, but look around, there used to be three bookshops, a sweetshop for kids from the local school, a drugstore. Now they're all brand stores. They're the only ones who can pay the rent,' said Sabine Bouillet, who works in a tea shop.
'I'm not happy at all,' said Olivier Boukhobza, 36, a resident who works for Le Vrai Montmartre (The Real Montmartre), which creates profiles of locals. 'The real acceleration came in the past five years with the rise of influencers and Instagrammers who post from Montmartre and make it a must-see location.'
'We need to find the right balance between tourists, locals and those who work here. Right now, it's the tourists who have the upper hand.'