Paris, the ‘city of love’, is romanticised by the bourgeoisie but… for what? Is it for the 3.3 trillion-euro debt and the 100,000 people living on the streets, or am I missing something?… These are the hidden secrets of Paris.
5 AM: Adorned with a Tesla, a suit, and a lack of conscience, he signals for the briefcase to cross the road but slams his hands on the car horn for the bag of struggle on a bike.
Slumped across the handlebars, the delivery guy works for a pittance at the cost of his sanity. After work, he uses the reflection in the shop window to shave his stubble… until he’s moved on by a policeman standing on the street corner.
Heaving the bag containing the weight of the world onto his back, he clutches the cross dangling from his wrist, clinging to any semblance of hope.
Why, when this man delivers pizzas for a living, is he knee-deep in a trash can searching for crumbs at 5 AM?… And why, when he suffers so much, do they care so little?… They queue up for half an hour for a 20-euro thimble of hot chocolate, but say ‘I have none, sorry’ when he asks them for spare change…
6 AM: We’re drifting in and out of sleep in the back of a Tesla on the way to the airport.
Hearing the sharp shrill of a car horn, we awaken, look up, and see a bag of struggle cycling across the road. Familiar, it’s a sight we’ve come to associate with Paris.
(Well, that and graffitied walls everywhere, the stamp of disillusioned youth)…
Behind the carefully angled camera lenses (‘Look, I touched the Eiffel Tower!’), and the romanticised movies, there exists a wealth divide so stark that upwards of 100,000 people are hungry, cold, and suffering on Paris’ streets as I type.
But the French authorities don’t want you to see that…
Social cleansing: ‘It concerns all people who live and work in the streets– migrants, homeless, drug users, and even sex workers. They are just pushed away instead of being taken care of’.
In 2024, Paris hosted the Olympic Games. Before the world turned its eyes to the French capital, however, the local authorities made sure that all homeless people were removed from its streets. Approximately 12,500 people were subsequently left without shelter following this heartless move, all the while President Emmanuel Macron (commonly referred to as ‘the president of the rich’), hosted an extravaganza at the Élysée Palace for the richest men in the world. This all formed part of Macron’s plan to showcase France’s grandeur during the Games.
Did it work? Well, that depends on your definition of ‘work…’
If you mean, ‘Did it divert the world’s attention away from the social injustices of yet another capital?’, then yes, I’d say that it worked. I, for one, was perhaps ignorantly oblivious to just how extreme homelessness was in Paris. But if you mean, ‘Did it work work?’ (i.e., did it eradicate the problem), then the answer is an irrefutable no, of course it didn’t work…
As wrapping a bridge in gold leaf doesn’t get rid of the people living (or rather, surviving, just about) under it, just because you can’t see something, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Alas, money is making this society blind to love.
7 AM: We are on our way back to the UK, travelling home with the awareness that, while we get to leave and, for us, the struggle gets left behind, they have no choice but to stay and endure the struggle that continues.
Like for like,
rich for rich,
this is the reality
of the people in the know
about the hidden secrets
of Paris.
Portfolio of Hope 