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Paris protesters call for Gaza ceasefire

Several thousand people demonstrated in Paris on Saturday under the rallying cry "Stop the massacre in Gaza".

Published: 12 November 2023 11:32 CET

Protesters wave Palestinian flags as they take part in a demonstration to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza at Place de la Nation in Paris

Protesters wave Palestinian flags as they take part in a demonstration to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza at Place de la Nation in Paris, on November 11, 2023. (Photo by Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP)

The left-wing organisers called for France to “demand an immediate ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas militants.

“I came to support the Palestinian cause, for a ceasefire in Gaza,” said engineer Ahlem Triki, a Palestinian flag over her shoulders.

Hamas’s shock October 7 attack killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in Israel and 239 people taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.

The Israeli air and ground military campaign in response has left more than 11,000 people in Gaza dead, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

“It is elementary that as activists or simple citizens, you go out on to the street to support the Palestinian people,” said 85-year-old trade unionist Claude Marill.

French MPs Mathilde Panot and Eric Coquerel, whose hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party has come under fire for an ambiguous stance on anti-Semitism, were present at the march.

Gaza ceasefire rallies also took place in other French towns including Marseille, Toulouse, Rennes and Bordeaux.

“This mobilisation is essential, in the face of massacres,” said LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard at the demonstration of about 1,300 people in Marseille.

In Lyon, a Palestinian event promoting two books by a surgeon who regularly works in Gaza was attacked by ultra-right militants, leaving at least three people with minor injuries, according to police and witnesses Saturday evening.

The author Christophe Oberline told AFP the group, armed with batons, tried to storm the gathering, attempting to break down the door to the hall although failed to get in.

Organiser Jerome Faynel said the attack was by the “extreme right”, and added they were also armed with iron bars and glass bottles.

At least one person was arrested, the police prefecture said, adding they “strongly condemned the violence committed.”

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What is considered a good salary in Paris?

Centrist Renaissance candidate Sylvain Maillard, running for re-election in France’s snap parliamentary elections, was trying to highlight the high cost of living in the capital in a debate on RMC Radio

“You have extremely expensive rents [in Paris], between €1,500 and €1,700, and then there are all the charges and taxes to pay,” he said.

But what most people seized on was his comment that anyone earning €4,000 a month after tax would not be considered rich in Paris – he predictably was accused of being out of touch with French people’s lives.

There’s no doubt that €4,000 a month is good salary that most people would be happy with – but how much do you need to earn to be considered ‘rich’ in Paris?

National averages

Earlier this year, the independent Observatoire des Inégalités calculated poverty and wealth levels in France.

READ ALSO How much money do you need to be considered rich in France?

According to its calculations, to be considered ‘rich’ in France, a single person with no dependants needs to earn more than €3,860 per month, after taxes and social charges. Around eight percent of single workers have this sum deposited into their bank balance every month, it said.

A total of 23 percent of workers take home €3,000 or more every month, while the top 10 percent clear €4,170.

To be in the top one percent of earners in France in 2024, one person must bring in at least €10,000 per month. After taxes and social charges.

The median income – the median is the ‘middle value’ of a range of totals – of tax households in mainland France is €1,923 per month after taxes and social charges, according to INSEE 2021 data, which means that a ‘rich’ person earns about twice as much as a person on the median income, according to the Observatoire.

Paris situation

About 75 percent of people living in Paris earn less than €4,458 per month, according to Insee data – so according to those calculations, 25 percent of Parisians earn the equivalent of the top 10 percent in France.

But that city-wide average still hides a wide degree of variation. In the sixth arrondissement, the median income is €4,358 per month, after tax. In the seventh, it’s €4,255. Further out, those bringing home €4,600 a month in the 19th and 20th arrondissements are among the top 10 percent in wealth terms.

But still, the median income in Paris is €2,639, significantly higher than the €1,923 France-wide median.

That would mean – using the Observatoire des Inégalités’ starting point for wealth – that a Paris resident, living on their own, would have to bring home €5,278 per month to be considered ‘rich’.

France is a heavily centralised country, with many of the highest-paying industries concentrated within the capital, meaning there is much more opportunity to secure a high-wage job if you live in Paris.

Cost of living

Even these figures should all be taken with a pinch of salt because of the relatively high cost of living in the capital, compared to elsewhere in France. Paris is objectively an expensive place to call home.

In 2023, France Stratégie published a report on the disposable income of French households, after housing, food and transport costs were deducted. It found that, on average, people living in the Paris region had more left to spend, due to higher incomes and despite the fact that housing costs more.

It’s the income paradox in action. A person with a take-home salary of €4,000 per month has more money to spend if they live and work outside Paris. But they’re much more likely to earn that much if they live and work in Paris, where it’s not as valuable.

Someone who earns a ‘rich-level’ salary in Paris might not appear rich – because they live in an expensive area, and a surrounded by very wealthy people in property that’s out of reach all-but the fattest of wallets. But they’re still earning more than twice the median income in France.

And that’s what Sylvain Maillard was getting at, clumsily as he may have expressed it.

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