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Paris vows to clean up ‘trashed city’ after wave of criticism

Paris officials laid out eight measures on Monday aimed at sprucing up one of the world's most visited cities following a social media campaign lambasting trash and other eyesores.

Published: 6 July 2021 09:16 CEST

Paris vows to clean up 'trashed city' after wave of criticism

A social media campaign has been portraying Paris as a dirty city. Photo: Ludovic Marin / AFP.

For months residents have been posting pictures of dirty or dilapidated urban furniture, abandoned scooters or ramshackle terraces set up by cafes during the pandemic with the hashtag #saccageparis (Trashed Paris), to the dismay of City Hall.

It has put Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who is weighing a bid for the presidency, on the defensive.

“We’re not doing this in response to saccageparis,” deputy mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said at a press conference. “But when we are called out by our citizens… they deserve to be listened to and respected. The things being said by the Saccage Paris groups are not wrong.”

#saccageparis habituel bld St Marcel, Paris 13 pic.twitter.com/t1pLUauNu3

— Chloe VILLERS (@Rhubarbebleue) June 28, 2021

The push for a “new aesthetic,” he said, would include repainting historic elements of public space including the ornate iron and wood “Davioud” benches from the Second Empire.

The city will also remove or renovate recent “Mikado” benches – which often resemble haphazard piles of railroad ties – that many Parisians love to hate.

#saccageparis. Jusqu'à l ecoeurement. pic.twitter.com/kXeVF6TowU

— Catsy18 (@BrenierLaura) July 5, 2021

Some 2,000 “useless” advertising panels will come down, Gregoire said. And he vowed “more discrete and harmonious” painting and barriers for the 60 kilometres (37 miles) of “coronapistes” bike lanes that were quickly carved out during the pandemic.

Most of the lanes currently are marked with plastic yellow poles or hulking concrete construction blocks that have not aged well.

Hidalgo’s rightwing critics and some residents accuse her of allowing the capital to fall into neglect while making trips to other French cities to woo allies for her rumoured presidential run next year.

She has claimed the city is being targeted by a smear campaign, and has promised to double spending on cleaning during her second term as mayor to €1 billion.

Member comments

Anonymous - 1 September 2021 at 17:21 CEST

Considering the huge number of tourists I do not think Paris is all that bad. Even Tokyo, which is an especially clean city, has its areas that look worse than Paris, much worse. And compared to Rome, Paris is spotless and in much better repair. You have really made an effort though. Trash cans are all over the place, they are changed multiple times a day, I know I have watched from my apartment window. But there are some cultures that just are not yet on board with stopping littering. In America it took a very long time to stop peopole from littering in the highways. But it has made a huge difference. But it took maybe 15 years. Even the Metro is actually really good. It is cleaner than both New York City and Washington DC.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.