SHARE
COPY LINK

PARIS

Paris pétanque club under threat from luxury hotel plans

A community pétanque club in the chic Paris neighbourhood of Montmartre is battling for survival after a luxury hotel filed plans for the walled garden that hosts its exclusive games.

Paris pétanque club under threat from luxury hotel plans
Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP

For 50 years, the walled garden on the ultra-chic Rue Lepic has resonated with the metal clacks of pétanque, the French national bowling pastime, defying the gentrification that drew envious eyes.

Montmartre in the north of Paris is one of the few elevated areas in the relatively flat French capital and “the butte”, as it is known, had for many years a rural feel that captivated artists.

Even now, with the area absorbed into the urban sprawl of central Paris, most residents still call it a village.

The garden is maintained by the non-profit organisation Club Lepic-Abbesses Pétanque (CLAP) and its 257 members, who say nothing less than the neighbourhood’s soul is at stake as City Hall considers rival commercial projects for the site.

“You have job-seekers, pensioner and CEOs, a chef, a teacher. A 16-year-old can play with someone who’s 80. Here you find all types, and it’s this incredible social fabric that makes us what we are,” said Maxime Liogier, the club’s communications manager.

The players took over the 765 square metres of playing grounds, a rare remnant of the vegetation that once covered the butte, after the city bought the land from a daughter of a resident painter in 1972.

No formal contracts were signed but the city gave its tacit approval, connecting water and electricity for the clubhouse and letting the club reserve entry to members only.

The status quo prevailed until a few months ago, when the luxury boutique hotel next door filed a plan to turn the site into a for-profit affair. What better setting for lush wedding receptions or cocktail parties?

READ ALSO 10 things you probably didn’t know about pétanque

Under a 2017 law, the city had to publish the proposal for use of public land and invite competing offers that are due by November 28th.

The move caught the CLAP off guard, especially since it had been trying to regularise its situation with local officials.

“Two months isn’t a lot of time for us to come up with a project!” Liogier said.

An online petition to save the club has garnered around 4,300 signatures, though members seem to accept that their days of exclusive access are numbered.

“We want to keep the site in its current state, while opening it up as much as possible to the neighbourhood,” Liogier said.

To that end, the club held an open house on Saturday, with members suggesting that schools would soon be invited so children could learn an activity more often associated with pensioners enjoying a game between glasses of beer or pastis.

“When a unique place like this is in danger, it breaks your heart,” French tennis great and neighbour Yannick Noah told AFP.

“It’s good to have commercial projects but maybe there’s something more important — this bond between people.”

But not everyone will be sad to see the club go. Alain Coquard, the influential president of the “Republic of Montmartre” preservation society, calls the CLAP an unaccountable clique that claims dominion over a “magical site” that should be open to everyone.

The stakes are high for the butte as it seeks to join UNESCO’s ranks of protected World Heritage Sites.

“Can we leave a city’s heritage, which belongs to all Parisian taxpayers, abandoned like this? Just give it to people who have turned it into the most exclusive club in Paris?” he said.

According to Coquard — who says he was refused entry the one time he was invited to play — private event operators are also preparing lucrative proposals for the city, which could be temping as the municipal debt load soars.

But his Republic is backing the bid by the Hotel Particulier next door, whose director Oscar Comtet declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

“We sided with him to ensure this corner of Montmartre is opened up,” Coquard said, conjuring up a range of open-door events, maybe even an ice-skating rink, on the petanque grounds in winter.

But the CLAP is digging in. Older members recall a years-long battle in the 1980s to prevent the construction of a multi-storey carpark on the site.

Prominent neighbours including Jean-Pierre Cassel, father of star actor Vincent Cassel, chained themselves to the trees to scupper the project, and in 1991 the site was designated a protected landscape.

“If we have to, we’ll do the same,” Liogier said, though he remains confident that 50 years of taking care of the garden have not been in vain.

“We trust that the planning commission will pick the best project, which is us.”

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

PARIS

Famous Paris cinema shuts in sign of Champs-Elysées decline

The UGC Normandie cinema on the Champs-Elysées in Paris closed its doors on Thursday after 90 years - with critics seeing another sign of tourism and fashion sucking the life from one of the world's most famous shopping boulevards.

Famous Paris cinema shuts in sign of Champs-Elysées decline

Once a preferred spot for gala premieres, the UGC Normandie was one of several grand cinemas on the Champs-Elysées that made the area a hub for film buffs in the 1960s and 70s.

But the street long ago lost its cool among Parisians, becoming increasingly dominated by flagship fashion stores and tourists taking snaps of the Arc de Triomphe.

The UGC cinema chain said it faced a “very sharp increase in rent” at the location, which is owned by the Qatari royal family.

Two other famed cinemas on the boulevard, the George V and Gaumont Marignan, have closed since 2020.

“The cinema is disappearing in somewhat terrible circumstances for the whole culture,” said a former employee, 22-year-old Yann Raffin, adding that he feels both “sadness” and “anger”.

“This avenue is transforming into an avenue reserved for the ultra-rich,” he told AFP.

The last screening on Wednesday night was “La La Land” with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, a fitting tribute to Hollywood musicals of a bygone era.

Its director, Damien Chazelle, appeared on screen with a special message for the sold-out crowd.

“This room was an extension of my own life, it was a friend and an ally,” said Mehdi Omais, 40, a film journalist, visibly moved.

“It’s heartbreaking to see it close and to see this avenue becoming a cemetery of cinemas.”

An auction of the chairs and decor was due on Thursday, including the huge letters on the outside, with proceeds going to a charity that organises screenings for hospitalised children.

Paris remains a film-going hotspot and still has more cinemas per head than anywhere in the world, with swanky new theatres opening elsewhere in the city.

They include a state-of-the-art Pathe cinema near the Opera Garnier, designed by architect Renzo Piano who created the Pompidou Centre and The Shard in London.

SHOW COMMENTS