A Greener Paris

Saturday afternoon in Paris on the charming Rue des Martyrs in the 9th arrondissement, and not a single car in sight. The gourmet cheese shops, upmarket bakeries and real estate agencies that have proliferated in recent years on this street in South Pigalle are closing for the day. Once a somewhat sleazy bohemian neighbourhood, the quartier now flaunts its exquisite taste. The carefree chatter of a young clientele enjoying summertime rises from the cafe terraces that have spilled out from the pavement onto the road. Just one bicycle, ridden by an old man sporting a cap and mask, is making its way down the street towards the grand boulevards.

The Rue des Martyrs has changed a lot. And not just in the recent refinement of its establishments: the narrow street has been transformed by the addition of flowering plant boxes, and it is closed to motorised traffic every Saturday and Sunday from ten in the morning to eight at night.

The lower stretch of the Rue des Martyrs is one of the areas in the city that has benefitted from Paris Respire, a scheme implemented by the city council to pedestrianise city streets on weekends and bank holidays. In several neighbourhoods—including the Marais, Canal Saint-Martin and Abbesses—cars, vans and motorcycles are prohibited on these days and a sign addressing pedestrians reads “La rue est à vous” (The street is yours). Since 2016, even the Champs-Élysées is reserved for the use of pedestrians on the first Sunday of each month.

Closed to motorised traffic street near a school in the neighbourhood of Belleville. Two Parisian gardens

Another noticeable change is the growing number of cyclists who stream into the city every morning from the Bois de Vincennes in the east and the Bois de Boulogne in the west, riding into the heart of the capital along the banks of the Seine. Their route follows kilometres of riverside quays reserved for pedestrians and cyclists. These now form the Parc Rives de Seine, a promenade dotted with play areas for children, picnic spots, terraces, cafes, climbing walls and petanque courts.

In neighbourhoods such as the Marais, Canal Saint-Martin and Abbesses, cars, vans and motorcycles are prohibited and a sign addressing pedestrians reads “La rue est à vous” (The street is yours)

Getting around in Paris by bike is no longer seen as an unusual choice. It has been almost fifteen years since the first users of Vélib, the city’s public bike-sharing service, took to the streets in 2007. Today the service has 400,000 users and a fleet of 20,000 bikes, 35% of which are electric. In addition, the mayor has just announced the renewal of the Plan Vélo, which means that between 2021 and 2026 Paris will invest over 250 million euros in the creation of 180 km of bike lanes and 180,000 bicycle parking spaces (tripling the current 60,000). The aim is to create the most complete cycling network possible and connect it to the metro system.

Garden in the neighbourhood of the Marais

Flowers Breaking Through the Grey

The change in the city is noticeable. More bikes and scooters lining up in bike boxes at traffic lights. More plants and flowers growing in pots, planters, and beds. More wild flowers peeking up through the concrete (the use of toxic weedkillers has been prohibited in the city since 2019). Defiant strawberry plants have even been spotted flowering in the spaces between concrete steps in Les Halles.

The change in the city is noticeable. More bikes and scooters lining up in bike boxes at traffic lights. More plants and flowers growing in pots, planters and bed. More wild flowers peeking up through the concrete (the use of toxic weedkillers has been prohibited in the city since 2019)

The visitor strolling along the steep streets of the popular Ménilmontant neighbourhood is surprised by plant boxes filled with delicate poppies and pink hibiscus, unlikely flowers to find growing in the streets of a large city. In this case, they are planted and cared for by the local residents under a municipal licence issued as part of the Végétalisons Paris (Let’s Green Paris) programme. Launched in 2015, the plan even offers residents the possibility of removing the asphalt pavement to create new flowerbeds if the project is deemed feasible and appropriate. It also includes other kinds of projects, such as living walls (walls covered with climbing plants), the creation of educational gardens managed by associations, and every sort of support for greening balconies, rooftops and semi-private gardens. The aim is to beautify and cool the urban environment while increasing biodiversity and promoting social connectedness and neighbourhood cohesion through community projects. “Végétalisons Paris” provides seeds, bulbs, potting compost and plants at reduced prices, as well as support through a digital platform offering tutorials and expert advice.

'Come and garden' says a sign in the neighbourhood of Ménilmontant

Despite all of these efforts, Paris still ranks high on the list of European cities with the highest mortality attributable to the lack of green space in the Ranking of Cities recently produced by ISGlobal, where it occupies 17^th position out of a list of 866 cities. The same classification reveals that 86% of the people resident in the Parisian metropolitan area have insufficient access to green spaces. As many as 1,918 premature deaths could be avoided every year if the metropolitan area of Paris met World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines, that is, if there was a public green space of at least half a hectare within 300 meters as the crow flies from every home.

The visitor strolling along the steep streets of the popular Ménilmontant neighbourhood is surprised by plant boxes filled with delicate poppies and pink hibiscus, unlikely flowers to find growing in the streets of a large city. In this case, they are planted and cared for by the local residents under a municipal licence issued as part of the Végétalisons Paris (Let’s Green Paris)

Living in a home with green spaces close by is associated with a longer life expectancy, better mental and cardiovascular health, and improved cognitive function in childhood, among other benefits. Green spaces also sequester CO_2, help to reduce air pollution, heat and noise, and promote exercise and social interaction.

An insect hotel and a nesting box in the Alex-Biscarre gardens, 9th arrondissement

A Refuge from Noise and Hurry

Not far from Rue des Martyrs, in the secluded Alex-Biscarre gardens, several people reading or meditating sit around a disorderly flowerbed of cheerful blooms, a scene reminiscent of an Impressionist painting. Daisies and black-eyed-susans sway in the breeze and a lone wasp closes in on its feast of pollen. This scene is possible today in the centre of one of Europe’s busiest cities. And it is possible because life has been nurtured in this retreat where everything has been arranged to encourage it, including a nesting box for great tits and an “insect hotel”.

A pedestrian area linking Rue Orfila and Avenue Gambetta

The patrons of Café Martin also enjoy the peace and quiet they find in a pedestrian area linking Rue Orfila and Avenue Gambetta, close to the Père Lachaise cemetery. The café’s terrace and those of the neighbouring bistros and restaurants extend onto a roadway decorated with colourful stripes, the work of two artists who took their inspiration from the classic palette used in road signage: red, yellow, blue and white. These initiatives are evidence of the town council’s desire to offer its citizens more quiet spaces and more greenery.

Almost 15% of the people living in the Parisian region of Ile-de-France are potentially exposed to noise levels in front of their homes higher than the regulatory limit values for transportation noise (road, aircraft and railway). Even though Paris is not one of the European cities with the highest number of deaths attributable to fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) according to the ISGlobal Ranking (it occupies 370th place in the list of the 858 cities studied), the mean annual PM_2.5 recorded in the city is 14.9 μg/m³ and the new WHO guidelines state that it should not exceed 5 μg/m³.

Moreover, the same ISGlobal study ranks the French capital fourth out of 858 European cities with respect to the number of deaths attributable to nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), a toxic gas associated primarily with motorised traffic. The mean annual NO₂ exposure of people living in the Paris metropolitan area is 39.7 μg/m³, whereas the limit value recommended by the current WHO guidelines is 10 μg/m³. Reducing NO₂ levels to comply with the new guidelines could save an estimated 2,135 deaths in the city every year.

The Climate Plan: Paris Prepares for the Future

The city’s socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo, in office since 2014, is determined to promote environmental policies, like Ada Colau, the mayor of Barcelona. The agreement between the two mayors on this issue is evidenced by their public praise for each other’s urban planning policies. Both cities are members of the C40 network of cities working together to confront the climate crisis, and Colau has recently taken on a leadership role in the European C40 organisation.

In 2018, Hidalgo renewed the Plan Climat de Paris, a road map that seeks to make Paris a resilient, fair and inclusive carbon neutral city powered by 100% renewable energies. The time horizon of the current plan is 2030. This ambitious project includes hundreds of actions to combat climate change, including phasing out the use of diesel-powered vehicles completely by 2024. The city has just started taking its first timid steps to implement the plan and even these are subject to the continuation in office of the current government. Nonetheless, these measures are already making a difference noticeable to anyone strolling through the city, where nature has been allowed to recover some part of its domain and policies for the urban planning of public spaces strive to foster a more healthy lifestyle: they promote travel by foot and bicycle, encourage residents to get more exercise and interact with others, and seek to reduce air pollution, noise and high temperatures. It has been said that cities should lead the shift towards more sustainable and healthy lifestyles. It appears that Paris has taken note and, as a result, is already more a pleasant place and one imbued with a greater respect for life.