Paris during and after the French Revolution (1789 to mid-19th century)

The French Revolution of 1789 destroyed those vestiges of the seigneurial systems that had remained in Paris and consolidated the status of Paris as the capital of a centralized France. The major events of the Revolution took place in Paris, including the storming of the Bastille (July 14, 1789); the conveying of the King and the National Constituent Assembly from Versailles to Paris (October 1789); the establishment of the numerous clubs in the convents of the old religious orders, Jacobins, Cordeliers, and Feuillants; the insurrection that heralded the abolition of the monarchy (August 10, 1792); the execution of the King (January 21, 1793) in the Place de la Révolution, not yet named Place de la Concorde; the most prolonged manifestation of the Terror (1793–94); and the series of coups d’état, from that of 9 Thermidor, year II (1794), to that of 18 Brumaire, year VIII (1799), which preceded the ascendancy of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Under the Thermidorians and the Directory the boulevard des Italiens became a resort of the fashionable and the frivolous, whereas the populace favoured the boulevard du Temple. After the inauguration of the First Empire, Napoleon in 1806 ordered the triumphal arches of the Carrousel and of the Étoile to be erected. While the Neoclassical style recalled imperial Rome, great works of public utility served to modernize Paris: the Bourse; new quays and bridges (the Arts, Jena, Austerlitz, and Saint-Louis bridges); the Ourcq and Saint-Martin canals; numerous fountains (such as the Palmier Fountain, on the site of the Châtelet); as well as slaughterhouses, marketplaces, the wine market, and the warehouses of Bercy.

Industrialization, in progress in the Napoleonic period, advanced rapidly under the Restoration (1814–30) and the July Monarchy (1830–48). Gas lighting was introduced; omnibus services began in 1828; and Paris got its first railway, which ran to Le Pecq, near Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in 1837. New districts grew up on the outskirts of Paris. Although the wall of the farmers-general remained the administrative boundary of Paris until 1859, it was decided in 1840 to refortify the capital with a longer military wall.

Even by the mid-19th century, some areas of Paris had not been improved substantially for hundreds of years. Access from one centre to another and to the railway stations (which had become in effect the gateways of Paris) was difficult; moreover, overpopulation and rapid industrialization had brought squalor and misery, which account in part for the dominant role of Paris in the revolutions of both 1830 and 1848.

Haussmann’s Paris (mid-19th century to 1968)

Napoleon III, emperor from 1852 to 1870, enjoined his prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann, to remedy these problems. Haussmann was the creator of modern Paris. A planner on the grand scale, he advocated straight arterial thoroughfares, symmetry, and advantageous vistas. He slashed the boulevards through the tangles of slums, began the modern sewer and water systems, gutted the Île de la Cité, rebuilt the ancient market of the Halles, and added four new Seine bridges and rebuilt three old ones. The brilliance and prosperity of Paris under Napoleon III were exemplified in the exhibitions held there in 1855 and 1867.

The Franco-German War (1870–71), which brought the fall of the Second Empire and the siege of Paris, was followed by the Commune (1871). Under the Third Republic, Haussmann’s projects were continued. Further international exhibitions (1878, 1889, 1900, and 1937) were the occasions for the building of monuments such as the Trocadéro (1878), the Eiffel Tower (1889), and the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, with the Alexandre III Bridge (1900), and for the reconstruction of the Trocadéro as the Chaillot Palace (1937). The Métro was constructed, commerce and industry annexed formerly residential districts, and the ever-expanding population overflowed the old limits of Paris. Louis-Philippe’s fortifications were abolished by a law of April 1919.

During the German occupation of Paris in World War II, the city was only slightly damaged. It was a centre for the activities of the Resistance movement, which culminated in the liberation of the city in August 1944.

The immediate postwar years were a time of eager intellectual activity but also of poverty and social tension. The housing shortage was grave, the psychological scars of the German occupation were slow to heal, and colonial wars and political instability lowered morale. Conditions gradually improved, especially after Charles de Gaulle returned to power in 1958. The city’s economy improved, old buildings and neighbourhoods were cleaned up and renovated, and housing and commercial space were built.

The city of grands projets (1968 to 21st century)

In May 1968 Paris was rocked by a great student uprising, which swelled from scattered unrest among students in the Latin Quarter to a nationwide outbreak of labour strikes and protests. Attention was focused on Paris’s economic and social problems, and the uprising was later seen as useful in hastening the modernization of French society.

During the last decades of the 20th century, several new developments bolstered the cultural and economic position of Paris. These included the architecturally innovative Pompidou Centre (or Beaubourg) and the Orsay Museum. Commercial projects included the office complexes at Bercy, at La Villette, and at La Défense, a high-rise business district on the periphery of the city. The latter’s Grande Arche de la Défense, a monumental rectangular arch completed in 1989, echoes the Arc de Triomphe to its east. This arch was one of the architectural grands projets (“great projects”) promoted by Pres. Franƈois Mitterrand to symbolize French cultural and economic leadership. Other such projects included the glass pyramid at the Louvre and the French National Library (Bibliothèque nationale de France), which was completed in 1995.

During the late 20th century, Paris attracted thousands of migrants from Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean region, and other parts of Europe. They contributed to the city’s economy and cultural diversity, but high unemployment and limited social and economic mobility in the cités—massive housing projects that were home to a large portion of the immigrant community—fueled frustration that sometimes led to violence. In October 2005 riots swept the Paris suburbs before spreading to the rest of the country, and weeks passed before order could be restored. Concerns about the potential radicalization of Muslim youth in the banlieues (suburbs) increased in the wake of a series of Islamist terrorist attacks in 2015. The assault on the satiric magazine Charlie Hebdo in January united the country under the slogan “Je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”), but a much deadlier wave of attacks in November of that year led French Pres. François Hollande to declare that the country was “at war.” At least 130 people were killed in Europe’s bloodiest terrorist attack since the 2004 Madrid train bombings, and officials in Paris struggled to find a balance between security and liberty. Despite those challenges, the increasingly cosmopolitan character of Paris reinforced its place as one of the great metropolises of the world.