The secret of Ménilmontant

It is with great pleasure we here at Kollektivnye present to you the first piece from our latest contributor Shirley Hottier. Shirley is a Parisian Architect who has shared with us the following walk through Ménilmontant, an area of the city boasting far more than meets the eye, we urge you to take five minutes and journey into this Paris landscape, one far removed from the tourist track. We have worked with Shirley to translate this glorious little manuscript so, while there may be the odd grammatical imperfection, we see this as a fitting little quirk of this Anglo-French alliance.

Now sit back and lose yourself in Paris’ best kept secret…

Kollektivnye.

“C’est nous les p’tits gars de Ménilmontant!”

Somewhere in East Paris, exit the tube station on line 2 at Ménilmontant. Plug your earphones on. Play the Charles Trenet’s  Ménilmontant  song and take a seat on a bench for five minutes. Breath in, and breath out. Smell.

Forget about the Haussmannian Streets and boulevards you went through, discard the Parisian romantic clichés. Get back to what you feel, not what the tourist magazines have told you about Paris since you were a child.

Welcome to Ménilmontant.

“Ménilmontant, mais oui Madame,                                                           “Ménilmontant, of course Madam,

C’est là que j’ai laissé mon cœur,                                                                  that’s where I left my heart,

C’est là que vient retrouver mon âme toute                                            that’s where comes my soul to find

ma flamme, tout mon bonheur ”                                                                  all my flame, all my happiness”                                          

Now, walk up the rise of the Rue de Ménilmontant. Unplug your earphones. Let’s feel again. There are places that look beautiful only through what you can feel from it, not what you see. If you have a quick look at Rue de Ménilmontant and its surrounding area, the chances are that you won’t think consider it as charming as the Louvre or the Latin areas of Paris; however Ménilmontant isn’t a place you can have a quick look at, it is one whose strange ambiance emanates your surroundings. It is a place experienced best by those that can read through the lines, those who choose to lose themselves in the area’s streets, read their poetic names; find the long since abandoned Petite Ceniture rails which were the means of traversing the city prior to the vast expansion of the Métro in 1934.

The one’s who can sit on a café’s terrace and enjoy a glass of wine, feeling the nostalgia of a time gone by, who can imagine the life of a contemporary actor living in the area in this bygone era and realize the sense of community spirit that surrounds you.

That is Ménilmontant.

“Même la brise parle d’antant,                                                                  “Even the breeze speaks of yesterday

Elle me raconte comme autrefois,                                                             Tells me how in the old days, beautiful

de jolis contes aux jours passés, je vous revois,                                  tales of past days, I see you again

un rendez-vous, une musique, des yeux rêveurs,                               a rendez-vous, a music, dreaming eyes,

tout un roman,Tout un roman d’amour poétique                              a whole story, a whole story of poetic

 et pathétique…Ménilmontant”                                                                  love and pathetic one, Ménilmontant”

Understand that Ménilmontant’s true wealth is its spirit, that its strength is the attitude of its inhabitants, not the quality of the coffees served in it’s oh so many guinguettes (popular bars). The area is less defined by its architecture than by the vitality and the ability of its locals to use the public space creatively and that has been this way for generations. If you do open your mind anything like as much as your eyes, you will truly love Ménilmontant.

As a popular district, Ménilmontant has been home to the Commune de Paris’fief and the backdrop of many anti-capitalist and autogestion (worker’s self management) idealist demonstrations stretching back to 1871.

Workers organizations were formed in the area with the intention of challenging the established power led by the bourgeoisie and pro monarchists. Their weapons from the clashes with the Army of Versailles may be long gone but the people of this dynamic Parisian suburb still fight for freedom of press and workers rights.

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This insurrection, this disinclinaison to obey, this rebellion, they are still palpable one hundred and forty years after, you can feel it, it remains just beneath the surface. You can see it on the red Anti-Capitalists and Anarchistic posters on walls. The red is mixed with graffiti and mural frescos from artists Jérôme Mesnager and Némo, urban poets, storytellers of their Ménilmontant and creators of ours.

The kids here are the last ones in Paris to still play in the Streets, cheeky  and charming at the same time, they seem to reflect the titis parisiens, street smart, modern Gavroches from Victor Hugo’s Le Misérables. It is indeed really incredible to feel how much the ancient revolutionary soul of the area is still living through decades and different cultures.

People there know each other, go to the same bars, smile to each other in the Streets and would speak to you as if you were part, for a moment  of this village perched on a Parisian hill, hidden from the paths of the City’s constant streams of tourists.

Many of the buildings still exist as social housing and resultantly the area is rich with immigrants and their patchwork of culture that began to settle in Ménilmontant from the 1960’s. People speak Arabic, Peul, Mandarin, French, and the smell of oriental pastries, onion, beef and fresh baguette enrapture you as you pass by. Nowadays, locals mix with new people such as young créatives who make use of the low rent to situate workshops there as the rest of Paris is getting more and more expensive. The area that was already rich with artists is emerging as the scene of a plethora of galleries and settlements while still holding firm its identity, to that end can truly feel how much locals care about maintaining Ménilmontant’s unique semblance.

Plug your earphones on again and play Chinese Man’ “I’ve got that tune” to catch the contemporary mix of the place.

Among them, there are night visitors, those ones who go to spots as La Bellevilloise or la Maroquinerie, cafés-clubs-venues for eclectic music concerts, art exhibition and some of the last few places in the city where you are not subjected to an excessive search before gaining entry.

Unfortunately, the danger of the this area being at the lower end of the property market in the City is that gentrification is threatening to chase out the locals through rising rent prices, pushing the artists to settle elsewhere, in all likelihood, the North or East areas of the Parisian suburb such as Montreuil or St-Denis, we can only hope that a combination of the true spirit of Ménilmontant along with a recognition for the rich cultural and artistic mix that makes the area so special will protect it in the same way it has done all these years.

So that Ménilmontant remains that authentic, explore it, understand it but be sure to keep the secret.