CHAMPS-ELYSÉES-CLÉMENCEAU: FAMOUS, ELEGANT AND HISTORICAL

The Champs-Elysées is 1.2 miles long and is the most beautiful and well-known avenue in Paris. It connects the Arc de Triomphe with the Place de la Concorde and is considered one of the world’s most famous commercial streets. It is also the site of the largest military parade in Europe, which is held every year on Bastille Day (July 14). 

The Champs-Elysées-Clémenceau is a métro station within a few minutes walk from both the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. 

Sculpture of de Gaulle with a quadriga in the background

Charles de Gaulle was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II.  He was later elected President of France and remained a controversial figure throughout his career. In the novel (1971) and movie, The Day of the Jackal, a professional assassin was hired to assassinate de Gaulle. This attempt was based on an actual but failed attempt on de Gaulle’s life. 

Inscription on base of sculpture

“There is a linkage, twenty centuries old, between the grandeur of France and the liberty of the world.”  [Charles de Gaulle, March 1, 1941]

Quadriga on Grand Palais

The quadriga, titled Immortality Outstripping Time (sometimes known as “Galloping Horses,”) is a magnificent structure which is meant to represent victory. It is typically shown as a chariot powered by four horses and driven by a Greek or Roman figure.

The Grand Palais is a large exhibition hall whose construction began in 1897 as part of the World’s Fair of 1900.  Right now the Grand Palais is undergoing renovation, so it is completely covered in scaffolding.

Avenue des Champs-Elysées (Elysian Fields, the place for dead heroes in Greek mythology)

Look right and see the obelisk on the Place de la Concorde

Look left and see (half of) the Arc de Triomphe in the distance

Signs marking Place Clémenceau & the Petit Palais

Clémenceau sculpture

Georges Clémenceau, nicknamed “The Tiger,” (1841-1929), was a statesman and journalist who was a dominant figure in the French Third Republic. As premier (1917–20), he was a major contributor to the Allied victory in World War I and a framer of the postwar Treaty of Versailles.

 Clémenceau marker

Jardin Clémenceau & Petit Palais in the background

Jardin Clémenceau

Jardin Clémenceau & Basin

Jardin & Bouquet of Tulips

In November, 2015, mass shootings and a bomb attack killed 130 people in Paris.

The co-ordinated terror attacks on a concert hall, a major stadium, restaurants and bars in the French capital wounded hundreds more. Unveiling his 40ft (12m) high structure near Le Petit Palais on Friday, Jeff Koons, American artist, said the large handheld bouquet of balloon-like tulips was intended to show his support and US solidarity with the French people

Bouquet of Tulips

Jeff Koons marker

"I did, as a citizen in New York, experience 9/11 and the depression that hung over the city," he said, adding that 80% of the money raised after selling the copyright to the artwork would be given to the victims' families.

Bouquet of Tulips 

The hand clutches a spray of flowers that are supposed to look as though they were fashioned from balloons. It is 40 feet tall and modeled on the Statue of Liberty. The bouquet features eleven flowers and not a dozen, with the missing twelfth meant to represent the victims. 

View of Bouquet of Tulips against the sky

Marker for dedication of the Bouquet of Tulips

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said on Friday, October 4, 2019, that  she was very happy to unveil the work, calling it a "beautiful gift" and "a magnificent symbol of freedom and friendship". 

Bouquet of Tulips with the Petit Palais in the background. 

Since the Bouquet of Tulips was made public, Parisians and critics have been sharing their thoughts, with some referring to the piece as "awful", "grotesque" and "pornographic". Others, though, said they did not understand the controversy, describing the work as "pretty" and "a gift from the heart". I thought it was beautiful although  I didn’t right away see the connection between a bouquet of tulips and a monument to the victims of terrorist attacks. In the end, it is Jeff Koonts’s thought that counts.

I went to the Petit Palais specifically to see this art installation. It wasn’t easy to find, since it is in a lovely, large garden that is directly BEHIND the Petit Palais. Who goes there? Not many people, unless they are looking specifically for this artwork. Although its present setting is very lovely, it is too bad that it doesn’t have a more prominent location, especially since the American artist, Jeff Koons, meant it to be a statement of solidarity between France and the US.  

Musée Carnavalet in the Marais

 Pont Marie is a station of the Paris métro opened in 1926. It is named after the nearby bridge over the Seine, the Pont Marie, which connects to the Ile Saint-Louis.

Pont Marie street-level entrance to métro

Intersection with the Pont Marie bridge 

Pont Marie bridge to the Ile Saint-Louis

Pont Marie bridge to the Ile Saint-Louis

View of the Seine River from the Pont Marie bridge

Platform signage at the Pont Marie underground métro station

Platform signage for Napoleon Exhibition at Parc de la Villette

The Hôtel de Sens is a medieval hôtel particulier, or private mansion, in the Marais, a short distance from the Pont Marie bridge. The hotel served as a residence for the archbishops of Sens. The archbishop was a prominent figure of power, so his residence reflected his influence within the city. 

Overview of the Hotel de Sens garden

This is a little known garden in the Marais, not far from the Pont Marie. The garden is   easily one of the loveliest green spaces in Paris. Every year I’ve been to Paris (the last ten), this garden is different. It is replanted with different flowers in different patterns every year and is beautiful every time it is reconceived.  

Hotel de Sens garden

Hotel de Sens garden

Hotel de Sens garden

Rue des Rosiers street sign 

The Rue des Rosiers is one of the most prominent streets for Jewish life in Le Marais, containing many different Kosher bakeries, fallafel stands, and Jewish establishments. Traces of the street's Jewish roots are still outwardly noticeable today and the world renowned Jewish restaurants, L'As du Fallafel and Boulangerie Marciano, attract thousands of visitors.

Rue des Rosiers

Rue des Rosiers

Street sign in the Marais, in the 4th arrondissement of Paris

This is quite a lineup of venues you will probably want to visit, all within a very short radius. Standing on this street corner, my camera at the ready, I was approached by a little old lady. She reached out and touched my camera and said, "It's a camera."  Yes, Madame, nothing newfangled for me, just an old-fashioned camera. A hand-me-down digital camera,  but nevertheless, a camera. 

Musée Carnavalet entry gate

Musée Carnavalet, History of Paris Museum, is the oldest City of Paris museum. It opened to the public on February 25, 1880, in the Carnavalet mansion located in the Marais, where the architectural heritage was particularly well-preserved. The museum’s architecture now offers a history spanning more than 450 years. For over 150 years, the museum collections have told the story of Paris, from prehistory to the present. The exhibits inside the museum follow the transformation of the village of Lutèce, which was inhabited by the Parisii tribes, to the grand city of today with a population of more than 2 million. 

Courtyard of the Musée Carnavalet

Courtyard of the Musée Carnavalet

I was pretty surprised to see all these tables in the courtyard, as previously, there had been no tables,  umbrellas or food service in the courtyard--only superb, meticulously trimmed hedges with intermittently placed flowers.

Statue of Victory by Louis-Simon Boizot 

The museum garden includes the original version of the Victory Statue that sits on top of the Chatelet Column. (This statue is so high up at Chatelet that  I never really noticed it.) 

Signage with the name of the exhibition at the Musée Carnavalet, “Revoir Paris.” 

The exhibition, “Paris Revisited,” pays tribute to  Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century. The exhibition, running from June 15 to October 31, 2021, pays tribute to and shows visitors the photographer’s Paris. A French photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35 mm film, Cartier-Bresson pioneered the genre of street photography and viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment. He lived in Paris and returned there between extensive reportages all over the world. 

Charonne 

The Left called for a demonstration on February 8, 1962 to denounce the OAS and the Algerian war. The Paris Police, led by Maurice Papon , repressed this demonstration, as it had done on 17 October 1961 (when between 32 and 200, mainly Algerian people, are estimated to have been killed).

Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti is best known for his elongated, withered representations of the human form, including his 1960 sculpture. Walking Man I, which in 2010 broke the record for a work of art at auction at $104.3 million. He has his own museum in Paris. His outsized, exaggeratedly thin figures are unmistakable.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. His work has also influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies, and continues to influence these disciplines.

War years

Germans marching during occupation of France in WW II

Questioning of Sasha Guitry

The later years of Guitry's career were overshadowed by accusations of collaborating with the occupying Germans after the capitulation of France in the Second World War. The charges were dismissed, but Guitry, a strongly patriotic man, was disillusioned by the vilification by some of his compatriots

Velodrome

The Vélodrome d'Hiver (or "Vél d'Hiv") roundup was the largest French deportation of Jews during the Holocaust. It took place in Paris on July 16–17, 1942. To preserve the fiction of a French police force independent of the German occupiers, French policemen carried out the mass arrest of some 13,000 Jewish men, women, and children.

Vélodrome

German surrender

Liberation of Paris

Soldier during Bastille Day, July 14

De Gaulle (far left in pic) at the end of WW II

Enjoying Peace