【09.11.18 泰晤士报】Paris, the city that always sleeps

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Paris, the city that always sleeps
http://timescorrespondents.typepad.com/charles_bremner/2009/11/paris-the-city-that-always-sleeps.html

Charles Bremenr November 18, 2009



Paris receives more visitors than any other town in the world, but nightlife in the City of Light is not much to write home about. That has been the story for decades. For all the glories of Paris, its rivals New York, London, Berlin and Barcelona offer more excitement for night-clubbers and other fans of the small hours.

Things have got so bad recently, with clampdowns on noise and police closures of celebrated spots, that club, discothèque and bar owners are petitioning the Culture Ministry to save the Paris night scene from disaster. And today, Mayor Bertrand Delanoe and 330 venue owners have launched a bilingual internet site called Paris Night Life to promote the hottest spots.

The petition, which has gathered more than 12,000 signatures in less than three weeks, says Paris is on the verge of becoming the "European capital of sleep" because of bureaucracy and the intolerance of the increasingly bourgeois population of the capital. Nightlife is becoming so tepid that Paris area residents are heading elsewhere for their fun, says the petition, organised by a group from the techno and electronic music scene.

"It is now well established that Paris has abandoned all kind of European leadership to the benefit of towns such as London, Barcelona, Prague and Berlin, to which more and more French professional artistes are departing for exile."

The group complain of police harassment and new enforcement of antique regulations, such as a ban on dancing in premises licensed as bars or concert halls. Several well-known establishments have had their licenses suspended for infringing the rules. They include the Batofar, a former lightship moored on the Seine, and la Flèche d'Or, an indie music club. This week saw the closure in bankruptcy of La Locomotive, a celebrated boîte de nuit in Pigalle. The neighbouring Moulin-Rouge, a tourist factory, is taking it over to convert it into a shop-restaurant.

The petition wants the city to create "tolerance zones" in nightlife quarters such as the Bastille, the Marais and Oberkampf. [Petition poster in picture says: Closed due to dead city. Please apply to the neighbouring capital]

Jean-Bernard Bros, Mayor Delanoe's deputy in charge of tourism, said the new internet site was the first non-commercial venture of its kind in Europe. "We want to regild the image of the Paris night," he said. The idea is to demystify the scene by listing clubs and other venues according to the type of music, ambiance and tribes who they appeal to.

As usual, it's a very French idea, centralising information on something as spontaneous as the after-hours music scene, but they need all the help they can get. Mayor Delanoe has also been doing his bit, with the creation of his Nuit Blanche, an annual all-night art festival, and other schemes. So far his efforts have not succeeded in making nocturnal Paris hip again. A study on "night-time competitiveness", commissioned for the site, ranked Paris fifth, behind Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin and London. "Paris does not stand out," said the report, by EGE. It suffers from "an image as a museum city, the weakness of night transport, the cultural vacuum in certain districts.... and numerous closures of establishments" by the police.

As an occasional night owl, I would put the lack of transport at the top. It is almost impossible to find a taxi after one am, by which time the Métro has stopped and only a few bus services operate. And since the police have started alcohol-testing cyclists, that rules out Vélib self service bikes, leaving no alternative to walking.