Champs-Elysees. Just say this word and you immediately see a sparkling Parisian avenue with the headlights of thousands of cars and the Arc de Triomphe in the background. For quite a few Israelis, this is one of the great symbols of Paris and perhaps even a synonym for the city of lights. There is no doubt that this avenue has become a mythology that is only getting stronger, thanks to the fact that the famous Bastille Day parade starts from here and the Tour de France also ends here.
It's just a shame that this is an illusion, which causes millions of tourists to come to the boulevard whose western part (the one that starts in the area of the Franklin D. Roosevelt metro station and ends at the Arc de Triomphe). It is commercialized, disgusting and sometimes not so safe. If you don't believe me, listen to Charles de Gaulle, who said this immortal sentence while he was President of France :
The Champs-Elysées is the most beautiful avenue in the world, if you ignore the buildings on both sides of it.
Allow me to debunk (or at least crack a little) this myth called the Champs-Élysées , and I will do it in my favorite way: through history. In this article, I will tell you how the avenue was born, why it became so famous, and finally – why today it is a far cry from its glorious past and why its future after 2024 actually looks promising.
Before we begin the article, let's get into the atmosphere with the help of a song that most of us are probably familiar with, and which is responsible for a significant part of the avenue's mythological status.
The story of the Champs-Elysées
In the 17th century, the Louvre was the westernmost building in Paris, and if you crossed the Tuileries Gardens , all you would see was a wall and fields where vegetables were grown. The first to decide to extend the city's borders westward towards the 8th arrondissement was Marie de Medici.
It all started when the queen envied the gardens of the palace of Queen Margot , the first wife of her husband Henry IV. Queen Margot (or Marguerite de Valois) had used the money she received from the King of France as a divorce settlement to build a beautiful palace and gardens, which were located where the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris is now located. To compete with these gardens, which Queen Margot had opened to the public, Marie de Medici built the Cour La Reine gardens in the southern part of the Tuileries Gardens.
In 1670, Colbert, Louis XIV 's finance minister , ordered the famous garden architect André Le Nôtre to plant an avenue of trees that would begin where the Tuileries Gardens ended and end at Chaillot Hill, where the Arc de Triomphe would later be built. Le Nôtre had already designed the eastern part of the Champs-Élysées and transformed it into a beautiful garden.
The western part became a simple tree-lined avenue. In the 18th century, the avenue became a significant transportation artery towards the Longchamps Abbey, where the wives of the nobility used to vacation, and as a result it also became very prestigious. It is therefore not surprising that during this period the first mansions began to be built on both sides of the avenue, mansions of which, unfortunately, no trace remains.
During the French Revolution, the Champs-Élysées became a favorite hangout for Parisians. The reason for this was that the guillotine stood for a long time in the “Place de la Revolution” (which later became the Place de la Concorde), and after Parisians watched the heads being splattered, they went to have a glass of wine at one of the inns or restaurants that had been set up on the avenue.
Add to that the fact that if you were strolling along the boulevard at that time, you had a good chance of meeting Robespierre walking there with his dog Brunt, and you get a combination of entertainment and celebrity encounters (just like Tel Aviv on a Friday afternoon). During the reign of Napoleon I, the boulevard continued to gain popularity, and in 1807 the emperor chose this place to host a dinner to which some 10,000 people were invited to celebrate Napoleon's diplomatic victory at Tilsit.
However, not everything was sparkling on the Champs-Élysées at that time. As darkness fell, all sorts of negative characters would come out to hunt prey on the dark avenue. The one who tried to find a solution to this problem was Philippe Lebon (1767-1804), who invented gas lighting, which began to illuminate the streets at night. Unfortunately, this did not really help him, as he was murdered on the unlit part of the Champs-Élysées on December 1, 1804, just as Napoleon was being crowned emperor.
In 1814, Napoleon lost power, and the Champs-Élysées briefly became the base of the coalition forces that conquered France and brought Louis XVIII back to power. It was only a few decades after this low point that the boulevards began their meteoric rise, transforming them into urban mythology.
The glory days of the Champs-Elysées
In 1840, the architect Hittorff (1792-1867 Jacques Ignace Hittorff) took on the task of rebuilding the Champs-Élysées. He redesigned the avenue, installed some 1,200 gas lanterns, and transformed it into a symbol of the City of Lights. Napoleon III continued the construction boom and asked the garden architect Adolphe Alphand (3-1817) to transform the gardens on the Champs-Élysées into English gardens, similar to those he had loved so much during his exile in London. The result is the eastern part of the avenue that we all know (the one that starts at Place de la Concorde and ends at Rond Point).
As a result of these works, the Champs-Élysées became the number one entertainment venue in Paris, with theaters, circuses, and cafes being built there. And if all that wasn’t enough, while the children enjoyed the wooden horses on the carousel, their parents could watch real horses pulling luxurious carriages filled with the who’s who of the era. And where did all the “who’s who” go? To Longchamp, of course! The monastery, which I wrote about earlier, disappeared during the French Revolution and a horse racing stadium was built in its place. And so in the 1th century, the French changed religion from Christianity to horse betting and enthusiastically embraced the sport that came from Britain.
Let's ignore the noise of the carriages for a moment and return to the Champs-Élysées itself. Quite a few people born in the 19th century, including famous writers, tell us in their memoirs what a wonderful childhood they experienced there. For example, we learn that Marcel Proust loved to play there as a child with a girl, who would go down in literary history as Gilberte, Swann's daughter from the series of books “In Search of Lost Time.” Jean Cocteau also tells us about a happy childhood, a childhood of puppet theaters, sweets, wafers, games and innocence.
At five in the afternoon, the children would return home, and in their place would come the great courtesans. Dressed in their finest, they would go out to the cafes, restaurants, and theaters of the Champs-Élysées (one of which was performing Offenbach's famous opera La belle Hélène).
There, of course, they would try to hunt down one of the wealthy Parisians who would finance their luxurious apartment and impressive jewelry collection. Even today, you can still find several restaurants in the gardens where these courtesans sat. However, unlike the 19th century, when even a person with a moderate income could sit in these restaurants, today these are Michelin-starred restaurants, where a mortal cannot really set foot.
The best example of such a restaurant is Ledoyen , where Robespierre and Napoleon used to dine before they became the all-powerful rulers of France. Today, you'll find a 3-Michelin-starred restaurant there, where you'll have to part with around 400 euros (not including wine).
The fall of the Champs Elysées
If you’ve come this far, you’re probably asking yourself, where are all those theaters, mansions, and other things that made the Champs-Élysées “a spell that cannot be compared to anything you know” (in Balzac’s words to the Countess of Nasca)? Very simple: the Champs-Élysées has become a victim of its own success.
The western part of the Champs-Élysées (the one that ends at the Arc de Triomphe) became a commercial area as early as 1860, when the first shops were established there. However, slowly, as the sentimental value of the avenue grew, so did the rents for the shops. As a result, small shops and boutiques were forced to vacate the avenue in favor of larger stores. In the second half of the 20th century, this process gained momentum, and the mansions that once lined the avenue and the small shops were replaced by giant chains and fast food restaurants, such as McDonald's (Mon Dieu)!
I remember that as a teenager and child I still loved the Champs Elysées, and no trip to Paris was complete without a visit to FNAC and VIRGIN, two huge stores that sold CDs, books, and movies. However, the Internet eliminated this sector and VIRGIN closed years ago (a branch of Galeries Lafayette was recently opened in its place).
FNAC still somehow survives thanks to the sale of tickets to attractions and electronic devices, but it is a pale shadow of what it was in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. Instead you will find car dealerships and giant chains like SEPHORA. Maybe shopping enthusiasts will like it but to me this avenue no longer has any taste or smell (except for the exhaust fumes from the cars).
Add to all this that in recent years the Champs-Elysées has become a less than pleasant place at night. True, it is not the happy days of the Bon Bon when you could get stabbed in the back in a dark alley, and it is still not uncommon to encounter unsympathetic types there when darkness falls. In recent years, the place has also become the scene of the struggle of the “yellow vests” (especially the part near the Arc de Triomphe), and quite a few violent demonstrations have taken place there, which has not increased the popularity of the avenue.
Does this mean you should avoid going near these boulevards altogether? Anne Hidalgo (Mayor of Paris) actually has plans for you.
The Champs-Elysées is about to undergo a serious facelift
We recently heard that the Paris municipality is planning to transform the Champs-Élysées into a giant park with a massive investment of 250 million euros. According to the plan, which is scheduled to be implemented after the 2024 Olympics, the traffic lanes on the Champs-Élysées will be reduced and replaced with paths for pedestrians.
As you can see in the following video, both Place de la Concorde and Place de l'Etoile are going to be transformed into a kind of pedestrian street, and the result will be a paradise for tourists.
You know the history of the Champs-Elysées. What's next?
Now that you know the story of the Champs-Élysées, it’s time to start walking there. Don’t worry, you won’t have to do it alone, because I’ve prepared a walking route that will take you through all the main sites of the Champs-Élysées and the streets next to it. You’ll find it in the article Champs-Élysées (CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES) – Walking Route and Information for Travelers.
If you are interested in living near the Champs-Elysées, I highly recommend Audi's apartment , which is located near the Place de la Concorde, where the avenue starts. If the apartment is not available, you can find other apartments and hotels nearby in these articles:
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