The election of Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France is sure to spark some heated debated in the cafes and boulevards of Paris. ‘Sarko’, as he is known, is a born-and-raised Parisian. Plenty of left-wingers think he’s an authoritarian who’s going to erode civil liberties. And a lot of outspoken right-wingers – particular Jacques Chirac’s supporters – don’t like him much either. But his success might owe something to the problems that Paris – and France as a whole – has faced over the last decade. The chaos of the 2005 riots is still fresh in the minds of a lot of Paris’ two million citizens, and Sarkozy’s promise of maintaining law and order has appealed to a lot of those horrified by the states of emergency that have disrupted the city’s tranquillity in recent years.
Of course, concentrating on that, you’d think Paris was some kind of urban warzone. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s hard to know where to begin describing the hundreds of reasons for visiting the City of Lights. A weekend in Paris is worth a month in most other cities, and it’s worth flying halfway round the world to get there.
If you can stay on your feet for a couple of kilometres, you could do what only a few tourists seem to take the time to do, and walk the whole length of the Champs-Elysees. It’s worth it. Start at the western end with a visit to the Arc de Triomphe, and proceed along la plus belle avenue du monde – the most beautiful street in the world. You’ll pass by some of Paris’ most famous architecture, and if you’re lucky enough to be visited at Christmas, you’ll see the entire avenue decked out in some of the brilliant decorations that are ever put up in Europe.
At the eastern end of the Champs-Elysees, you’ll come to the Place de la Concorde, the home of France’s oldest monument – although that description is something of a cheat, since the monument originates in ancient Egypt! The obelisk of Ramses II, like its sister-stones in London and New York, is seventy feet high and weighs nearly two hundred tons. It once stood beside the entrance to the Temple of Luxor on the eastern bank of the Nile. When it was given to France as a gift in 1829, the engineers were hard-pressed to find a way of transporting it and standing it upright again. The ancient Egyptians might have had a better way, although if they did, it’s been long forgotten, because the obelisk is, conservatively, thirty-three centuries old.
And the obelisk is only one of the city’s amazing sights. There’s the Louvre, of course – without a doubt the greatest art gallery on Earth. And the Musee d’Orsay - a spectacular museum collection built up over centuries. The museum building is itself something of a sight, since it’s built in the massive arches of the old Orsay railway station on the banks of the Seine. Paris is home to so many of the world’s treasures that it’d take more than a few lifetimes to experience them all. The most we can hope for in a single visit is just one exquisite taste, a sample of the whole bouquet.