Paris

“Plastic crockery and cutlery is to be banned in France unless it is made from biologically sourced materials.The law comes into force in 2020. It is part of a French environmental initiative called the Energy Transition for Green Growth, part of a package aimed at tackling climate change... The move against disposable cutlery and crockery is part of a growing trend to outlaw the use of plastic in several parts of the world. “

“Only cars with license plates ending in odd numbers will be allowed on the streets of Paris on Monday, the third time in the nation’s history, as part of a measure to combat high levels of pollution which have increased in the past several days... Paris first implemented this sort of measure in October 1997, and more recently on March 17, 2014... In parallel, the city council also decided that public transport will be free on Monday, in addition to municipal share programs for renting bicycles and electric cars.”

“‘I hear no objection in the room, I declare the Paris climate agreement adopted.’ It was with these words, on Saturday, 12 December, that Laurent Fabius closed the fierce negotiations that had been underway for two weeks in Le Bourget. A long standing ovation and shouts of joy followed in the room where the 195 countries had gathered to adopt the Paris agreement, a historic agreement to combat climate change.”

“Ten of the world's leading architects detailed yesterday their plans to transform the French capital into a Grand Paris, in what has been described as the most complex city project ever. President Nicolas Sarkozy asked the architects, who include the Briton Lord Rogers, to project 20 years into the future and dream up the world's most sustainable metropolis.... One crucial aim is to end the isolation of central Paris, with its two million inhabitants, which is cut off from the six million living in suburbs just outside its ring road, known as le périphérique... Lord Rogers's team, working with the London School of Economics and French sociologists, has proposed uniting cut-off communities, notably by covering up railway lines that dissect the city and placing green spaces and networks above them... Paris would be filled with renewable technologies and re-thought to reduce a city dweller's traveling time to no more than 30 minutes per day.”

“Paris is installing pigeon lofts throughout the city in its latest attempt to control the population of the birds that leave their droppings on the French capital’s monuments. City authorities aim to encourage pigeons to nest in these lofts and then sterilize their eggs while the birds are out feeding... At least 20 lofts will be installed in city parks, where most of Paris’s estimated 80,000 pigeons gather, lured by locals who feed them, said Yves Contassot, the deputy mayor for environmental affairs.”

“I contacted the Centre Ornithologique Ile-de-France (Corif). They sent me to see one of the great experts on the bird life of Paris [Guilhem Lesaffre]... ‘There are 40 to 50 species of birds nesting in Paris and more than 200 species regularly seen within the capital, not including the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes,’ he said. ‘Considering how small and densely occupied Paris is, this is enormous.’ There are kestrels nesting in Notre Dame cathedral, in the Eiffel Tower and in the Arc de Triomphe. There are swifts and house martens and black-birds nesting under many roofs and balconies. There are dozens of colonies of black redstarts, a bird which loves cliffs and ruins but finds that chinks in old Paris apartment blocks will do just as well. In the parks and gardens and above all cemeteries of Paris, there are robins and black caps and green woodpeckers and serins... Pere Lachaise cemetery ‘last resting place of Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf and others’ is a ‘real bird sanctuary’, according to M. Lesaffre. It has, among other things, spotted flycatchers and little woodpeckers. And of course there are sparrows... The number of different bird species in Paris seems to be stable, M. Lesaffre said, but the population of birds is increasing. ‘I suspect that there is more food for them now,’ he said. ‘The fashion for window boxes attracts insects. Although there is pollution in Paris, there is not thick smoke like there used to be.’”

“Parc Andre-Citroen, bordering the Seine at the western end of central Paris, inthe 15th arrondissement, is a 14-hectare, $109-million reclamation of a former car and armaments manufacturing site that opened to the public in 1992. It is one of the most ambitious public parks to be created in Paris since the Second Empire (1852-70) and one whose design is almost brain-burstingly loaded with meaning. Beyond the Movement Garden are the six Senses Gardens — seemingly benign but in fact freighted with hidden meaning. The plants, the decor and their arrangement in each garden represent a sense, a colour, a planet, a metal and a dayof the week. One garden, for example, is orange, touch, Mercury, mercury and Wednesday.”

“With the Bois de Boulogne and Vincennes, Paris contains around 445,000 trees; 15,000 for private green spaces, 168,000 for the forests of Boulogne and Vincennes, 28,000 in the parks and gardens of the city, and 134,000 in various other places. That leaves about 100,000 along roadways. The most common trees are the plane tree (38%), followed by the chestnut (13%).”

“Giscard has declared one of his aims to be ‘to bring ecology into everyday life,’ but it was to be Chirac who delivered on the promise. There had been absolutely no addition to Parisian green space since 1945, but Chirac changed this dramatically. Over the period of his mayoral office, from 1977 to 1995, no fewer than 134 gardens were created. This represented an increase of well over one-third above previous levels...The policy aim was ensuring every Parisian was less than 500 metres away from an area of recreation highlighted the post-Giscard attention to environmental issues and leisure demands.”

“French ecologists say that they want to overhaul totally Western consumer societies... ‘We are revolutionaries,’ says Rene Dumont, 73, one of Europe’s most respected agronomists and development experts, and the movement’s guiding spirit.... Campaigning strongly against what they call ‘the massacre of Paris’ by skyscrapers, freeways and real estate speculation, the militant ecologists may hold the balance of power in the hard-fought race for mayor of Paris... conventional French politicians are falling over each other in their rush to say how much they have always been for environmentalist measures... [Dumont added] “we advocate banning all privately owned cars from the center of all cities, including Paris, and replacing them with better organized public transport. Thirdly, we have to reduce sharply heating of residences and factories. These are realistic first steps.”

“...The presidential electoral campaign of 1974 saw environmentalism become a constituent part of a successful political program. Giscard’s electoral manifesto declared his intention to ‘improve the quality of life in cities by reducing excess density, preventing the proliferation of tower blocks and safeguarding all green space, public and private’.

“The agency carried out a policy of buying private forests and thereby acquired 15,000 hectares, principally around new urban areas surrounding central Paris.”

“Since 1964, measures have been taken — surveillance, regulation, and control — by the Laboratory of Hygiene for the City of Paris, the central laboratory for the Prefecture of Police. They have set a base median of air pollution caused by sulfuric acid and smoke exhaust.”

“Wartime and occupation reintroduced rationing of commodities... The decision to plough up the gardens of the Invalides, the Luxembourg and the Tuileries so as to allow for the planting of beans, carrots and potatoes played to Vichy’s agrarian obsessions; it also showed more than a touch of desperation in food matters.”