How overtourism converted a chic Paris district into a theme park

Michèle Barrère had a lifelong love relationship with Montmartre and has lived a stone’s throw from Moulin Rouge in the past 30 years.

She visited its ivy cafes and pastel houses twice as long and always accepted the changes in her beloved “butte”, as the locals call the Hilltop area with far-reaching views of Paris.

“But enough is enough,” said the 72-year-old when she marched past souvenir shops and tour groups with her Corgi, Valentine’s Day.

“Montmartre has become an amusement park and we are the attractions. Soon they throw us peanuts soon,” she mocked. “It’s Disneyland.”

With its paved streets, windmills, vineyards, Funicular Railway and Bohemian History, Montmartre has long been popular with foreign visitors. The white Sacré-Coeur basilica and the portrait artists from Place Du Tertre have been a magnet for decades.

But many of the 27,000 inhabitants of the district now say that living together with millions of tourists who have reached the fracture of one number of 423 to one.

Last year the Sacré-Coeur with 11 million visitors was the most visited monument in France in front of the Eiffel Tower. Montmartre now has an even denser tourist zone per capita than Venice.

“It is completely out of control. I have nothing against tourists, but now my predominant feeling of hostility is,” said Ms. Barrière, author of Historic and Culinary Detective Works.

“Sometimes because of this horde I can’t even reach my front door.”

To prove her point of view, she shit a tour group that rose the Rue de l’Aubreuvoir with a royal wave, as if they were annoying pigeons. The Valentine, the Corgi, watched calmly.

Eric Durand, a photographer, inhabitant and member of the Association for the Defense of Montmartre and the 18th Arrondissement, said that tourism has been exaggerated since the end of the covid closures.

“It used to be mainly on the weekend when the weather was nice. Since the end of pandemic and even more since the Olympic Games [last summer]It was the case all year round, ”refers to the amount of tourists outside of his house.

He said the influx of tourists started with the cult film from 2001 Amélie. Tourists continue to flow into the café of the Deux Moulins, where scenes that showed the heroine at work were shot.

The Netflix series Emily in Paris brought even more tourists who visit the show like La Maison Rose Restaurant or the wall of love in a garden in front of the place of the Abbesses with “I love you” in a variety of languages on ceramic tiles.

“We saw it on the show and in Tikkok, so we thought it would be fun if she came,” said Jen Park, a New Yorker who posed with her husband Bruce at a pit stop during her trip to a wedding in Paris.

Last year, the Olympic Games in Paris brought the Roadbike race to Montmartre with pictures that shone in the world of cyclists, the Rue Lepic with a lot of 55,000 spreads that they cheer on.

As if that weren’t enough additional advertising, the last phase of the Tour de France will make a detour for the first time on Sunday, July 27, before the drivers end the Champs-Elysées. Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, personally announced the news.

“It is obviously great for shops, but I understand the handles of the residents about the number of people,” said Julien Ogeard, the 34-year-old manager of Le Nazir, whose boss is a cycling fan and is thrilled that the tour on her café is said goodbye.

“My fear,” said Mr. Durand, “is that the tourists are now moving down the hill and saturating other areas, especially abbesses, to a long series of tourist terraces.”

He added: “We already had an amusement park at the top, now we risk a second below.

“Montmartre loses his soul. I think about moving out and I’m not the only one.”

The revolt has brewed since the recent introduction of new traffic restrictions. There are fears that it will force families to leave small shops in which residents such as butchers and green traders serve from business.

In the meantime, they say that gas-violating tourist side car fights and Citroen 2CVS continue to cause paved roads and frighten people.

Others complain about Rocking real estate prices, whereby the apartments were sold for up to € 15,000 (13,000 GBP) per square meter. Meanwhile, tourist rentals are pushing local families who leave en massively.

Airbnb lists are between 20 and 30 percent of real estate, “and that does not count not declared rentals,” said Brice Moyse from the Imopolis Agency and President of the Lepic Absent Shopkeepers’ Association.

“Long -term rentals have disappeared in the neighborhood,” he said to Le Monde Zeitung.

In the past few months, banners in windows have been with news such as “forgotten residents!” And “there are people behind these facades”. But also in school buildings: “No to class closures!”

“It is the same problem all over Paris: The socialist town hall makes decisions without adequately advising the residents,” said Béatrice Dunner, a translator who has lived in the neighborhood since 1976.

As President of the Association for the Defense of Montmartre and the 18th Arrondissement, she creates a white book from which she hopes that the candidates will accept the city’s elections next year. She said Amsterdam, Barcelona and Majorca were models.

Ms. Dunner’s proposed measures include higher tourist taxes on hotels and tougher regulations and reviews to tourist accommodation as well as the limitation of the sizes of the tourist groups. Further options include a ban on tour guide intercoms and the preparation for more commercial rental contracts to avoid even more business that sell Emily manufactured in Pariser Berets.

“We also have to decide at the national level whether we want more tourists,” added Ms. Dunner.

Last year, the Paris region welcomed 22.6 million visitors.

In a bastion of resistance in La Cave des Abbesen, a group of residents stuck the cork from a bottle of Crémant de Bourgogne and distributed glasses red when the clock hit the aperitif hour from 6 p.m.

“We still meet and it is still a life for locals, but look around, there were three bookstores in the past, a sweetshop for children from the local school, a drugstore. Now they are all brand shops. They are the only ones who can pay for the rent,” said Sabine Bouillet, who works in a tea book.

“I’m not happy at all,” said Olivier Boukhobza, 36, a resident who works for Le Vrai Montmartre (the real Montmartre) that the profiles of locals create. “The real acceleration has come in the past five years with the rise of influencers and Instagrammer, who posted Montmartre and have to make it.”

“We have to find the right balance between tourists, locals and those who work here. At the moment it is the tourists who have the upper hand.”