The Parisian Banlieue

Abstract

The relation of centre to periphery in Paris is utterly different — in some ways opposite — to that in London. Haussmann’s plan had been to connect the areas of central Paris to one another, but the limits of the city were absolute: beyond the Thiers fortifications lay an unformatted zone neglected by developers and out of the sight of the bourgeoisie. Etymologically banlieue derives from ban, which refers to the zone of jurisdiction of the city (Grand Robert). As such, it has the same root as banissement, although there is some dispute over how much can be made of this (Vincindeau 2005: 17, 37n). In modern parlance, nevertheless, the word sounds the note of banishment, and this negative connotation has a long history. In The Painting of Modern Life, T. J. Clark (1999: 25–30) writes eloquently about the nineteenth-century banlieue, an expanse of neglected scrubland and mud dotted with industrial installations and sparsely populated by wandering beggars and perhaps the occasional bohemian painter in search of dereliction. Clark discusses Van Gogh’s La Banlieue parisienne (1886), a painting of a partially developed area of scrubland where some vaguely depicted figures wander purposelessly. These figures and the striking image of a lamppost stranded in a landscape that is neither urban nor rural convey a deep sense of unease at the status of this border territory between town and country.