Parisians of the partying kind have long lamented the decline of the city’s nightlife. Those over 45 date the good ole days to the 1980s, those over 30 manage to cite a couple of highlights of the 90s, and those in their 20s simply criticize Paris for not being New York or Madrid.
In search for a reason for this decline, some will to point a finger at the 2008 smoking ban, as though it’s no fun meeting strangers unless you first spot them through a blue-gray haze. When that argument falls flat they will point not such much to the anti-libertarian non-smoking signs inside but to the signs outside inviting people to smoke quietly so as not to disturb the neighbors. Critics of a complacent night scene also cite the city’s attempts to starve the party beast with the enforcement of ordinances against drunken driving, amplified music floating up from cafes, drug use in clubs, and urinating in the street.
It’s true that a night of partying is much less fun if you have to think of designated drivers, acoustic guitars, rest rooms without drug dealers, and restricted outdoor peeing. In the latter case it’s worth noting out that the city began installing free, self-cleaning (itself not yourself) toilets this summer… and that few of them work.
What the critics fail to note is that Paris is increasingly a bourgeois living room of a city, so partying is not on the weekly agenda for the vast majority of Parisians. Furthermore, the increasing disposable income of typical Parisians means that they can afford to go away for the weekend. Basically, Parisians aren’t big partiers.
Still, the critics are wrong to say that nightlife has disappeared. While big 80s and 90s style clubs are no longer the attraction, Paris, the city of cafés, is now chock full of bars and pubs, or at least cafés that in the evening act as bars and pubs—i.e. friendly gathering places—as we might think of them. There are of course the ubiquitous Irish pubs, but more significantly there are now tons of cafés with music some evenings and café-bars. Most of these in the eastern and northern arrondissements (3rd, 10th, 11th, 18th, 19th, and 20th ). Jazz clubs still exist in the center of the Left and Right Banks.
Admitted, the economics of dealing in a bar that attracts 30 people on a given evening is not the same as in a club that attracts 500, and what fun is it to drink, even illegally, in the street if you can’t then break the bottle in the gutter? There’s also clearly something Big Brotherish about a city that requests people to smoke quietly, pee discreetly, and wear condoms, but at least this isn’t London, where every pub- and party-goer is filmed in the street to make sure that he or she vomits only in the gutter.
I’ve chosen this moment to explain all this because the City Hall, having taken the criticism to heart, or at least to its tech department, and has just launched a website to list the (legal) possibilities of enjoying Paris after dark.
The site is called Paris Nightlife and is in English because no Parisian would think it the least bit cool if the title were in French. But since some of them still have problem reading English the site is also in French.
The site is in its infancy so there aren’t yet many venues listed, but this will presumably increase as businesses sign up to be listed. The City of Paris also invites them to sign a charter called “Fêtez Clairs” or “Clear Partying,” whereby they are expected to “create a healthy environment, prevent risky behaviors and reduce harms, [and] manage illegal behaviors”—so it might more appropriately be called Stay Clear of Partying.
Nevertheless, there are things to do after leaving a restaurant other than return to the 2×4 of your hotel or apartment.
Searches on Paris Nightlife can be made by arrondissement, by date or period, by type of venue, by type of music, and by type of audience. Among the types of audience (20-30 years old, 30+, 45+, etc.) it’s odd to find “business clientele” and “foreign visitors” listed, which is like finding a listing in Chicago indicating that certain bars are especially intended for New Yorkers or Texans.
In any case, Paris Nightlife can’t possibly be dead… City Hall just launched it: http://www.parisnightlife.fr
© 2009, Gary Lee Kraut