By now, you’ve surely read about the record-breaking temperatures across France or seen apocalyptic graphics on social media. The country has been hotter this week than Mecca. Schools and daycares are closing, trains are being canceled left and right, ER doctors are warning about insufficient cooling in most hospitals, and the debate around air conditioning use rages on. And while it’s perplexing to countries with a long history of AC use, there are reasons for its relative absence in France.

One is a history of relatively predictable summers in northern and central France: mild, with only a handful of genuinely hot days scattered across July and August. A few uncomfortable weeks didn’t justify the massive investment of retrofitting centuries-old buildings with cooling units. Shutters (volets), the traditional French defense against heat, have been useful in getting through those few steamy days. You close the heavy wooden or metal shutters and windows the moment the sun hits the facade to trap the cool night air inside, opening them only after dusk. But that only works when there is cool night air to trap inside. We are way past that now.

On top of this, the French have largely viewed it as an ecologically irresponsible and physically unhealthy luxury. And as Shelby addressed in this very timely piece during the last heat wave at the end of May, there is a pervasive, obsessive concern about drafts and moving air. The relationship to comfort, says , is also different.

But these events are not rare. Since the fatal heat wave of 2003, which killed nearly 15,000 people, predominantly elderly living alone, France’s leaders have taken insufficient steps to prepare the country for the current crisis. Dropped proposals, budget cuts to environmental adaptation projects (as recently as earlier this month after the last heat wave, the government cut The Green Climate Fund by nearly 20%), and the inability to accept that our heritage structures need rethinking.

Take Paris: installing external AC compressors or modern solar shading (like shutters or awnings) is strictly regulated or outright banned by Architectes des Bâtiments de France (heritage architects) to protect the city’s uniform aesthetic. And those iconic gray zinc roofs covering 80% of buildings? The material isn’t inherently ill-suited, but given improper ventilation and insulation, the roofs end up absorbing too much heat, turning top-floor chambres de bonne into boilers. Replacing or painting them with reflective white coatings would obviously alter the city’s historic skyline so those in charge of preserving the city’s heritage won’t even consider it. No one will consider condemning top-floor apartments, either, to improve insulation. As my friend , a trained urban planner, said to me this morning, “The city has got to modernize, and that will require letting go of some of its precious attachment to its glorious past.”

Modernizing also means prioritizing the public spaces that are most in need of immediate relief. Last year, El Pais reported that only 7% of public schools — out of around 45,000 nationwide — are equipped with any cooling system to relieve the heat. Those of you who have tried to get around the city in the heat know that very few metro lines or commuter trains have it either. Worse still, doctors have sounded the alarms about overheating hospitals and nursing homes, too. What does the health ministry advise to deal with the brutal heat, aside from hydrating? “To stay home between 11 am and 9 pm, the hottest hours”. How many people can realistically stay home?

Will this week’s scientific reality check finally be the wake-up call? Do more people need to die throughout the country for that to happen? Does the country need to feel the economic hit it will endure without a real, actionable course of action? Because that’s where we are heading.

Experts predict that measured AC use will be necessary even with the most ambitious mitigation strategies as heat becomes more intense, prolonged, and frequent. I was stubbornly resistant to AC. I have lived with a French engineer for two decades who repeats that while the mobile units cools us down, it redirects our indoor heat onto the streets or courtyard. And I also wanted (still want) to do the right environmental thing. We have shutters on our living room windows that help stabilize the temperature, but only to a point. We live on the 5th floor of an old building with parquet floors. As I write this, it is 31.5°C (89°F) in my living room, a new personal record.

Struggling with a nervous system disorder makes body temperature regulation challenging which is ultimately why, after twenty years, we bought the unit sitting in my bedroom that I use at night. The moral high ground has its limits. Everyone is struggling. Babies, the elderly, the sick, and the unhoused are simply the most vulnerable. The reality now is that this is a public health emergency.

So while air conditioning isn’t the solution, it will ultimately be one tool among many to modify the way we live and work. If France wants to deter individual AC use, it must have clearly designated cooling centers (sorry, misting zones throughout the city are not going to cut it!!) within schools, gymnasiums and various public spaces, already common in the U.S. and parts of Asia. Leaders should be looking to countries like South Korea, Egypt, and Colombia, where innovative solutions have proven successful.

What’s sad to me is that Paris was innovating in cooling more than 30 years ago. A program established in 1991 by Chirac when he was mayor of Paris has cooled some 900 buildings across Paris. Fraîcheur de Paris is a citywide urban cooling network that uses a 100-km underground piping loop to carry chilled water from the Seine to buildings. (The tech-y bit: it works through closed-loop heat exchangers. The river’s water cools the separate network water before it gets pumped out. The river water and the network water never actually mix.) Chirac wasn’t doing it for the climate but as a practical urban design solution. The city wanted a way to provide air conditioning to major museums, luxury hotels, and department stores without allowing thousands of unsightly compressor boxes to be bolted onto the iconic facades of historic and classical buildings.

If it is only being expanded now, it’s because the network was historically managed under a commercial monopoly designed strictly to cool high-paying, high-density landmarks like the Louvre and major luxury hotels, rather than residential areas. French political parties also prioritized winter heating infrastructure, only rewriting the city’s contracts to mandate a massive public health expansion once severe modern heatwaves proved old stone buildings could become dangerous thermal traps. And here we are.

In a perfect world, come next spring, we will elect the presidential candidate with serious and strategic and actionable plans to make France livable for all as we fight the global climate crisis. Macron has been a failure on this issue (and others we can discuss another day). It is THE issue.

“Our entire society and infrastructure were designed for a climate that no longer exists,” said the climatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte in Le Monde. Her words should end every political speech, every urban planning meeting, and every debate about whether to bolt an AC unit to a building facade. They don’t yet but let’s hope this week is the turning point.

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It left me thinking about the places we convene in Paris around music. There are similar choir-style meet-ups which foster community, like Some Voices and Singing Earth Divine (gospel), there are al fresco opportunities to sing and dance, like the tango nights along the banks of the Seine (one of the spots my husband, then boyfriend, brought me during our epic first summer together) and there are hundreds of concert venues and bars that offer live music.

A few readers inquired about listening to music in Paris and since Fête de la Musique is upon us (on a day that will likely exceed 100°F, be warned), the timing felt appropriate. Have favorites to add? Leave a note in the comments!

JAZZ

Deeply rooted in post-war Left Bank history, Parisian jazz and swing shows are often held in low-lit cellars or cozy listening hubs like Le Duc des Lombards, Sunset Sunside, 38 Riv, Caveau de la Huchette. More club than bar, New Morning is the 10th arrondissement’s destination for jazz and blues.

Venture out of the center to the 19th arrondissement where La Gare-Le Gore (page 122 in my book with Eater!), set in an abandoned train station, starts off the night with live jazz concerts (free) then turns into a house and electronic club after 1 a.m., for a fee.

How to find a show and buy tickets:
If you’re comfortable in French, peruse L’Officiel des Spectacles (which I remember buying, old school style, at news kiosks when I moved to Paris) or check Paris Jazz Club for listings.

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What drives Americans to leave home and settle elsewhere? That question has been on my mind for many years. This series, Leaving America, seeks to uncover the multitude of reasons and lessons learned—beginning with Americans in and around Paris. Become a paid subscriber to access this newsletter’s archives. You can read more of my thinking on this topic in this reported essay.

Few of the Americans in Paris I’ve come to know have a linguaphile love story as similar to my own as Alexander Hurst’s. Where we differ, however, is in our approach to financial risk. Broke and living in a cramped apartment in Paris in 2020, he took a massive gamble and invested what savings he had in high-risk options trading. He saw his earnings skyrocket before, well, they plummeted, costing him everything. His tale first appeared in The Guardian before it became the crux of his memoir, Generation Desperation, released earlier this year. He’s bounced back, however, and now covers politics and culture as a columnist for The Guardian as well as other international publications. What role does Paris play in the life he is carving out for himself? Find out below.

Where was the last place you lived in the U.S.?
Kind of a split between Cleveland, Ohio, where I grew up and where my parents still live, and so where I have the strongest ongoing connection, and Amherst, Massachusetts, where I went to undergrad at Amherst College, which is the last time I really lived in the US, versus just visiting.

Did you intend to leave permanently or was the move temporary?
I left for France (Strasbourg) at the end of undergrad in 2012 with the idea of genuinely learning French, going to graduate school in France, and more likely than not having some sort of international life.

Was there a pivotal moment when you knew your life would be best pursued elsewhere?
The year after I lived in Strasbourg, I went to southern Chad to work for an NGO. A few months into that experience, I was sure enough that I wanted to go back France that when I started applying to graduate schools, I decided to counteract my indecision by applying to only one graduate program (a dual Masters between Sciences Po and the London School of Economics), so that I would have nothing to choose between, and thus nothing to regret.

What sort of financial consideration did the move require, even if as a student initially? Does one need a plump savings account to make this work?
I had the absolute privilege of parents who had persistently squirreled money away into an education account, no loans from Amherst (which was one of the first colleges in the U.S. to remove loans and switch to grant-only funding in its financial aid packages), and on top of that, grants for graduate study from Amherst. That made the LSE year possible. Without that, I would have gone only to Sciences Po, which, even as an international student, is far more affordable than comparable institutions in the U.S.

At what age did you leave? Looking back, was that too soon or too late?
22, which was great for actually becoming deeply fluent in French, even if learning it as an adult still means always having an accent.

When did you know you'd made the right [or wrong] call?
Do we ever really know, for sure?

What does Paris offer you that your native home couldn’t and, perhaps, still can’t?
France is over-centralized in a way that’s not-so-beneficial for the country as a whole, but that makes Paris practically unparalleled as a city. There are really few places in the world that are at the center of almost every scene: academics and research, conferences, policy and government, music, cinema, literature and publishing, fashion, art, tech, healthcare, museums, food, outdoor festivals… The only thing Paris is missing is a coast, and deep nature. London is dense in this same type of way, maybe.

But in Paris, my life is truly bilingual. I have this (probably annoying) way of really using both languages in conversation, but it’s because I think I need both of them to feel like a complete person. French might not be my native language, but it is my language now. I can’t imagine living somewhere where I wasn’t debating politics in French, browsing through French books in bookstores, sitting on terraces at sunset with conversations happening in both languages, going to English and French standup comedy.

Losing French from my life would feel like I was being stripped of the most life-altering decision I ever made. I’m amused when I think of some early mistakes I made my first year of language courses in Strasbourg, like being at a restaurant and ordering “La salope de poulet” instead of “l’escalope de poulet”. (For the non Francophones, I tried to order “the slutty chicken” instead of the “chicken cutlet”). And then my idea of reaching the top of language fluency has kept progressing.

My bar for ‘final boss level’ of language integration used to be getting 90% of standup comedy in French without needing to ask a friend to explain a joke, because that requires social, cultural, and historical fluency as well as linguistic fluency; now I think the ‘final boss level’ might be the one I beat last summer (live panel discussion about US politics and Trumpism at Le Monde’s Festival International du Journalisme) or in January (discussing ICE and the rise of fascism in the US on a live-broadcast roundtable for a show on France 5, called En Société), but maybe it’s the one I’m currently at: writing a longform piece for a French magazine, La Revue21, organically in French.

Or maybe the only one that I can imagine coming after, which would be pulling the full Kundera and writing a book in French?

Can you share any anecdotes about your highest and lowest moments in Paris?
Lowest: Paris has certainly seen me heartbroken more than once, and in those moments I’ve told myself that maybe there’s something artistic about letting this city absorb yet one more broken heart.

Highest: Refreshing the Journal Officiel de la République one day in late August, 2022, and seeing that I had officially become a French national. (And then going to pick up my passport).

But, you know Lindsey, one of your recent Instagram videos — where you mention Paris being a real place, and not simply a tourist’s sojourn — made me think twice about that. In my memoir Generation Desperation (ok, plugging my book, uhuh uhuh) I write about really struggling in my late 20s in this tiny, cramped flatshare, with the same financial and existential life problems as a ton of Millennials in major urban centers in the US have certainly experienced. With an early draft there was this bit of editorial feedback from someone in the U.S. whose reaction was, more or less, that the struggles that pushed me to all kinds of desperate financial behavior couldn’t really be that sympathetic because I was in Paris.

And I remember thinking, well, would that be the reaction if I were writing about how tough it was to find my footing in Brooklyn?

No doubt, Paris is this dream place for so many people. But it’s also just…a city. It’s a real place, where people are frazzled and busting their ass and exhausted on the horribly screechy line 13 at the end of an infuriating 300th day of metro-boulot-dodo (commute-work-sleep), and where far too many people are scraping by on salaries that most Americans would raise their eyebrows at (and not in a good way). The fact that it’s so romanticized in cinema and literature and in New York Times articles makes it hard for a lot of people to also think about it as a place that sometimes you can’t wait to get away from for a bit.

In a sense it shouldn’t be: just think about Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. But even the idea of struggling in Paris has this compelling, la vie en rose tint to it. Whereas Paris, the real, non-touristy version, is an onion, and as incredible as it is to peel away new layers, sometimes it also makes you cry.

Are there aspects of American life that you long for?
I miss the ease with which Americans are always striking up conversations with each other. Every time I wait at the gym for my HIIT class, people are waiting in relative silence and I always find myself thinking, “if this were Cleveland, there would be a lot of chit chat going on.”

What book or movie do you most associate with the American experience abroad?Hmm, it’s not necessarily the American experience abroad, but L’Auberge Espagnol had a lot of intersections with my own experience in Paris as a student.

If you had to narrow it down to one, what is the greatest lesson living abroad has taught you about yourself and the world?
That there really is an ‘Anglo-American’ way of thinking about the world that a lot of Americans assume (without even realizing it) is simply the way of conceptualizing the world. It’s not, it’s one of many.

Have you ever considered going back? (Why or why not)
No. Even if I wanted to move back to a disintegrating former democracy and live under a corrupt oligarchy in the making, being able to afford life as a writer in the U.S. seems inconceivable. Healthcare alone would eat up like half of my income.

For those contemplating leaving the U.S., what do you suggest they consider most about the decision?
The more you’re able to swap U.S. ways of operating for local ways of operating, the better your experience will be. For example, I had a friend who, years ago, kept complaining that he couldn’t find good produce here, which blew my mind because my own experience is that produce in much of the U.S. is giant, blemishless, and bland, compared to the explosively real taste of things in France. And eventually he told me that he did all his shopping at Monoprix (a big-box grocery store chain), instead of going to the green grocer, or taking advantage of the farmer’s markets that pop up in each Paris neighborhood at least once a week. And while some artisan stores of bio épiceries can absolutely be a bit pricey, I don’t find that to be the case with the local pop-up farmer’s markets. Certainly not in the northeast of the city. Especially if you’re eating seasonally.

Follow Alexander on Instagram.

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Ps. Can anyone name the cinema that was photographed and mentioned in The New Paris?

When I turned fourteen, I realized, perhaps for the first time, that my future would be less vibrant than I imagined. Cinema Variety, where I grew up spending my weekends, was shut down and replaced by a supermarket chain. I was crushed. Florence, once the cradle of the Renaissance, is a city prepared to sell off each of its neighborhoods to the highest bidder. Because of gentrification and globalization, the Florentine cultural scene has gradually become flatter; local shops get pushed out by cheap steakhouses, fast food chains and fake leather shops. Every possible contemporary art exhibition is greeted with timid smiles by the few remaining residents left in the city center, still anchored in the fifteenth century. Among the businesses that have suffered the most, it was the film industry that gave me the sense that Florence’s future would be full of supermarkets and KFCs, not cinemas. Since 2010, almost half of the city’s cinemas have shut down and the few remaining are either half-empty independent movie theaters or multiplexes showing only the most commercial films on the market.

I’m thirty now and no longer living in Florence. After a few years studying and working across Stockholm, New York, and Milan, I moved to Paris in 2024. Once I settled in, I realized what it really means to live in a city that prioritizes a balance between mass tourism and a living local culture. I found the Ville Lumière to be among the most successful at resisting the homogenizing pull of mass tourism, and part of that includes protecting cinemas. Since 2010, less than ten percent of them have shut down, largely because locals still love going to the movies and consider supporting them as a moral obligation. France was the only major film market in Europe where attendance grew in 2024, with almost half of tickets sold going to French movies.

Cinémas d’art et d’essai are still everywhere in Paris and because of that, moviegoers are gently encouraged to watch old and magnificent movies by Ingmar Bergman, Billy Wilder, and Alfred Hitchcock instead of the thirty-seventh Marvel chapter. One of the real declarations of love for cinema is offered by Paris Ciné Info, a very pragmatic and easy-to-use website to check showtimes. You can search movies based on the day, new releases, languages, and other filters, including the cinema card. In an effort to focus my attention on getting the most out of this city and its vibrant culture, I cancelled my Netflix subscription, which was honestly only useful to me for rewatching The Office for the fifteenth time and Zerocalcare’s series. Instead, I got myself a UGC Illimité card, a wonderful membership that allows me to see films at every UGC and Mk2 cinema as many times as I want, but above all to get into practically all the cinémas d’art et d’essai—for only 20€ a month. It was a no-brainer.

Now, I go to the movies at least once a week. With tickets costing 13€ on average, getting the pass was the smartest thing I could do. It’s what got me to spend a wonderful Wednesday evening watching Psycho for the first time at the cozy Ecoles Cinéma Club, The Last One for the Road at the Cinéma Saint-André des Arts on a Saturday morning, and Mulholland Drive at the Studio Galande. Next week, I have plans to see A Fistful of Dollars by Sergio Leone at the Studio des Ursulines.

The people who go to these cinemas sit in reverent silence, as if inside a temple, to enjoy high-quality masterpieces--maybe because they are incurable romantics waiting for a future far from smartphones and closer to Midnight in Paris, where you might find a very drunk Hemingway stumbling around the fifth arrondissement. Perhaps the audience wishes they lived in an era where cinemas were still a fun outing among friends and not just a place to find the rare few who enjoy movie more than Hyrox.

These people, myself included, will typically walk out of the cinema and immediately start scrolling through their Instagram feeds, looking for something to blame the present for, while gearing up to lecture their partners, who skipped the film entirely, about how much better life was when Hitchcock was alive— never mind that they weren’t even born yet. So long as Paris fights to keep its arthouse cinemas open, hopefully inspiring other European cities to follow suit, we can remain calm, place our faith in humanity, and pray that AI doesn’t strip our ability to argue about it. Lunga vita al cinema!

KEEP READING (& LISTENING)

• A new look for the Elysées Lincoln theater

• What the New Wave cinema movement tells us about contemporary France

• Louvre heist will be turned into a film (of course)

• Saved by fans, historic Paris arthouse cinema La Clef reopens

Thanks for reading! If you think a friend would enjoy The New Paris Dispatch or this series, gift subscriptions are available here | Order copies of my books The New Paris, The New Parisienne, and The Eater Guide to Paris.

FRENCH ARTIST JR WRAPS UP THE PONT NEUF (YAY OR NAY?)

I have a chat group with a few friends, one of whom is a contemporary art specialist guide. Naturally, when JR’s La Caverne du Pont Neuf came into conversation— it’s been in preparation for the last week— some members of the group conveyed their lukewarm feelings about the installation. I wanted her to weigh in.

For background, the trompe l’oil-loving artist has transformed Paris’s oldest bridge with an inflatable cavernous piece that is meant to pay homage to the work of artist Christo and Jeanne-Claude (who famously “wrapped” Pont Neuf in 1985) and reference the limestone quarries of Paris that were used to build the city and the bridge. “It’s meant to get people to look again at something they perhaps stopped paying attention to. It’s meant to be disruptive, which can evoke good or bad responses! It’s not only being modified to be “beautiful” said Alexandra Weinress of The Seen Paris.

Once fully complete, the public will be able to venture inside of the cave-like structure where a sound component was contributed by ex-Daft Punk artist and musician Thomas Bangalter. Visitors should also be able to meander through with an AR experience designed for mobile devices.

Paris loves a happening (and our leaders will always say they represent a new chance to draw eyeballs to the city that… already draws a zillion eyeballs) so for me, it fits into an artistic spectacle that is less about the merits of the work itself than the spectacular nature of the piece. What do you think?

LE BUS IS BACK

I love the stories from the beginnings of Bus Palladium, the grungy punk rock club born in Pigalle. It’s wholly lost its edge, which some will take issue with, but it is no longer a shell of a place nor a construction zone. It lives anew as an excellent cocktail bar, restaurant, and hotel with a fully refurbished club and concert venue. It fits neatly into a neighborhood which long lost its sleaze. It was bound to happen, sadly.

Even if you’re not interesting in concerts or clubbing (I’m down for the former), the bar is great. Go early/pre-dinner.

Read my full review for Travel & Leisure.

NEW PHOTO EVIDENCE OF THE GREEN TICKET ROUNDUP, PARIS 1941

It never gets easier to see imagery from this time but it is so important that we continue to expose ourselves to it. On May 14, 1941, 3,700 foreign Jewish men were summoned (with a notice (on green paper) by police to the 11th arrondissement for what they believed to be an identity check. Instead, they were held in the Gymnase Japy. It was a trap, one that became among the very first roundups of Jews in France.

We know more about that particular period in 1941 thanks to 98 never-before-seen photographs on display at the Shoah Memorial in Paris. They were taken by a half-Jewish Nazi propagandist photographer named Harry Croner who was deported to a labor camp a few months after taking the photographs, before later being taken prisoner by the Americans.

Lior Lalieu, head of the photo library at the Shoah Memorial, told France Culture that “there were 69 assembly points in Paris, notably the Japy Gymnasium, the largest, because we are in the 11th arrondissement, where the concentration of the foreign Jewish population is the highest in Paris.” As shown in the photographs, women were not arrested and deported (though they would be the following year) but were instrumental in the trap. Women accompanying their husbands were told to prepare a small suitcase of belongings and when they returned, they realized their partners had been arrested. “You can see the shock and despair on their faces, women pleading with the police… You can see the tragedy of this roundup,” says Lalieu.

Read the New York Times piece on the topic by Jean-Marc Dreyfus, Holocaust historian and co-curator of the exhibition.

MICHELIN’S GREEN STAR IS NO MORE

Perhaps it was flawed from the start but the green Michelin star is no more. Hundreds of restaurants around the world rewarded for their environmental efforts—low-waste cooking, preserving biodiversity— will be stripped of their green star by the end of this year as the guide retires the prize after only six years. Instead of working to fix the major shortcomings in the system (most notably that inspectors were not evaluating restaurants’ sustainability initiatives in a meaningful way nor finding ways to assess in regions with different standards; restaurants filled out a questionnaire about their practices), they’re dropping the whole thing at a time when sustainability in food is more necessary than ever. It feels even more like a botched opportunity given that Michelin announced it would, instead, launch a vague editorial platform called “Mindful Voices”, focused on “all those who inspire across the universes of gastronomy, hospitality and vineyards.”

Thanks to journalist and author for flagging this was developing before anyone else. Several months ago, he noticed that Michelin was scrubbing the Green Star listings from its website and search function. Michelin firmly denied it at the time.

HOW TO WATCH “SEARCHING FOR FRANCE”

I know, it’s not as straight forward as logging on to Netflix. Not everyone has cable TV. I’ve been fielding this question a lot and I have a bit more information now that viewers have informed me how they were able to watch. If you’re based in the U.S., you’ll have an easier time of it: CNN will keep rebroadcasting it and it’s also available on their CNN Streaming app. It’s not free but you could sign up for one month, watch the whole thing, and cancel :) Apple TV and Amazon Prime appear to have it for purchase, as individual episodes, though if you’re outside the U.S. it will require a VPN. Thank you for watching!

ELSEWHERE

• Crisis in Paris schools (The Guardian)

• Abort mission, Hollande! (Politico)

• ICE comes to Europe ( at (Re)Voir)

• Oh good, just what Paris needed: a burger des riches! (Reported by ).

• Searching for Solidarity at the Train Station (The Nation)

• On the art of French chocolate (Me! The New Paris podcast)

WHAT YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

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If there is anyone I credit with soothing me after submitting my manuscript for The New Parisienne, it’s Elaine Ng Huntzinger. I had known about her work as a TCM practitioner and acupuncturist through a dear friend who booked me an appointment with Elaine as a hurray! You finished that beast of a book! Now, please, let someone help you relax gift. She absolutely helped me and talked me through how acupuncture could, long term, help me manage my Tourette Syndrome. Her guidance was a gift in more ways than one. We also share a connection to rock climbing— she is an avid climber and in a household of climbers; I am married to one. Today, her work also includes facial rejuvenation, making her one of the toughest specialists to book, for good reason. But what led her to France in the first place? Keep reading.

Where was the last place you lived in the U.S.?
San Diego. I had just finished acupuncture school and had been teaching pilates. I met my husband rock climbing in Greece when I was teaching pilates (in Paris) for a few months. I had taken a break from school to hang out in Paris and work and met my husband in that month. He later moved to San Diego with me for a year while I finished my studies.

Did you intend to leave permanently or was the move temporary?
I intended to leave permanently. I knew intuitively that I was probably never going to return. I had been in and out of France for a while and this time, the conditions were perfect to move there permanently.

Was there a pivotal moment when you knew your life would be best pursued elsewhere?
My husband’s father was diagnosed with cancer and he abandoned his green card process as a result. He wanted to return to France to spend time with his father. I had been on the fence about whether we should stay in California or move to France. I saw this as a sign that it was time to move back to France.

What sort of financial consideration did the move require, even if as a student initially? Does one need a plump savings account to make this work?
I think you either need to have some savings or be with a partner who is able to work in France. You also need to think about what skills you have that could translate into working in the country. We initially moved to Annecy because my husband was working in Geneva. I got bored just hanging out and decided to cold call pilates studios in Geneva. I got a job teaching there and then opened a small studio in Annecy where I also practiced acupuncture. A year later, we moved to Paris where I started working as a pilates instructor. I had started practicing acupuncture while I was teaching pilates in San Diego and essentially translated that model into building my business here.

At what age did you leave? Looking back, was that too soon or too late?
I left at 35 years old. I think it was the perfect time. I had acquired skills that I could translate into work and I was adult enough to hustle for the long term.

When did you know you'd made the right [or wrong] call?
It took a few years, but I think giving birth in a very supportive environment without going broke really showed me I was in the right place.

What does Paris offer you that your native home couldn’t and, perhaps, still can’t?
Paris is visually stimulating and is always changing. I love that culture is a priority and every day you hear about a new exhibition, a restaurant, or a new trend that is emerging. There is enthusiasm for newness with substance and history that San Diego definitely did not possess. Also, I find the quality of food in France is so far superior to anything you can find back home.

Can you share any anecdotes about your highest and lowest moments in Paris?
The highest was probably when my daughter was a newborn and we took her to Versailles for the Murakami exposition there. I was amazed that I was able to participate in an art expo in such a historical environment with my child who would be brought up in a world full of culture and beauty.

My lowest was walking home from dinner and seeing people fleeing the Bataclan during the terrorist attack. We heard shots and sirens the entire night. We lived very close to the Bataclan back then. The heaviness in the city was palpable for months after those attacks.

Are there aspects of American life that you long for?
I miss the efficiency and friendliness of most people in stores and restaurants. It is often easier getting things done in the States than in France.

What book or movie do you most associate with the American experience abroad?My first long stay in France, I lived in Aix-en-Provence. The book Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald reminded me of how I felt when I was driving around in the south of France. The film Before Sunrise embodies the feeling of being in Paris for the first time and also the yearning for spontaneous experiences.

If you had to narrow it down to one, what is the greatest lesson living abroad has taught you about yourself and the world?
If you have a clear vision of what you want, you can achieve your goal as long as you remain flexible. You are going to have to modify, tolerate, and adapt to the social norms, laws, and culture. Also, you need to learn the language.

Have you ever considered going back? (Why or why not)
Not since having a child. She has had a great private bilingual education here that is very affordable. Also, the health care system here is accessible and efficient. After being here for more than 20 years, I can see how France, despite many social issues, still chooses to take care of its citizens versus serving only the privileged class.

For those contemplating leaving the U.S., what do you suggest they consider most about the decision?
Make sure you really understand why you want to leave. I would not cut ties 100% with your home country, at least for a few years, in case you want to go back. Just like home renovations, life renovations will take far more time and patience than you realize.

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She had me join her for the conclusion with the supremely talented chef Eric Ripert (and another surprise guest!) and I’m really eager to see how it all turned out! Tune in to see the show Searching for France on CNN at 9pm or as of tomorrow on the CNN streaming app.

And now, my five recommendations of the moment in Paris!

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When I arrived in 2006, public displays of physical exertion were maligned, as was wearing anything resembling sportswear. Wear sneakers, spandex, and an oversized sweatshirt outside of the home, even if to walk to the gym 100 meters away? Blasphemous. For years, I was a member at Club Med Gym at République and watched men run on treadmills in Converse sneakers and women who lived mere blocks away arrive in the locker room in full makeup, spend ninety minutes on the elliptical in lacy bras and slow-drying fabrics, and leave after slathering themselves in anti-cellulite cream. A French friend at the time insisted that performative workout culture was “so American”. Any Parisians exercising in public were the exception—serious athletes, a category unto themselves.

That was twenty years ago. Now, nearly everyone is wearing sharp-looking trainers everywhere from work to dinner parties. Parisians run all-terrain and cycle religiously. The week of snow we had in January? They were out trudging through it in shorts. The Seine flooding a couple of months ago barely slowed anyone down. Among the other things that have noticeably changed: Women are (finally) weight-training. Some have joined the cult of Pilates; others swear by thrice-weekly ninety-minute sessions at Jivamukti on the Canal. Hoka, the Annecy-born brand now hosting running clubs, pop-ups across the city, and even its own half marathon, has become the Veja of the running world.

If you come to Paris regularly, you’ve surely seen this shift. And the data backs it up: according to a health and sport report published by Ipsos in January, the time spent on fitness has doubled in ten years, with 72% of French people engaging in some form of physical activity, a record high outside of Covid lockdown periods. The benefits to our overall health and wellbeing are well known and documented, so what else has driven the about-face? I went straight to my friend , a brilliant fashion journalist, author and professor whose work digs into the social and cultural underpinnings of what we wear, how we wear it, and who produces it, to discuss.

L: Mélody, what’s going on here? Paris has always had serious athletes but the idea of exercising and publicly displaying the trappings of sportswear was anathema to Parisianess. Is what we’re seeing the downstream effect of athleisure on the runway or the globalization of wellness culture?
M: I like this question and the fact that it also shows the tension between two types of performance: physical and aesthetic. For the forler, I think COVID lockdowns, where we were kept inside for ages, really changed our understanding of the outdoors. That’s not only true for Paris, of course, but it gave Parisians a sense of what it means to be mobile, outside. Our understanding of the relationship between body and mental health has improved, which is good since burnout is rampant in the city.

At the same time, our understanding of “clubbing” changed. Many nightclubs in Paris have closed and seem to have been replaced by sports clubs. Sports brands like Jah-Jah Studio, Klättermusen, Nike, American Vintage, and La Sportiva began creating their own clubs to foster community, belonging, and wellness. I think Parisian culture really shifted as a result. Added to this is a growing reluctance to drink and smoke: two of the most persistent stereotypes about Parisian culture. All of my friends either stopped drinking or put some “rules” in place to regulate their alcohol consumption. I think Parisians, like the rest of the world, want to try different things. That being said, we, French people, are still lousy regarding rules, so I’m really not able to say if it’s something that will last.

Regarding the visibility of sports, the city also created public spaces dedicated to athletic activities, and we’re now in a street-sports era where men often train in public. This has reignited conversations about the gendering of cities. Not so much in terms of safety, but in terms of who public spaces truly belong to.

As for the runway, I don’t really think it impacted the conversation. Of course, there was the gorpcore1 conversation around 2017 (almost a decade, damn!), but it was more about aesthetic, which might have encouraged “real” sports brands to insist on the technicity of their products; the real practicality of them.

L: There’s long been a disdain for American-style workout culture and a feeling that nonchalance mattered more than earnest attempts at physical betterment. To what extent did that have to do with the French perception of beauty? What might have influenced this change?

M: I might not make myself many friends, but I think the American social context is more about “false individuality in order to better fit into the collective,” whereas the French social context is almost the opposite. The so-called Parisian aesthetic that has been repackaged and marketed internationally does exist, but it is far from being the only aesthetic expression of people here.

That said, there is still a certain distrust of the whole “beauty” discourse, which many find quite distasteful. We’re proud snobs. French people will still roll their eyes if you talk too long about your athletic performances if you’re not an athlete, which is also because it’s just not that interesting. Personally, having people explain to me how good they feel after their workout or from biking around the city is the conversational equivalent of starting a sentence with, “According to ChatGPT…”.

L: As a writer who tracks fashion and cultural movements, how do you think this wellness craze fits into the broader adoption of American cultural products? (Hoka might be French but its sneakers are loud and colorful.)

M: I believe a practical approach has been taken. Still, I’m uncertain whether this is due to American influence or the increased presence of French cultural references that were previously less recognized. I’m thinking specifically of Moncler (from Grenoble) and Salomon (from Annecy). While I wouldn’t argue that we’re not influenced by American culture, there seems to be a desire among the younger generations to have a cultural discourse connected more to regions throughout the country rather than solely from Paris. There was the whole Vogue Paris/Vogue France drama (in 2021, the magazine changed its name to Vogue France and some Parisians felt their identity was being attacked and endangered by Anna Wintour and, by extension, Americans. I would love for it to be an exaggeration, but it’s not. French culture relies on the idea of being an exception—l’exception culturelle française. But to remind people that France is more than just Paris in terms of culture is important). And there was also the rediscovery of cities like Marseille, Annecy, and regions like the Pays Basque. Keep in mind that a lot of people left Paris during COVID—and came back! Ha! That said, the American market remains significant in the fashion and garment industry, which may help explain some of the color choices and overall aesthetics.

L: The urban infrastructure in Paris has evolved tremendously in the 20 years I’ve lived in Paris. Can this shift really be disconnected from those visible changes? (The bike lanes, the pedestrianized riverbanks, the expanded green spaces…)

M: I think the city adapted to what the people were demanding. Paris is a beautiful city, and even though people were fighting Anne Hidalgo a lot about her decisions, she made it more pleasant for a stroll. I’m the caricature of a French party pooper who hates queuing in front of restaurants and piétiner (shuffling): our city is quite small so we feel the growing number of people.

L: Aside from running outdoors, which doesn’t require a membership, regular routines in Paris come with hefty price tags: pilates studios, Barry’s, boxing… is being sporty now another way to flex privilege?

M: I don’t know if it’s privilege (although we could talk about which bodies are being policed in the streets but it certainly became a status thing, which is the most American thing —or should I say, L.A thing?— about this. People think that their bodies have become a reflection of their mind, of who they are. Personally, I think it’s interesting that we always focus and try to control our bodies when fascism arises. It started with women through Ozempic and the whole “Barbie Trump aesthetic”, and now this. I might be reading too much into it but when you speak to people in France about their relationship to sports, the idea of controlling your body and controlling your mind arises. It’s like the world is crumbling before our eyes, so the last thing left in our control is ourselves. I’m not judging (too much LOL); I understand, in a way, but I’m always cautious about mass trends.

L: If you had to guess, would you say the dressed-down aesthetic in Paris— related or unrelated to this sporty shift — will be enduring?

M: I don’t know. With so much happening locally and geopolitically, it’s difficult to predict what kind of shift might occur. Right now, I’m thinking about the rock-indie sleaze influence that is pervasive in fashion brands. When those eras first emerged, “looking good” meant something different than it does today, and sport wasn’t really part of the equation.

Since then, the rise of sportswear and the experience of Covid-19 has made us used to a certain idea of comfort. I like to say we are at a crossroads, where aesthetics and politics point toward two different futures. On the one hand, there is sport as a release and a source of empowerment, suggesting a lifestyle oriented more toward nature and community. On the other hand, there is sport as a tool for controlling the body and mind, aligning with a rock aesthetic that is fixated on appearance, centered on individuality, and driven by the idea of being better than others rather than being with them. I might be oversimplifying, but I don’t think so.

Read more from me and Mélody: we discussed Empire of the Elite earlier this year (en français). Follow Mélody on Instagram.

If you think a friend would enjoy The New Paris Dispatch, gift subscriptions are available here | Order copies of my books The New Paris, The New Parisienne and The Eater Guide to Paris | Pick up a copy of my dining & coffee guide

A quick note: As you may know by now, this Leaving America series emerged from an obsession with understanding and documenting ever-increasing American migration that I initially envisioned as a new book. That didn’t happen but I’ve so enjoyed hearing from adopted French residents in this format. My original idea was never meant to be confined to French borders, however, so I was overjoyed to have the opportunity to go deep and broad on the idea of leaving with a reported essay in the new issue of The Bitter Southerner, a remarkable independent publication based in the American South that doesn’t shy away from the painful but necessary conversations we all need to be having. The piece is now online, it would mean the world if you’d take the time to read it here.

I’m always impressed by Americans in France who find themselves pursuing unconventional career paths or deepening their expertise, disconnected from the corporate world. David Simonson is on such American. A California-born landscape architect and garden designer (or, as the French would say, paysagiste), very much in love with a French woman, he landed in Paris more than fifteen years ago with a landscape degree in hand and the swift realization that he’d need to start over. That was hardly a significant setback. He launched his own studio in 2015 and has subsequently worked across Europe and the Mediterranean, winning numerous prizes, notably at the Chaumont-sur-Loire and the Côte d'Azur Festival competitions.

Where was the last place you lived in the U.S.?
On the corner of Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco. Janis Joplin had lived in the same apartment at one point, which gave it a certain mythology. I shared it with an older gay man named Larry, who had moved in back in 1972. He was full of stories, many of which began with, “This guy I knew…” and often ended with the reminder that the person had passed away. Having lived through that era in San Francisco, and having escaped the worst of the AIDS crisis that devastated so many around him, he carried a remarkable memory of a vanished world.

Did you intend to leave permanently or was the move temporary?
I met a French tourist while living on Haight and Ashbury and found her irresistible. I did not plan on coming back to the U.S. I moved to Paris with everything I owned packed into two suitcases, along with some fishing poles and a skateboard. I told myself I could always head back if France didn’t work out.

Was there a pivotal moment when you knew your life would be best pursued elsewhere?
I graduated in 2008, at what felt like one of the worst possible moments to be looking for work in America. Even with a five-year degree in landscape architecture, I was working at a chocolate shop. Around that time, one of my mentors told me to get out of the States and go to Europe, even if it meant sweeping the streets just to get started. That advice hit me hard. I also think I had always known, on some level, that the less conventional path was the one that suited me best.

What sort of financial consideration did the move require, even if as a student initially? Does one need a plump savings account to make this work?
I arrived in France with only $1,200 in my account, so I was definitely not operating with a large financial cushion. I was going with the flow more than anything else. Fortunately, I found a small job at Rose Bakery for a few months before landing a gardening job with a landscaping company in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. In the end, drive and a willingness to start wherever you can will go a long way.

At what age did you leave? Looking back, was that too soon or too late?
I was 27 and very much in love with my French girlfriend. I can be impulsive, but there was a real connection between us, and I chose to trust my instincts rather than logic or caution. Looking back, the timing felt right. I had just graduated from Cal Poly with a degree in landscape architecture, so studying French at the Alliance Française and the Sorbonne felt like a natural extension of my education. Later, I went on to earn a second degree in garden design in Versailles, so, in hindsight, the move became the foundation for my future as a landscape architect in France. The transition was much more demanding than I had imagined, but it was necessary in order to build a lasting life for myself in this country.

When did you know you'd made the right [or wrong] call?
Definitely no regrets. I felt I had made the right call when I was accepted to the École Nationale Supérieure de Paysage in Versailles. That really confirmed for me that I was in the right place and that things could work out in France as a landscape architect. Being able to study garden design was the perfect complement to my earlier training in California. The cherry on top was winning the competition at the International Garden Festival of Chaumont-sur-Loire in my graduating year.

What does Paris offer you that your native home couldn’t and, perhaps, still can’t?
I grew up in Encinitas, a small coastal town in Southern California. I still love my hometown—its beaches and its desert landscapes—but Paris has given me access to a depth of culture, food, art, and historic landscapes that has been incredibly enriching and deeply satisfying. It has also opened the door to creating gardens in France, across Europe, and internationally, which has been a real advantage as a native English speaker. Just as importantly, raising a family in France feels like a gift. I find the French way of life more balanced than the American one, and I feel fortunate to be bringing up my children in a democratic country that still places real value on liberty, equality, and fraternity.

Can you share any anecdotes about your highest and lowest moments in Paris?
My lowest moment was probably having my application to the landscape design school in Versailles rejected twice. It finally went through on the third attempt, and luckily, I’ve always been stubborn and persistent. In a full-circle twist, I now teach at the university and have done so for several years, alongside running my own garden company. My highest moment was, without question, the birth of my children.

Are there aspects of American life that you long for?
I miss the waves in Encinitas, though I still make it to the ocean whenever I can. I also miss speaking English and spending time with my old friends in California, whom I usually see during my summer vacation. That said, I’ve been lucky to build a small community of American friends in Paris, which has helped me keep that connection alive.

What book or movie do you most associate with the American experience abroad?

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NEW MAYOR, NEW ERA?

I had planned to write a debrief on March 23rd, once Emmanuel Grégoire was announced the city’s new mayor, but I poked myself in the eye while in line to vote the first round, March 15, ended up in the ER (having successfully voted first, of course!) and spent nearly a week in the dark recovering. Recording audio was easier than reading or writing in that first week so if you’re up for listening, here is that post-election debrief I recorded on The New Paris Podcast with the political journalist Léa Chamboncel. For other commentary, don’t miss this one by : Three Things to Know About the New Mayor of Paris.

RELATED…
One of Paris Mayor Grégoire’s plans is to open a second Station F, currently one of the world’s largest startup hubs. In my latest podcast episode with my dear friend Rahaf Harfoush, we speak about France’s approach to tech and innovation and how the model needs to be completely reimagined, particularly given the news (that I first saw reported by French Tech Journal) that a recent study of the European VC-backed unicorn ecosystem shows some seriously sick companies, with France landing #2 on the leaderboard of the fallen. As Rahaf put it to me:

The question she poses during the conversation: what is the innovation thesis of France? What is our vision of the future? What do we want innovation to be?

Our discussion also covers societal turbulence and having no emotional preparedness for the shifts that are taking place nor the ability to grieve what we’re losing. We chat about global interconnection and why that means we cannot speak about the future of France without considering the impact of decisions made much further afield, by other nations. I really hope you’ll give this a listen:

STÉRIN: AU SECOURS!

You’ve all read me rant about billionaires before but some are more nefarious than others. We’ve got Vincent Bolloré who is behind Canal+, CNews, Europe 1 and JDD, and Pierre-Édouard Stérin whose profile in the NYT should raise everyone’s eyebrows. A French hotelier and retail investor I’ve known for years sent me a private note after I shared the profile on Instagram. “I know him. He is NUTS and extremely dangerous. I’m very concerned.”

Some might argue it’s useless to spend your energy worrying about these figures, that pieces like this only serve to stir up fear. I strongly disagree: we must know who are pulling the strings behind the scenes, just like we needed to know (and too many ignored) the power-hungry techno-capitalists in America pulling the strings there. And I think it’s especially important given how many English-speaking/reading foreigners live in France and pay very little attention to policies and ideas that will impact the place they’ve chosen to live. Time to wake up.

20 MILLION EURO APARTMENTS IN PARIS?

A few weeks ago, the FT reported about the city’s foray into catering to the ultra rich. What does that look like, exactly? Well, for starters, the Maybourne St Germain hotel, when opened, will also include 23 residences. Currently, one such three-bedroom residence is listed at nearly 20 million euros.

The launch, one of several new amenity-rich developments due to open by 2027, comes amid a surge in super-prime sales in Paris. Last year’s included a €62.5mn purchase by music producer and Louis Vuitton creative director of menswear Pharrell Williams, and nearly €200mn spent on three homes by the billionaire Arnault family, including a €44mn triplex for Bernard, the family patriarch and chief executive of LVMH. (Financial Times)

The housing crisis and deep wealth disparity remain, unsurprisingly, minor details of the story.

THE ODE TO THE PARIS PHARMACY (and a few personal faves)

Marisa Meltzer’s ode to the Parisian pharmacy in Vanity Fair is one of VERY few I care to read. One big brownie point for the French pharmacy anywhere:

“It turns out not having almost every product locked up as prisoners behind plastic barriers is a much less depressing shopping experience than our pharmacies.”

CVS: RIP.

FWIW, I’m a devoted SVR user (including their sunscreen) but a recent discussion with the skincare gal at the Parapharmacie opposite the Opéra Garnier (which I find less swarming than CityPharma, which the influencers flock to in Saint-Germain) prompted me to try a sunscreen with more hydratation. This recommendation came after she looked at my face and said, “your skin looks thirsty, what did you use today?” It could have been the result of my lapsed routine after the eye incident. Either way, I take sunscreening very seriously so off I went to the register with Filorga’s daily repair mineral UV 50. I can’t say I love it but I’m giving it a chance. She also suggested I try Vichy’s vitamin C, which is concentrated and less expensive than the oil I’ve been using from the UK company Medik8. This one isn’t available in stores, either. (But it was recently acquired by L’Oréal so maybe that will change.) Other things I like for very specific reasons:

• Embryolisse lait-creme: I was skeptical but I applied it every couple of hours on the flight to and from Tokyo and found it very soothing and hydrating. It’s now a permanent member of my trousse de toilette.

• Where are my fellow atopic-skin friends? 👋 I swear by SVR’s huile lavante, a shower oil that protects the skin’s moisture barrier, crucial for excessively dry, itchy skin, but Bioderma, La Roche Posay and Ucerin all make their own, all of which are good. I also have to be religious about hydrating after the shower and tend to use La Roche Posay Urea gel, as strongly encouraged by my dermatologist who checks out every patch of skin each January and can immediately tell whether I’ve been diligent or not. I’d say I’ve been a B student. “Yes, really, every day.”

• My favorite hand cream for winter or during flights (or any dry environment, really) isn’t French at all but Neutrogena’s “Norwegian formula” glycerin-rich cream. Many big pharmacies and parapharmacies in Paris carry it but it’s also available in the U.S.

For everything not carried in pharmacies, I’m fairly brand agnostic, so long as it won’t irritate my sensitive skin. If you’re in the U.S. or the U.K. and have reactive skin or full blown eczema, Tower 28 is excellent. These are the two products I use consistently.

ELSEWHERE

• Keeping the spook alive but updated in the Catacombs (The New York Times)
  Lined from floor to ceiling with bones of some 6 millions people, the Paris catacombs have been given a much-needed face lift. Check out how it was done.

• Lest you thought “French girl style” was anything but a business strategy (Vogue Business)

• Related: every year, a new one of these, all for traffic and clicks. I know this is how the internet works but that doesn’t make it any less exhausting. (Elle)

• Paris dining: a few new/new-ish options (by me for The Infatuation)

• What defines French interior design and who are some of the talents shaping the aesthetic? I worked on a new book with Alice Cavanagh that answers the question— now available from Phaidon x Monacelli!

• How the Guillotine Got Axed ( for The New Yorker)
  Who hasn’t wondered this?!

• Are third spaces in France the antidote to political extremism?
  ( for The Guardian)

OVERHEARD IN

“Je suis toujours de mauvaise foi, c’est mon côté féminin”
I’m always unreasonable, it’s my feminine side.

--A butcher at a small town market“joking” to a client.

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I thought I’d follow that up with some recommendations that are more than fine, that I think are very much worth your time and attention. (More food recs in my series for The Infatuation).

L’Escale
A spot dans son jus, as we say, with prime real estate on the Ile Saint-Louis, drenched in natural light, where regulars pack in for a quick chat and an espresso and return for lunch and travelers hold court on the terrace (now open!) that faces the Seine. The coffee hasn’t gotten an upgrade (I must issue caution) but there’s a new owner who had the good sense to bring on the American chef Matt Robinson to oversee the cooking. Everyone has taken notice. There are affordable, simple and hearty dishes of the day at lunch and garlic-stuffed chicken with perfect fries (with a lil skin!) on Sunday. It is already becoming a place you may need to reserve, though not too far in advance, and mostly for Sunday chicken. Better yet, stop in, get to know them, and they’ll pencil you in.

1 rue des Deux Ponts, 75004

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A photo of a good-looking dish, generously plated, catches my eye on a friend’s Instagram story. It’s from a newly opened neighborhood restaurant getting industry traction. “How was it?!” I ask. “Fine 🤷🏻‍♀️”, I’m told. Technically solid, good ingredients, comfortable atmosphere, but unmemorable and underwhelming.

Thi…

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Something in the unfamiliar seems to unlock a part of the mind that ordinary life keeps tightly closed. I learned that firsthand last June when I spent a week at a comfortable remove from my daily life at La Gonette, in Simiane-la-Rotonde. It could have been the way the light hit the terrace or the slower pace, or maybe even the absence of obligation, but it was the kind of restorative and stimulating retreat that creative life requires.

For my first retreat as a participant, I was in the company of fellow city dwellers, among them Michael Cunningham and , who, like me, found themselves moved and inspired by the grand house called La Gonette, lovingly restored and transformed into a creative community gathering space by the novelist Alice Nelson. The conditions were right for reflection of all kinds.

For one week, the only words that required my attention were on the page— first others’, then my own. Meals were generous and nourishing, and, most importantly, prepared by Harriet and Jeni, who gave new meaning to the idea of feeding people as a form of care. The opportunity to just be during that week brought about several emotional breakthroughs, among them a reset in my focus and a desire to observe my surroundings more closely. I learned from men and women who traveled everywhere from Vermont to Melbourne — some of them writers, all of them avid readers and brilliant thinkers—to pore over short works of fiction, the technique of writing, and the flavours of Provence in a home that, it must be said, carries some kind of magic. (Don’t just take it from me, walked away with a similar impression!)

It is not for nothing that this house and this experience exist in Provence. For generations, the painterly light, sensuously rich landscapes, and sun-drenched southern produce of Provence have fed the imaginations of writers, artists, and chefs from all over the world. Here, they could see and think differently, at a comfortable remove from their routine. With dry heat and sharp winds, time slows. The mineral scent of limestone warmed in the afternoon sun, and the dusty chalk of a country path, runs beneath each day. Above it, a choir of cicadas rises, growing into a reassuring, reliable Provençal sound.

Naturally, I was delighted when Alice and Harriet at La Gonette offered me the opportunity to lead an experience of my own with them later this year. Those of you following my work for some time know how much I value women’s stories and while we tend to focus on the women who have been influenced by Paris, there are nearly as many who have found their calling and passions in Provence. (You can read about some of those women in the retreat brochure, here.)

Our week together will be shaped by many of the same conditions that have made this region generative for so many before us. There will be readings from carefully chosen short works and writing exercises designed for every level of experience, from the novelist to the committed journaler. We will share stories, discuss how a place can serve as a powerful muse, and gather around the table with some of the people shaping this community, from winemakers and chefs to artists and makers I had the chance to spend time with last summer. Food will anchor our days, rest will be built in, and the evenings will take care of themselves.

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Applications for this week are now open! Read through the brochure, get an idea of who you’ll meet along the way, and project yourself to Provence in autumn! There are other FAQs addressed on the retreat website but a few others below:

FAQs
Who is this for?
Book lovers, writers (though not a requirement at all!), creatives, deep thinkers, food lovers. The goal of this week is to sharpen our focus, create community, and learn! There will be a smattering of writing prompts but they can just as easily inspire a journal entry as an essay or piece of fiction one wishes to publish. Women will be front and center here but men are, of course, welcome.

Do I have to think about meals and getting around?
No! That’s actually what proved to be a massive gift for my brain last year: every meal was generous and thoughtfully taken care of, even those outside of La Gonette. Once you get to the train station in Marseille, you get in a van and the rest unfolds. Bliss!

What if I’m a bit of an introvert?
That’s okay! There will be group sessions and activities but if at any point in the afternoon you prefer some alone time to take a dip in the pool, read on the terrace, or go for a stroll in the village, you can. There is plenty of free time woven in for this reason.

Will you review my writing?
I’d be happy to review and discuss your work! We can schedule 1:1 sessions throughout the week.

Thanks for reading! If you think a friend would enjoy The New Paris Dispatch or this retreat, share it! Gift subscriptions are available here | Order copies of my books The New Paris, The New Parisienne, and The Eater Guide to Paris.

How many Americans could, legally, live abroad…

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Four months after the jewel heist of the century, Louvre president Laurence des Cars resigned this week. The stolen jewels and security failings weren’t the only crises she was mired in during her five-year tenture: There have been accusations of budget mismanagement, and internal tensions with staff and trade unions…

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So where do you go when the craving strikes on any day of the year? I have my favorites but I wanted to hear from author Aleksandra Crapanzano whose illustrated recipe book Chocolat: Parisian Desserts and Other Delights, a follow-up to Gâteau, is an ode to the seductive and always delicious world of chocolate. Here, she shares five of her favorite stops (a non-exhaustive list!) and, most importantly, why she thinks they’re worth your euros.

For the aficionado

Jade Genin
33 Av. de l’Opéra, 75002

While Cédric Grolet may be a media and Instagram darling, it is Jade Genin’s shop just a few steps away from Grolet’s Cédric et la Chocolaterie that will wow adults unimpressed by Grolet’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-esque extravaganza. Jade is the daughter of Jacques Genin, one of Paris’s most brilliant chocolate makers. (This is to say nothing of his exquisite caramels!) When he told me to go try his daughter’s creations, I thought it was out of paternal pride, but, on his urging, I went, and Jade is indeed a huge talent. Try one of everything. Jade may be young but she is already a master.

Lindsey’s note: the pyramids are her signature item but don’t leave without trying the rochers!

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In my last update, I wrote about going to see Sofiane Pamart perform. What I didn’t mention is that it was at the Opéra Garnier, one night only. And it was incredible. When I talked about using music, among other techniques, to calm the nervous system, I couldn’t have imagined a better-timed opportunity to put it into action. His music is currently on repeat in our apartment.

The Opéra Garnier and Bastille are marquee spots to see dance and opera (Sofiane’s performance was a rarity!) and are among the most important venues for visitors looking to connect with the arts in Paris. But there are thousands, in fact, of spaces to do so all over the city. You know the greatest hits by now but there are other, smaller or less frequented spots that you learn about when you live here or you keep returning. Here are a few examples to put on your radar.

Out of the Blue Paris
This is an awesome idea that surely exists in other cities but I believe it’s the first of its kind on this scale in Paris. The owner, Chloé Bourgès, an independent filmmaker and director, opened the micro-cinema-bar to show short films and movies she loves. Natural wine upstairs, private movie theatre down below. The selection of short films rotates monthly (and has included works by David Lynch and Werner Herzog) and on the last Sunday of each month, she screens a feature film. You pay for your drink and snacks but not for access to the screenings. Best part: she sources her cheese selection from Source fromagerie and wine cellar.

9 rue Saint-Maur 75011, Paris
Open Thursday-Sunday

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