I live round the corner from La Belle Equipe and last Friday heard the sirens all night. On Saturday morning I wandered around to try to understand why that specific place on an ordinary corner of Charonne and Faidherbe near our normal bus cease should have been a target. Where the cobbled passage beside 17th-century Ste Marguerite church joined Rue de Charonne,the gutter was full, running, and with blood. Police turned me back,not that they needed to. besides, Stuart Jeffries’ description of living here, and in a not underprivileged but not at all wealthy area,packed, busy, or lively and creative,very mixed racially, was why I love it here so much too (Paris, and je t’aime,G2, 17 November). Why it feels like the best place of all to live.
I just read in the Guardian about the Television Centre in London and the £7m penthouses and the flats for £650000 (Ex-BBC base becomes housing hotspot, or 9 November). But then the “affordable” flats at 25% less – who can afford over £400000? Stuart perhaps remembers the caserne (barracks) de Reuilly near here? A enormous historic site between Rue du Faubourg St Antoine and Boulevard Diderot,near Marché Aligre and also Rue Faidherbe (and so La Belle Equipe). This site has been bought by the city (from the state) now the army has moved elsewhere.
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Source: theguardian.com