Julien Holtzer 3:59 p.m., November 22, 2021

In recent years, attendance at the Champs-Élysées has continued to decline.

If the Covid-19 epidemic has largely contributed to it, the fracture is actually much older.

In an attempt to renew itself, the Champs-Élysées committee intends to redesign the urban landscape of the avenue and attract a more local population.

INTERVIEW

In recent years, the Champs-Élysées have experienced a sharp drop in attendance: 15,000 people were walking on the avenue at the end of the first confinement against 150,000 before the crisis. Blame it on the Covid-19, therefore, which prevented the arrival of tourists, but also to the yellow vests and the attacks of November 13, 2015.

Despite these events which have tarnished the image of the city, the Champs-Élysées are in the process of being renewed according to Marc-Antoine Jamet, the president of his committee, in the morning of Europe 1. "We feel that ' there is clearly a renaissance in real estate, in shops, in attendance, in diversity, in cultural activities on the Champs-Élysées […] I see a dynamism that exists, a desire to invest in the Champs-Elysées. Élysées, things that are created. "

Among this "renaissance", the installation of Nike and Apple in particular on the most famous avenue in the world. 

A "luxurious and popular" avenue?

To breathe new life into and attract the local public again, the Champs-Élysées committee intends to restore the desire of Ile-de-France residents to stroll there (and to consume). "The Champs-Élysées is a universal avenue which belongs to the world and a Parisian avenue which belongs to the capital. It must not be only luxury: it must be luxurious and popular, there must be everything the world ", assures Marc-Antoine Jamet. "Gastronomy, luxury, culture, cinema ... but also signs of sympathy and proximity", this is what the chairman of the committee wants to see on the most beautiful avenue in the world.

But the balance will be difficult to find, since for decades priority has been given to luxury boutiques, supposed to attract wealthy tourists.

The vacancy of premises has also jumped from 1% to 6.8% since 2015. Not to mention the fact that exorbitant rents will naturally be a brake on the establishment of so-called local shops.

Moreover, because of the standard of the avenue, it is difficult to imagine independent craftsmen coming to "give it back a soul", like what one might see in a small country town.

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An urban landscape to redesign

To attract Parisians to the Champs-Elysées again, it will therefore (also) be necessary to redesign the landscape. Discussions are also underway to renew the urban architecture. "There are things that are obvious: replace tree grids, think about the functionalities of the modern city. It must be a little digital, a little digital, very ecological, technological and at the same time traditional and heritage", affirms Marc-Antoine Jamet at the microphone of Dimitri Pavlenko.

To do this, the committee will have to work closely with the mayor of Paris.

To hear Marc-Antoine Jamet, disagreements are still numerous and the discussions promise to be bitter.

"There is a problem of method with the town hall of Paris, we cannot have unilateral decisions. I am thinking in particular of traffic decisions, accessibility of the Champs-Élysées", he says, before saying send a message to Anne Hidalgo.

“What I would like is that the public-private partnership is not a partnership where the public says and where the private follows. It is a partnership where we agree. not too many unilateral decisions ".

The transformation of the Fields is not for now.