Paris goes green
Paris. We’ll be there in just a few days!
The city of love❤️. It is home to many world-famous sights from the Eiffel Tower🗼 to the newly restored Notre-Dame de Paris.⛪
But there is a new must-see in Paris; the glowing green spaces 🌱 – with many more to come.
🚗Okay, let’s not get carried away just yet. The car is still the most favoured form of transport with 180,000 cars going around the city every day. But things are changing quickly.
🗳️Earlier this year (spring 2025), Parisians voted in favour of making its streets greener. The plan is to turn 500 streets into green spaces, and pedestrian and cycle hotspots.
Having said that, the turnout to vote was only 4%. I suppose you could say that those who were strongly for and against came out to vote. Whereas those who were fine with it didn’t feel they needed to vote.
📜History of parks in Paris
1848 – This is when the first public park opened in Paris, it was the square Jean XXIII. Until that point, the gardens and the forests in the city were privately owned.
Paris has gained many more public parks and green spaces since. But its lost almost all of its local agriculture, “maraichage”, from the city. These were re-established far outside, at 100km away.
In the 1970s a turnaround slowly set in. Today, urban agriculture has almost doubled within the city since then.
🌳Green plans for Paris
In 2021 the Mayor of Paris announced it wanted Paris to become the greenest capital in Europe. The city isn’t there yet, but the gap is certainly closing.
-The 500 green streets
-To plant 170,000 trees by 2026 – it’s unclear how many of these have been planted so far
-Pedestrianise and make school zones green
-Tripling parking cost for SUVs & remove a chunk of on-street parking spaces
-Cycle lane extensions
-Metro upgrades
-There is also a big focus on bioclimatic urban development. This basically means to design and create spaces that work with the local weather pattern. Native nature is used as inspiration and of course, low carbon material and low energy is prioritised
❓Some say this is just a numbers game and that there needs to be a better strategy and care plan. But no one can deny the effort of the Paris mayor and the real changes in the capital’s landscape!
🙌Let’s hope that sustainability will remain high on the agenda after the next Paris municipal elections in 2026.
As for us, we’ll be enjoying the outdoors in Paris during our visit!
Happy Friday!
While you are here, have a look at my services to see how I can help you on your eco journey!
Sources: Euro Cities, Le Monde, apur, Monocle, France24, Paris