Economic transformation in the 1960's led French companies to actively recruit labor in North Africa – which explains most of today's Muslim population, estimated at five million.
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The number, the rapid pace of its appearance, the difference in cultures, plus memories of colonisation and of the disastrous Algerian war, make adjustment difficult for both sides. Hopeful sign: the many marriages between Christians and Muslims.
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- We can begin with celebrated places...
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 - The Great Mosque of Paris (built in 1926)
• The Grand Mosque's muted atmosphere...
transports us into another world. On days reserved to men and to women, Muslims and non-Muslims mix.
If we are among women, an hour or two in the steam rooms help us enter the ambiance of the suggestions that follow. If men are present, we skip the hammam, but visit the splendid mosque.
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 - Institute of the Arab World
• The Institute of the Arab World...
is the planet's most important center for the understanding of Arab cultures.
We reach it after a short walk from the Grand Mosque, and discover its main aspects.
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- Then, in an ungentrified neighborhood, we meet people who live their faith
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• The woman with the white headscarf...
greeted us with charming spontaneity: she was simply a client who happened to be there. When we asked for her telephone number to continue the conversation later, she accepted with pleasure – once we explained that we did not want to convert her, we only wanted to learn.
• Our walk in the well-known (but rarely visited) immigrant neighborhood near the Barbès metro stop concerns North Africans and sub-Saharan Africans. Residents are both Christian and Muslim. For sub-Saharan Africans, please CLICK.
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• This embroiderer interrupted her work to let us take these pictures.
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- Soirées that include original performances
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Leila Enayat-Seraj reads her own poems and those of other Afghan women, which she has chosen and translated. Their meaning is universal, as when they recall exile.
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 - She sent this image to illustrate the world she lost.
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 - Iraki chanteuse
Childhood in Germany and Iraq, adolescence in Paris and years in the United States as an adult explain her exceptionally varied repertoire.
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 - Notice the attention.
She performs at "l'Harmattan" a Left-Bank bookstore specialized in Africa and the Middle East.
For her chansons françaises, please click HERE. For her original show of Berlin cabaret, HERE.
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•Tales that take us under a desert tent... or to a Paris an immigrant's child discovers
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 - Notice the hands.
Author, story-teller and pillar of the Avignon festival, Moussa Lebkiri narrates memories of childhood in the Atlas and in a Paris that is fabulous and bizarre. En français |
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- Five million Muslims, most of whom are very young...
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 - Palestinian concert, Parisian youth
...fuse their parents' cultures with that of France.
To be continued
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• Costs : please CLICK
º Performances : please ask us.
Credits : mosque / Claude Abron ; Institute/ Claude Abron ; bookstore / Camilla Macfarlane ; embroiderer / Catherine Aubin ; performances / Claude Abron
- Unexpected Paris guided tours
