“An imbal­ance between rich and poor is the old­est and most fatal ail­ment of all republics” –- Plutarch

Champs Élysées from The Arc de Triomphe

We had walked all the way from the upper part which extend to the Arc de Tri­om­phe. We had passed a parade of chain-stores (mostly fast foods and sport shops), we had noticed the Iran Air office and almost with­drew money at the National Bank of Pak­istan, we had had a taste of lux­ury look­ing at the Mont Blanc and Louis Vuit­ton stores. No small busi­nesses here: you have to able to afford up to €10,000/sq meter a month.

Fur­ther down, the shops had dis­ap­peared and the street had turned into a tree-lined boule­vard, flanked by gar­dens, the­aters and muse­ums. Still as broad but not as busy. We headed towards Avenue Mon­taigne, which branches off the Champs-Elysées at the Rond-Point and runs to the banks of the Seine.

The fur­ther we walked from the Arc de Tri­om­phe, the fewer pedes­trian there were — a nice change from the upper Champs-Élysées where tourists were gath­er­ing in front of each flag­ship stores, barely notic­ing they had the same at home. Dear glob­al­iza­tion — you won.

Avenue Mon­taigne seemed to be designed for window-shopping with its wide side­walks. Although there were very lit­tle traf­fic, not a sin­gle park­ing spot was left and most cars were nicely parked par­al­lel to the side­walks. Most of them from Monaco and Lux­em­bourg, accord­ing to the license plates. We walked a few meters, past the Cana­dian embassy, to the iconic Plaza-Athénée.

The hotel was busy. Black tinted-windows Mer­cedes were stop­ping directly on the side­walk. There seemed to be a con­stant stream of thin blond women with over­size glasses, pre­sum­ably to 1) look mys­te­ri­ous 2) hide wrin­kles or lat­est Botox injec­tion. Same clothes as Brit­ney Spears but a good thirty years older. Women who didn’t look like dis­turbed pop stars had the Parisian chic uni­form: trench coat, skinny pants tucked into shiny high-heels boots, long hair, shades (wrin­kles as well) and a tote bag. The clothes said “I’m rich” while the bag pre­sum­ably meant “I often go to the food mar­ket and I’m acces­si­ble”. It could have con­tra­dicted check­ing in a €1,000/ night hotel. Nev­er­mind. Maybe they do shop at the mar­ket to be able to afford the extrav­a­ganza. Men didn’t have any­thing spe­cial but for two bulges in their tuxedo pock­ets: cell phone and over­size wallet.

And more rich peo­ple were get­ting off of rich cars, aban­don­ing them to the valet on the side­walk, mak­ing their way through revolv­ing door. Not a word was spo­ken, these peo­ple were nat­ural. I guess unlike us when we look for an hotel, they didn’t need to ask if there were some rooms avail­able or if hot water for the shower was included in the price.

We kept on walk­ing and passed numer­ous high fash­ion stores: Chanel, Valentino, Chris­t­ian Dior, Max Mara, Louis Vuit­ton, Prada, Céline, Her­mès, you name it. Highly respected design­ers seemed to favor the street… but they also favored dis­cre­tion and elit­ism. Each shop’s win­dows was clearly vis­i­ble and well-set with a few items on dis­play, but the main entrance, a tinted slid­ing door, was blocked by two bounc­ers. Two huge Cer­berus, one on each side of the door, talkie-walkie in hands even though they were only a few meters apart. No every one can come in, not every one can afford it. Got it.

I still man­aged to get close to one of the win­dow, Dior I believe. Prices were astro­nom­i­cal. I’m talk­ing about €2,000 for a hand­bag, €3,000 for shoes (a pair, though), €5,000 for pants etc. etc. I was turn­ing my back to walk away when a cou­ple walked by my side, toward the entrance of the shop. The two bounc­ers nod­ded and the door slided open. I caught a glimpse of the inside of the shop. It was full of peo­ple inside. Sure enough, a few sec­onds later, two women exited Dior, and walked by me, hold­ing a bag full of their purchases.

I sud­denly felt very out-of-place. Who were these peo­ple? Why them? Were they the elected ones? On which planet were they liv­ing? It wasn’t fash­ion week and we were in the mid­dle of the week on a cold April day. It wasn’t for a spe­cial event. This was a nor­mal day in Paris’ posh dis­trict. I kept think­ing that the aver­age monthly salary in France is €1,800. Con­sid­er­ing the very high cost of hous­ing, the ever increas­ing cost of food and util­i­ties and an unem­ploy­ment rate French aren’t exactly proud of, I was lit­er­ally in an other world. A world that I knew existed but, naive as I am, had never really seen that close.

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