How Empty are the Streets of Paris?

Paris one of the world's major centers of Finance Commerce culture fashion and food and in my documenting of the decline of the Great British High Street I thought it was only appropriate to head into Mainland Europe and see what the state of some cities over there are like and in a place like France where people do things very very differently than we do in the United Kingdom it'll be interesting to see if that fighting Spirit has helped keep the Streets Alive so let's get over there and see if the retail crisis has hit France welcome to Paris and yeah to another episode of the death of the High Street although I don't know what the shape of retail is like over here so maybe it's not the death of the High Street it's going to be super interestes in finally getting to another country another major city cuz when I went to London last year the end of last year I was shocked by how much vacant empty space there was so I feel it's only right I've done so many places in the UK to come to another major city so the way my videos work is I just walk around wander around and in any UK town or city unless you're living under a rock and blissfully unaware then you will within a few minutes of any place come across empty retail units tillet signs boarded up shops so I've got no idea what I will find in France today in Paris just look at them wonderful Parisian Apartments so I've been walking for about 10 minutes now from my apartment and that is the first well next to it the other one might be closed for the day cuz the shows down the only shop that I have seen that looks boarded up that looks vacant so so far the center of Paris seems to be doing better than England interesting so that there is the second retail unit that's definitely empty definitely nothing going on in it so that's interesting to see two so far that's about 20 minutes in just before I came to Paris someone said to me oh you're going to hate it it's just like London and I don't like London that much I've lived there for 5 years I've made loads of videos about London and I was just walking around thinking you know what this place is nothing like London and then I see a Westfield that Westfield Westfield like they have in London but it is beautiful and as I said I have lived in London for a long time it's so much more aesthetically pleasing to look at to be in oh just look at this it's well nice nice just a quick message from the sponsor of this video level eight cases I didn't think that we could get the orangey yellow black wandering turnip combo any more iconic until I got sent these just look at them I mean it is the perfect addition to the wandering turnips travel kit so the suitcase that I've been using recently was actually bought by my dad at a car boot sale in 1994 so it was about time for me to upgrade and I couldn't be happier with these level eight cases the quality of them is just absolutely unreal and it just made traveling through the airport so easy every step of the way 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is back just like in England okay so there we go Another Empty one first that's the third one and it is not jumping out to me like normally in the UK it does which is really interesting to see we'll keep wandering there we're going to do a good few hours having a look around but I think we should also make this video a bit of a cultural observations of a yorksh man in Paris because well we don't know exactly how many empty retail units we'll find no that one looks full so yeah and my first one is probably why this city is doing a bit better it's cuz more people just live in the center look at this see you got all these apartments little Flats pretty much above every set of shops you walk past yeah compared to UK towns and cities they've done a much better way of building further up and then filling that space above with accommodation for people to live in literally everywhere you look our Parisian little Flats apartment and it seems that this place has just got that everywhere so what does that mean it means that people are still living in the city it means that that Community still exists you're not living in these suburbs out like in London I'm sure there are still them all around Paris however it does seem there's so many flats here keeping people Central keeping shops open my second cultural observation of a yorkman came from when I was picking up this bit of bag bit of tasty baguette oh there we go so that Alo that must mean to let so yeah Alo that's what we need to look out for that sign that's the first Alo a sign I've seen and I found that when getting this so we've got another one here ah and here we go the first boarded up shop I've seen in par [Music] so just as I was about to say France seems to be or Paris seems to be entirely booking the trend I did come across that street there that does look like probably 50% vacant there loads of that Alo a signs another one over here still lots of nice shops open but I'd say yeah probably 50 40% yeah 40% maybe got one there hallo sorry I got distracted from a story about the bag I get with all those empty shops but yeah the point being I love it in France that they don't just speak English they don't just Panda to our inability to learn another language and I find that just a tiny bit of the language learn jali FR I don't speak French very well helps so much then you have a bit of fun with him at least you try in and they like that and we got a row here look at this entire row here empty [Music] yeah so a lot on these back streets that are not on the tourist main belt you could call it there's no cafes outside here must just get that less footfall but what you do still have is all that accommodation above it then looks like down here we're getting back to another busy bit where I assume everything will still be open it's been interesting to see those busy bits doing so well and like you compare it to Covent Garden so many empty retail units there the side street you kind of expect it to be honest France in general Paris in general I expected the to be a bit more so far anyway from what I've seen you can kind of just go off where does Amazon have a strong base where has Amazon amazon.fr been set up for for a long time once those networks are in place with that giant company retail will fall Amazon's been pretty dominant in France for quite a while now and look here we go if there's empty shops the wand and turnip will sniff them out tell you what though I'm having a lovely time in Paris few empty shops ain't going to stop that in fact do you know what nowhere I've been and I've traveled all around the UK all around the UK looking at the decline of retail and I've had a great time in actually no there's one place I haven't but in every Place bar one I've had a great time whilst Vis in of course my focus is empty retail units but I've still managed to explore the places had fun try out food meet people it's been absolutely great Barlow slow is the one place that I'd be very happy to not return to but every other place yeah retail is disappearing but that doesn't mean the city is completely ey you can still have a great time don't just go off my stuff go yourself explore them my focus is the empty retail and I can still have fun I'm sure you still can have fun in cities and towns as well lots and lots of bookshops which is Ace loads of them with books outside there we go couple of boards there that's what I'm used to in the UK I think Paris is doing a good job as well of making the places even those streets that are empty where there's a lot less shops making the entire Street still seem lived in with the apartments above other things and I guess what we've done in a lot of places in the UK is we turned all the upper floors of the buildings into office space and then what did we do we then said everyone could work from home so the office space upstairs became all empty the shops downstairs are empty you just left with these deserted streets just so much empty space that doesn't feel like the case here in France at all I mean I've not seen any where the above looks like offices it literally all looks like this Ah that's a lovely bit of building that isn't it I recognized that word she fire trucks in it a look at that that's one of the only words I do remember pompers fireman sweet so as soon as I first saw that word Alo like I do in England when I see toet they suddenly just start jumping out at you another thing as well it seems to be much smaller units scattered around that are empty instead of like in England where you've got your your deim your wios all all those huge ones that span multiple buildings empty this street is Mega look at that up there look at how nice that is and down as well trees trees planted in a city I love it it's what we like you've got to make people feel like they actually want to be in the city like cities can be too well me personally anyway I don't really like them find them too hectic too busy too much going on so just putting some trees there does make it feel so much nicer well yeah there's a some sort of March parade going on down there a lot of flags let's go see what they're Marching for for hell all right so I've inadvertently um got involved in some sort of March now I think what's uh what's something you should never do in life is get involved in a March that you have no idea what it's for I might have been marching for anything there so cgt Paris I need to find out what that is cuz I could have just got involved in some every day to open every section for the babies and many many things many many things yes great thank you so much you're welome so yeah I got chat to that woman who was part of the protest and I couldn't quite work out what she was saying it was something to do with the Olympics and people being paid fairly surrounding that event and then it seemed to be something to do with babies and then going into kindergarten but yeah so I think it was all good causes I'm pretty sure what I've just got involved in was a good cause if I end up on international news for being part of some heavy outrageous protest we might have some damage control to do I'll just say I was press you know press photographers you SE that Civil War film press photographers can get away with anything that's what I'm doing I'm just pressed no wonder the high Street's doing better when you got people out there protesting like that with flares and stuff can you imagine it we are in England too passive aren't we about anything we just roll over and go oh Tut to how how did we let them get away with that I will I will complain in my local paper about that we need to be more like the French they get done right there we go couple of beers deep feeling refreshed let's keep exploring let's do it now you're probably wondering what's the Wonder and turnip going to get up to for his time in Paris he can't just spend the whole time looking at empty shops or trying to find empty shops I have had to search for them and they have appeared but there has been less than I thought there would be I thought it would be more like London and it's definitely not there still is a lot they still are there however it's not as bad as any City I have been to in the UK but that's not all we're doing my girlfriend's here as well Ellena and uh one thing we've always wanted to do is go get a fun do now the issue is that Ellena has a a lactose intolerance quite severely now she's assuring me that because the cheese is aged or we assume the cheese will be aged she will be fine that to me sounds like the reasoning of a woman who wants to eat some cheese and a lot of cheese look at this look what they got they got a door handle shop that is some lovely door handle there look at these solid you got your old fashioned door handles modern technology you can see who's there I'm not even joking there was a time recently when I was having some real door handle trouble I was going through three four door handles a month um and I could have done with a shop like that my local door handle supplier was was was was dealing me dodgy ones and that would have come in handy that's a point to parie look at this lovely bit of bush forget about the bush what's this big long thing here standing proud and Tall just above the [Music] [Music] bush cultural observation number five hell zebra Crossings don't work like they do in the UK that's pointless absolutely pointless how nice is this though look at this hi I'm here oh yeah I'd be down there with a couple of tinnies maybe a ball to Chuck around go on Paris that's right in the center as well that's Ace nice this just that please should I cut it off you're going to use it yeah I'm going to put it on straight away my hair is do my headed mate hair's too long I need a haircut how's business business is just like a heartbeat you know heartbeat up and down up and down yes yeah yeah do you pay business rates here yes always the tax tax yes is it yes France is very difficult to business is it because you earn little and pay more right yeah you know the tax level is too high that's why lots of French people don't like to do business they believe in work yeah cover a lot of high streets in England and this High Street is a lot better than England England's really bad Paris is looking better than England does right there we go got myself a snazzy Paris cap my hair is going to stop do my head in [Music] now notra Dam which is actually one of the most impressive bits of Scaffolding in Europe [Music] on this side walking down the river to the Eiffel Tower so many bookshops little little market style book stores I mean hundreds of them and then on the other side it has looked busy until now where there's one boed up one there but so busy down this thing so many books maybe Parisian books are just better than English books must be that just got outweigh the um reality of if the thing purchased is worth the queue so here we are we've made it up the Eiffel Tower and whilst that view is amazing you know what was better couple of queue jumpers yeah tried to push the queue from the start didn't they they did thought I might have got on camera they tried to jump about half hours worth of queue they got right in front of us sent to the back now that view is good but that was more satisfying so look at that wonderful view look at how all the builds things look and then you've got that there and my buddy Jimmy the giant pointed this out to me recently he did a video on that building there that just looks so out of place wow well that was a load of shite F it's a classic case yeah of it looks better than it is like you look at it and you get that one and you go wow that's incredible I can't wait to get up it and you're up it and it's literally we've queued for about 3 hours it's just a 3-hour queue with an occasional go oh look a nice little view there but then you just queue in again we made the mistake of going to the very top and I actually needed a piss the whole time I just I saw I was like get back down next bit oh it's like you know when you order a massive Pizza when you're pissed you order a big Donna pizza and you go oh this is going to be absolutely great and then it takes ages to get there and you looking and go oh that's going to be amazing and then two bites in you go well this was a mistake that it was like that but actually not as good that was not as good as a Donna Pizza the only good thing was when I got down to the bottom they found this little chimney I wish I just stayed and looked at the little chimney Jesus Eiffel Tower don't bother honestly don't bother just look at it you have got to be a maniac to actually think that experience is fun right I need a beer what do you think of that Elena good fun horrible look we'll get on that yeah yeah yeah forget about the eiffle tower we've got double deer trains look at this wow this is sick double de of train this is amazing I think that's a good place to end the video there with me getting probably overly excited about a double deck of train but yeah what an interesting trip to Paris exploring another major cities High Street and I honestly thought it was going to be worse than it was I really did think there'd be a lot more there was still a lot of shops and I did find them and that was just the center that was just me wandering around it's a very big city this video really is a direct comparison to my London one where I was shocked by the very center the main areas just how much empty retail units there were there whereas Paris it's definitely not as bad when you've got that many people just living directly above it in those peris in apartments even if it's just for holidaying visits it just means there's more people there more people to come downstairs onto the streets and spend the money keeping businesses open but the major takeaway from this trip was just how many bookshops I came across not just book shops but people selling books on the street people reading everywhere and it looked like interesting old books that weren't being sold for a lot of money and it was none of this driel new age hoey that you buy at the airport in w H Smiths it looked like interesting books and well if you've got that many books being sold on the street it means one thing that people are reading now my High Street videos going forward are going to be a little bit different because I had so much fun on my second Nottingham video I'll link it at the end if you want to go watch it but basically this guy invited me there to walk around and we went into the history of the place we went into so much detail and it was so much more fun to make for me and I genuinely think it made such a good video the feedback has been amazing so going forward if you'd like to show me around your city or town and you're up for being on camera do get in touch with me I'll put my email below and I don't want my content to always just be about declining High streets I want to look at the history of places going into so many different factors that build up an area a town or a city so if you think you can be my tour guide get in touch and let's make a video thank you so much for watching as always bye-bye

Channel: Wandering Turnip

Views: 73,604

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Id: A6bz9Bxd2mo

Length: 25min 57sec (1557 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 12 2024