Farm on a Paris rooftop: Urban farm aims to be Europe’s largest

The first phase of a vast urban farming project in Paris is now under way following a two-month delay caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Set on a Paris rooftop, the farm is set to grow over the next two years to become the largest urban farm in Europe.

The farm, on a rooftop of the Paris Exhibition Centre in the south-west of the city, currently covers an area of 4,000m², but those behind the project plan to expand the agricultural space to 14,000m² by 2022.

They hope to be able produce around 1,000kg of fruit and vegetables every day in high season thanks to a team of around 20 farmers while providing a global model for sustainable farming where produce is grown locally and according to the seasons.

“The goal is to locally supply healthy, pesticide-free products to local businesses, company restaurants, and to farming associations in a nearby area,” Agripolis president Pascal Hardy told AFP.

Along with commercial farming, locals are able to rent space on the rooftop to grow their own fruit and veg, while visitors can sample the produce at an on-site restaurant.

The farm is part of what appears to be a growing trend in the French capital to produce and consume food locally, with a number of urban farming projects springing up around the city in recent years, while Paris City Hall has committed to creating 30 hectares of urban farming space in the city in 2020.

“The real trend today is towards quality local products, more so than organic,” said Hardy.

“We’re at the top of the organic wave, but we’re on the way down, and the challenge now is to be able to show how the products were generated, and also to show that they don’t come from the other side of the planet, like beans from Kenya, for example, or from deep in Spain with farming practices that are not very virtuous.”

Source: Farm on a Paris rooftop: Urban farm aims to be Europe’s largest

Black Visions of France: the Other Expat Writers You Should be Reading – Frenchly

From James Baldwin to Jake Lamar, there are so many incredible black writers who have made Paris their home.

Langston Hughes

Every white writer who’s been to France has an essay, a memoir, a novel, or a poetry collection about the country. It’s practically a rite of passage. But Paris didn’t cease to exist once Hemingway was done with it. There are countless black writers who expatriated to France and wrote about the country with just as much insight and skill. So if you want to understand or live the expat experience, it’s time you start reading about the other side of it. (Consider also purchasing from a local black-owned bookstore, like Sisters Uptown Bookstore in NYC, Mahogany Books in Washington D.C., or Black Pearl Books in Austin.)

James Baldwin

Where to start, but with James Baldwin? The Harlem-born writer moved to Paris in the middle of the twentieth century, at the age of 24, to escape the racism and prejudice he faced in America. In addition to works like Go Tell It On The Mountain and Notes on a Native Son, one of Baldwin’s must-reads is Giovanni’s Room, a quasi-autobiographical novel about a young black man who takes up with a handsome Italian in Paris, and one of the seminal works of black queer fiction.

Continue reading “Black Visions of France: the Other Expat Writers You Should be Reading – Frenchly” →

Angélique Kidjo et le chœur chante Joséphine Baker’s “De Temps en Temps”

Le temps d’une chanson : De temps en temps, chantée par Vous et Angélique Kidjo

Soprano, alto, baryton ! Vous avez été des nombreux à unir vos voix pour chanter “De temps en temps” avec Angélique Kidjo.
Vous avez une nouvelle fois relevé le défis et le résultat est formidable !

Amateurs, débutants et confirmés de tous âges et de toute la France ont pu participer à l’aventure en se filmant en train de chanter De temps en temps !
Rendue célèbre par Joséphine Baker, la chanson “De temps en temps” a été spécialement transcrite pour chœur à trois voix par Albin de la Simone et Angélique Kidjo a souhaité s’associer à ce rendez-vous musical virtuel.

Transcription : Albin de la Simone
Soprano du Choeur de Radio France : Claudine Margely
Alto du Choeur de Radio France : Daïa Durimel
Baryton du Choeur de Radio France : Vincent Lecornier
Piano : Caroline Marty
Musiciennes metteur en ondes : Alice Legros, Elsa Biston
Réalisation vidéo : Philippe Guillabert
Mixage : Xavier Leveque

Et si vous le souhaitez, cultivez votre pratique du chant grâce à nos ressources en ligne :
Avec le site VO!X, ma chorale interactive de Radio France, apprenez à chanter en chorale grâce aux nombreux tutoriels, répertoire adapté, films d’animation… : https://vox.radiofrance.fr/

Paris Is Plotting a Greener, Slower Beltway

Paris beltway imagined new
A rendering of the reimagined Paris beltway. (Credit: Céline Orsingher)

Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s reelection manifesto calls for a green revamp of the Boulevard Périphérique, the city’s car-clogged inner ring urban highway.

By Feargus O’Sullivan

Like so many cities, Paris is girdled by beltways — several of them, in fact. The innermost and most notorious one is known as the Boulevard Périphérique,  a 22-mile-long ring road completed in 1973 and built in part upon the footprint of the city’s historic walls. The traffic-clogged urban highway plays a major role in Parisian mobility, but it’s also a prime contributor of pollution, both atmospheric and aural, as well as an all-but-impassable barrier severing the historic city from its inner suburbs. Last year, Paris deputies proposed downsizing the Périphérique, removing vehicle lanes and dropping speed limits to transform the road from a smog-spewing limited-access highway into a tree-lined “metropolitan avenue.”

Continue reading “Paris Is Plotting a Greener, Slower Beltway” →