Paris Belleville And Père Lachaise (20ème)

Belleville is one of Paris's most legendary working-class neighborhoods. Although far from the city center, it is home to one of Paris's most visited tourist sights, the Cimitière Père Lachaise (i.e. that cemetery where Jim Morrison's buried). During the late Second Republic, the 20ème became a “red” arrondissement, and was characterized as proletarian and radical. The fighting that occurred during the Commune suppression caught the neighborhood reds between the Versaillais troops to the west and the Prussian lines outside the city walls. Forts at Parc des Buttes-Chaumont and the Cimitière du Père Lachaise expired, and on May 28, 1871, the Communards abandoned their last barricade and surrendered. Their legacy of class solidarity and progressivism still characterizes the “red” arrondissement today.

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