In the underworld that lies behind the lovely façade of Paris, a new population has moved in on the oldtime apache. In the argot they are les Bicots, but respectable Parisians call them les Algériens. After 1946, when the people of Algeria were granted full French citizenship, they began pouring into France at the rate of 30,000 a year. Arriving in Paris on the slow trains from the Midi, they drift with their bundles into the old, revolutionary districts of Belleville and Ménilmontant, where whole blocks now have the sound and smell...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
