Shops on Rue Volta in the Marais Chinatown, ©Le Marais Mood

As small as it may be – it is almost limited to Rue au Maire, Rue du Temple, Rue des Gravilliers and Rue Volta – the Marais Chinatown is the only real historical Chinatown in Paris. Contrary to popular belief, it was created long before the one in the 13th arrondissement, even though the latter is now home to a much larger Chinese community.

The origin of the Asian settlement in the 3rd arrondissement dates back to the First World War when, in 1916, the British government undertook to recruit 140 Chinese workers in the Wenzhou region (south of the country) to send them as reinforcements to the Somme where the French were fighting against the Germans.

Portrait of Chinese people after their arrival in France during the First World War

The overwhelming majority of them were assigned to heavy logistical tasks behind the front: earthworks, road and railway repairs, handling in ports. However, 10 to 000 Chinese lost their lives there between 20 and 000 due to diseases such as cholera, Spanish flu or tuberculosis. Some died under bombs. Some of them are buried in the military cemetery of Noyelles-sur-Mer (Somme) characterized by its Asian-style entrance gate and by Chinese inscriptions on the 1916 graves.

Portrait of Chinese people after their arrival in France during the First World War

After the war, workers from the Middle Kingdom were used to clear mines from fields, fill in trenches, and rebuild real estate. Then, around 1920, they were brought to the Gare de Lyon in Paris to embark in Marseille to be sent back to China. But many refused to return, fled, and settled near the Gare de Lyon (12th arrondissement) in the "Chalon block", an unsanitary neighborhood.

Thus, 2 to 000 took root there. Most of them became workers at Renault and Panhard in the Boulogne-Billancourt factories, forming the first core of the Parisian Asian community. Very quickly, however, these neo-Parisians moved to the Arts-et-Métiers metro station where they also worked in leather goods and clothing workshops.

Rue au Maire in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris, ©Le Marais Mood

The Chinatown of the 13th arrondissement comes from a completely different history. It is the result of a massive immigration in the 1970s with refugees from former Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos) who fled wars and communist regimes to settle in France between 1975 and 1987.

Rue Volta in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris, ©Le Marais Mood

Many of them are Indochinese of Chinese origin. They choose the 13th arrondissement because of the vacant housing resulting from the "Italie 13" operation, an urban project that had failed to attract young Parisian executives. They settle in the area nicknamed "the Choisy triangle", bordered by the avenues d'Ivry and Choisy and by the boulevard Masséna.

The neighborhood is becoming an Asian cultural and commercial center with restaurants, supermarkets, Buddhist temples and specialty shops. This Chinatown is considerably larger than the Marais Chinatown, to the point that it is sometimes considered the original Chinatown of the capital. Wrongly.

Text: Axel G.

29.01.25

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