Forum des Halles

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This is the Forum des Halles /foʁœm de al/, a large park and underground shopping center in the center of Paris. It is the former site of the famous Halles, the open markets immortalized by Émile Zola in Le ventre de Paris.

For eight hundred years, this area was the central market for Paris. Initially it included businesses of all types, but by the 1500s, it had specialized in just food. Over time, it got more and more crowded, and by the 1900s, it was becoming a serious logistical problem. As a result, in 1969, the markets were moved to a vast area in the suburb of Rungis, very near Orly Airport to the south. A big empty space was left in this spot after the markets moved, and it was more or less a big hole for years (in fact, it was nicknamed le trou des Halles—the hole of the Halles—by the natives in consequence).

After quite a few years, it was finally decided to transform the “hole” into what it is today, namely, a large and pretty park on the surface, a huge underground shopping center beneath that, and the world’s largest underground subway station beneath that (the Châtelet-les-Halles station). This was pretty successful and it is a nice place today. Unfortunately, the mass-transit accessibility of the location makes it a favorite stopping place for all the various dregs who live in the suburbs of Paris and ride into the city in the evenings (Fridays and Saturdays, in particular) to make trouble. It’s not really a dangerous spot, but you do see a lot of low life roaming around late at night. During the day and early evening, of course, it’s fine (there aren’t really any truly dangerous spots in Paris, anyway).

In this photograph, you can see the open part of the shopping center in the foreground (it has a central plaza open to the sky, inside those white-and-glass arcades that you see in the foreground). There are more shops off to the right. In the distance is the park, which is extremely popular in good weather and on weekends. Left of center in the background is the rounded dome of the Bourse du Commerce, the commodities exchange. The big cathedral in the background is Saint-Eustache—it is the largest in Paris after Notre-Dame Cathedral, and it has a fabulous pipe organ.

On this weekday afternoon, there were lots of people, even though they aren’t visible in this photograph (most were in the surrounding area, where all the businesses and shops are, or in the shopping center underground). The subway station alone accommodates several million passengers a day. I have a picture of one of the main entrances to the underground portion of the Forum, if you are interested.

In the days of the open markets, it was fashionable among certain parts of Parisian society to get up at five in the morning and eat fresh onion soup at les Halles. One or two of the restaurants that thrived in that era survive today, including Au Pied du Cochon, hidden here by trees in the background, which serves cooked pig’s feet even to this day, and remains quite popular.

Photographed on May 26, 2001.