17th arrondissement

Highlights: Batignolles · Monceau · Ternes · Épinettes · Parc Martin Luther King

An arrondissement of contrasts, the 17th brings together within a single territory the Haussmannian elegance of the plaine Monceau, the village spirit of the Batignolles so dear to the Impressionist painters, and the working-class energy of the Épinettes. From its artists' cafés to its brand-new Clichy-Batignolles quarter, it offers a plural Paris where each district cultivates its own atmosphere.

Villages of the north-west

The 17th was born in 1860 from the incorporation into Paris of the communes of Batignolles-Monceau and part of Clichy. Set apart from the great thoroughfares, the Batignolles retained their air of a quiet town, gathered around their church and their square, while the Épinettes, further north, long kept a working-class and market-gardening character.

This village past can still be read in the low streets, the garden estates and the flowered lanes such as the cité des Fleurs, a preserved enclave of houses and gardens in the heart of the city.

The cradle of the Impressionists

In the 1860s, a group of young painters gathered at the café Guerbois on the avenue de Clichy, around Édouard Manet: Monet, Renoir, Degas and Pissarro formed what critics would call the Batignolles group, the matrix of the future Impressionism.

These artists, drawn by the light and the modern life of the neighbourhood, made it one of the birthplaces of the pictorial revolution of the late 19th century, a memory still celebrated by the square des Batignolles and its surroundings.

The plaine Monceau, bourgeois elegance

To the south, the plaine Monceau was covered, under the Second Empire, with opulent Haussmannian buildings and private mansions, extending the nearby parc Monceau. Financiers, industrialists and great families established their residences here, making this district one of the most sought-after in western Paris.

Around the place des Ternes and the avenue de Wagram, renowned food shops, brasseries and the salle Pleyel, a temple of music inaugurated in 1927, sustain an elegant and lively neighbourhood life.

A great quarter of the 21st century

To the north, the former railway lands of Clichy-Batignolles have given way, from the 2000s onwards, to one of the vastest urban projects in Paris. Around the parc Martin-Luther-King, opened in stages from 2007, rise housing, offices and amenities conceived according to the principles of the sustainable city.

In 2018, the new Tribunal de Paris, a glass tower designed by Renzo Piano, came to crown this brand-new quarter, shifting an entire branch of Parisian justice northwards and redrawing the arrondissement's skyline.

Living in the 17th today

From the bourgeois calm of Monceau to the vitality of the Batignolles, now one of the most sought-after neighbourhoods for families, the 17th blends its moods with a rare balance. Covered markets, pedestrian streets and a great park make it an arrondissement to be lived day by day.

To live in the 17th is to choose a Paris of many faces, where the elegance of tree-lined avenues, the village spirit of the Batignolles and the modernity of Clichy compose, together, a balanced and sought-after art of living.