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Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris

Wednesday, 11 June 2025 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: European Union / Europäische Union
Category/Kategorie: General, Paris / Île-de-France Reading Time:  3 minutes

🔊 Listen to this Post Saint-Germain-des-Prés is one of the four administrative quarters of the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France, located around the church of the former Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Its official borders are the River Seine on the north, the rue des Saints-Pères on the west, between the rue de Seine and rue Mazarine on the east, and the rue du Four on the south. Residents of the quarter are known as Germanopratins.

The Latin quarter’s cafés include Les Deux Magots, Café de Flore, le Procope, and the Brasserie Lipp, as well as many bookstores and publishing houses. In the 1940s and 1950s, it was the centre of the existentialist movement (associated with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir). It is also home to the École des Beaux-Arts, Sciences Po, the Saints-Pères biomedical university center of the University of Paris, the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, and the Musée national Eugène Delacroix, in the former apartment and studio of painter Eugène Delacroix.

In the years after World War II, Saint‑Germain‑des‑Prés was known primarily for its cafés and its bars, its diversity and its non-conformism. The bars were a popular destination for American soldiers and sailors after the war. It was also known as a meeting place for the largely-clandestine gay community of Paris, which at the time frequented the Café de Flore and the Café Carrefour, an all-night restaurant. Because of its low rents and proximity to the University, the quarter was also popular with students from the French colonies in Africa. There were between three and five thousand African students in the city; their association had its headquarters at 184 boulevard Saint‑Germain and 28 rue Serpente. Because of the number of workers, it also hosted an important bureau of the French Communist Party.

The neighbourhood became the centre of intellectuals and philosophers, actors, singers and musicians. Existentialism co-existed with jazz and chanson in the cellars on the rue de Rennes. Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Juliette Gréco, Léo Ferré, Jean-Luc Godard, Boris Vian, and François Truffaut were all at home there. But there were also poets such as Jacques Prévert and artists such as Giovanni Giacometti. As a residential address Saint‑Germain is no longer quite as fashionable as the area further south towards the Jardin du Luxembourg, partly due to Saint‑Germain’s increased popularity among tourists.

Read more on parisjetaime.com – Timeless Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Wikipedia Saint-Germain-des-Prés (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.

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