Épinettes () is a neighborhood of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, a part of the 17th arrondissement of the city. The neighborhood is bounded by the Avenue de Clichy, the

Avenue de Saint-Ouen Avenue or Avenues may refer to: Roads * Avenue (landscape), traditionally a straight path or road with a line of trees, in the shifted sense a tree line itself, or some of boulevards (also without trees) * Avenue Road, Bangalore * Avenue Road, Lon ...

and the boundaries of Paris in the North.

History

Epinettes were part of Batignolles, an independent village outside Paris, until 1860 when the

emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...

annexed it to the capital. An agricultural area until the middle of the 19th century, it then evolved into an industrial district, with several factories such as those of Ernest Goüin. Housings were built in typical Parisian style, with a majority of Haussmannian buildings. The ''

Cité des Fleurs The ''Cité des Fleurs'' () is a pedestrian street in the Épinettes district in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. This small village in the city remained very picturesque with small size buildings and gardens, with each building and plot followin ...

'', a picturesque pedestrian street with small houses with gardens in the heart of the city, is also built at that time. Like the neighbouring Batignolles, Epinettes, especially the south-western part (Brochant & La Fourche) was strongly linked to

impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

. The " groupe des Batignolles" met in

Café Guerbois Café Guerbois, on Avenue de Clichy in Paris, was the site of late 19th-century discussions and planning amongst artists, writers and art lovers – the '' bohèmes'' (bohemians), in contrast to the ''bourgeois''. Centered on Édouard Ma ...

or at ''Chez le père Lathuille'', avenue de Clichy. Famous writer

Émile Zola Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, ; ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of Naturalism (literature), naturalism, and an important contributor to ...

lived also in the district, as did painter

Alfred Sisley Alfred Sisley (; ; 30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedic ...

in the ''

'' (''City of the Flowers'') or poet

Jules Laforgue Jules Laforgue (; 16 August 1860 – 20 August 1887) was a Franco-Uruguayan poet, often referred to as a Symbolist poet. Critics and commentators have also pointed to Impressionism as a direct influence and his poetry has been called "part-symbo ...

. Several famous left-leaning politicians or activists from the turn of the 20th century came from Epinettes:

Paul Brousse Paul Louis Marie Brousse (; 1844–1912) was a French socialist politician. After training as a physician, he was radicalised by the events of the Paris Commune and joined the anarchist faction of the International Workingmen's Association (I ...

Maria Deraismes Maria Deraismes (17 August 1828 – 6 February 1894) was a French author, Freemason, and major pioneering force for women's rights. Biography Born in Paris, Maria Deraismes grew up in Pontoise in the city's northwest outskirts. From a pr ...

. Famous singer

Fréhel Fréhel (; born Marguerite Boulc'h (); 13 July 1891 – 3 February 1951) was a French singer and actress. Biography Born in Paris to a poor and dysfunctional Breton family, Marguerite Boulc'h was a child left to a life on the streets in the s ...

also grew up there. It was also influenced by industrial paternalism, especially of

Edme-Jean Leclaire Edme-Jean Leclaire (14 May 1801 – 13 July 1872) was a French economist and businessman. He developed an early system of employee profit-sharing. Leclaire was born the son of a poor village shoemaker, in Aisy-sur-Armançon, a small village ...

or Ernest Goüin. Even though industries left the district as they did in the rest of Paris, its population has long been mostly middle class. It has evolved towards

gentrification Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has ...

or ''embourgeoisement'' in French, as some sociologists or newspapers noted. Real estate prices have strongly grown, especially in the South-Western part between the Avenue de Clichy, the

and the

Rue Guy Môquet ''Ruta graveolens'', commonly known as rue, common rue or herb-of-grace, is a species of the genus ''Ruta'' grown as an ornamental plant and herb. It is native to the Mediterranean. It is grown throughout the world in gardens, especially for it ...

Places

In the Epinettes district you can see the

square des Épinettes The Square des Épinettes is a green space in the Épinettes district of Paris ( 17th arrondissement). It was created in 1893 by Jean-Camille Formigé. Two sculptures in the garden represent famous personalities of the area : Maria Deraismes ...

, the

and the cimetière des Batignolles (

André Breton André Robert Breton (; ; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') ...

Paul Verlaine Paul-Marie Verlaine ( ; ; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolism (movement), Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the ''fin de siècle'' ...

Blaise Cendrars Frédéric-Louis Sauser (1 September 1887 – 21 January 1961), better known as Blaise Cendrars (), was a Swiss-born novelist and poet who became a naturalized French citizen in 1916. He was a writer of considerable influence in the European ...

, Ray Ventura or

Benjamin Peret Benjamin ( ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the younger of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel, and Jacob's twe ...

are buried there.

Metro stations

Epinettes is served by lines 2 and 13:

Notes

External links

Les Épinettes sur le site de la mairie du 17e

Promenade dans le quartier des Epinettes
17th arrondissement of Paris Districts of Paris {{Paris-geo-stub