How Paris Moves: Dispatches from France on the Eve of the Olympics

Recently, I walked through Paris to meet a friend on the Rive Gauche. On the hour-long route from my home in Montmartre, I popped in for a croissant at a favorite boulangerie, skirted around the Palais Royal, passed the pyramid of the Louvre, crossed the Seine. Post-coffee, the walk home unfolded in reverse. I ran a few errands as I got closer to my apartment: greens and radishes at our neighborhood épicerie, a crusty and warm baguette at another boulangerie, a bottle of sparkling wine at the caviste. Pausing briefly to adjust my grip on the bags at the base of the stairs leading up to the Sacre-Cœur, I made the inevitable climb up.

Walking has always been my main form of transport through my adopted city. When I first moved to Paris in 2015, long walks helped me understand both the city and my place in it. Later, walking became simply written into my days, the rhythm and ease of movement both practical (when I have to go to a meeting) and meditative (when I have to overcome writer’s block).

Then, in March 2020, I got sick with COVID-19. Months later, I was still in bed, a rolling list of symptoms moving through my body: brain fog, exhaustion, body aches, chest and lung pressure, tachycardia (a too-fast heart rate), difficulty breathing, loss of smell and taste, vertigo, nerve pain, headaches, light and sound sensitivity, hair loss, short-term memory loss, and more. In the earliest days and weeks, even the simple act of walking was off the table. The reach of my previously strong, reliably healthy, 33-year-old body reduced to the perimeter of a bed frame. I crawled from bed to bathroom and back.

Three months in, I called a friend and asked her to walk with me to the nearest store. My bid for normalcy lasted five minutes into what would have been a leisurely 10-minute stroll. We sat down right on the cobblestone street, her hand to my chest, my heart racing scarily fast.

Four months in, on the kind of blue-sky day that makes things feel especially possible, I tried again. I made it further this time—a triumph even when, 20 minutes from home, my legs started to tingle in a way I had come to recognize as my body hitting its limit, a harbinger of relapse. I spent the next week back in my bedroom, sunshine streaming in, symptoms back in full force.

In the healing months and years that followed, I slowly learned to listen to this new body. I pressed against its subtle and not-so-subtle cues. I relapsed trying to do things that were previously standard asks. I lived within and through the fear that accompanied its unknown future. I advocated for myself over and over with doctors, with friends, with my own expectations. I learned to rest.

Four years later, movement has become a gauge for my recovery. Though I often require dedicated rest time when I get home from a lengthier walk, I no longer need to save up energy to run out to the store. I climb the stairs up to my apartment with the same sweaty ease that I did before I got sick. I don’t immediately need to weigh the sacrifice of Y if I say yes to X. While my strength sits differently, my body feels more me again—both in movement and in rest. When I drop into the meditation that comes with a long walk through the city I am lucky to call home, I no longer take those steps or the many other forms of movement this resilient body can again handle for granted.

On my walks throughout Paris, I’m never alone—this is a city meant to be seen and experienced on the move. When I walk through the Place de la République or The Dome at the Palais de Tokyo, the sounds of skaters move with me, their wheels and boards whizzing and clacking on centuries-old cobblestones and marble. Bikers commute via both the roads and a growing number of bike lanes, friends and strangers alike leaning down to lock up their bikes before sitting at a café to have apéro—to mark another day of successfully navigating the capital’s streets.

This relationship between Parisians and the urban landscape are the central concerns of How Paris Moves, a series of community-focused stories about social change in France through the lens of the 2024 Summer Olympics, which will take place from July 26 to August 11 in locations throughout mainland France and in French Polynesia.

These dispatches come from writers in the heart of Paris; Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburb of the capital; and even Tahiti in the South Pacific. Juliette Gache spotlights the Parisian reliance on biking as the more of the city is pedestrianized, while Léontine Gallois speaks to kids and adults learning to swim in Saint-Denis, the historically-underinvested suburb that will host the Games’ major aquatic events. Megan Spurrell dives in with the locals of Teahupo’o, Tahiti, where the Olympics represent a threat to the vulnerable environment. Jennifer Padjemi speaks to leaders in the French hip-hop world to parse the “sportification” of breaking (a.k.a. breakdancing, the newest event at Paris 2024), and Tom Nouvian introduces readers into the skaters across Paris for whom skateboarding is more than just an Olympic staple—it is a way of life.

Reading these stories, I’m moved to see how physical activity and its many forms—with wheels, in the water, or on foot—are deeply rooted in the pulse of this country, and will continue to be long after the Games are over. Indeed, movement is entrenched in our daily lives—in Paris and beyond it: not only as a necessity or survival skill, but as a mode of connecting with others and the world around us. (After all, what is travel if not movement?) These stories capture beautifully the communities that make up the pulse of this city and this country. May they move you too. —Rebekah Peppler

Rebekah Peppler is a Paris-based contributing writer for Condé Nast Traveler, cookbook author, recipe developer, and James Beard Foundation nominee. She has written three books about French living: Apéritif, À Table, and Le Sud. For more of her writing, read her monthly Paris-focused newsletter Shortlisted.

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As the use of bikes overtakes the use of cars in the French capital, Parisians say that the city’s spirit is willing—but its infrastructure is not. Will the new bike lanes built for the Olympics help alleviate that tension?

Read the story here.

Breakdancing—or “breaking”—will always “belong to the streets,” according to breakers and dancers who see it as an art form first and sport second. Some even feel that the inclusion of breaking in the Olympics threatens their liberté, egalité, and fraternité.

Read the story here.

Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburb with the worst swimming proficiency rate in France, is hosting aquatic events for the Games like diving and water polo. The community hopes the new pools will be a future resource to call their own.

Read the story here.

Before or after Paris 2024, you can bet that Olympians will flock to places like the Bastille, République, and the Palais de Tokyo to do kickflips and shove-its with the city’s skaters, who have become intractable fixtures of Parisian urban life.

Read the story here.

In a tiny fishing village in Tahiti, Olympic surfers will ride the world-famous Teahupo’o swell and compete for gold, but at what cost—to the environment and community?

Read the story here.

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Credits

Writers
Juliette Gache, Léontine Gallois, Tom Nouvian, Jennifer Padjemi, Rebekah Peppler, Megan Spurrell

Photographer
Joann Pai

Lead Editor
Matt Ortile

Editors
Lale Arikoglu, Charlie Hobbs, Shannon McMahon, Arati Menon, Hannah Towey

Lead Visuals
Pallavi Kumar

Supporting Visuals
Andrea Edelman

Lead Social Media
Erika Owen

Supporting Social Media
Kayla Brock

Audience Development
Abigail Malbon

Read more of Condé Nast Traveler’s coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics here.

Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler

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