Paris

Paris was not entirely in ruins after World War II. There were bombs, there was fighting, and there was occupation to be sure, but thanks to France’s government evacuating Paris before the Germans arrived and leaving the city to be taken without a fight, physically the city remained mostly intact. In 1944, resistance fighters supported by US and French troops re-took the city from the mostly-evacuated German Army. General Charles De Gaulle took command of France’s provisional government through 1946, at which point France founded its government once again: the Fourth Republic. Amidst continual divisive political actions and difficulties with Algeria (a French colony, at the time), the Fourth Republic collapsed in 1958, leaving a power gap open for General De Gaulle to be elected president with a hefty 78% majority. At this time, historians argue France finally re-established a proper government, and progress was swift. For the next 30 years under De Gaulle, France had its most successful period of economic growth in history (Figure 1), and planning for growth finally began again [1]. In the following pages, we evaluate the success of specific foci of Parisian planning in terms of progress towards modernism, specifically within the time frame of 1958 – Present day.