The worlds most famous boulevard isn’t what it used to be: Chic to sleaze, as Champs-Elysees suffers crime wave
The area around the Champs-Elysees is seeing an alarming increase in violent crime. France’s National Crime Observatory reports that the number of personal assaults in the arrondissement which includes the Champs-Elysees increased by 32 percent in 2006 to more than 1,500.
The number of cases of violence without theft — 450 — was up 93 percent, by the far the biggest in the city.
The local mayor believes that the Champs-Elysees is turning into another Pigalle district — once chic but now full of sex-shops and a down-market clientele.
“The situation is getting worse and worse. Every year a cinema closes and a new nightclub opens. If a sex-shop wanted to open, I couldn’t stop it. The Champs used to have a family atmosphere and be lively up to midnight.
Now it’s lively between midnight and six in the morning thanks to persons of a less reputable nature,” he said.
