Paris, July 3, 22026. By Socrates George Kazolias

Le Temps de Cerises celebrates its 50th Birthday.

In 1976, a group of Anarcho – Syndicalists, with visions of the May-68 revolt still dancing in their head, decided they would take over a run down, working-class, area in the 13th Arrondissement of Paris: La Butte aux Cailles. They opened a series of bars, each named after a stanza from the 1848 Revolution theme song: Le Temps des Cerises, and a restaurant by the same name.

Paris, June 28, 2024, by Socrates George Kazolias

Le temps de Cérises, photo @kazolias

Over the past 40 years, the working class population of Paris has been gradually pushed further and further outside of the city as the new rich take over. One of the last areas in southern Paris is holding on by a thread: La Butte Aux Cailles.

I started coming to Le Temps Des Cérises restaurant when it was first opened by a collective of anarchists in 1976. At the time La Butte aux Cailles was a run-down, working-class area, with cheap hotels that rented rooms to North Africa immigrant workers, a PMU horse betting café and a couple of bars.