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Excerpt: "Short of cash, the Socialist Party has moved its headquarters from a Parisian mansion once owned by a princess to a converted factory in the suburbs."

'The Socialists are in a very bobo [bohemian] part of Ivry, with a lot of artist lofts,' said Benjamin Gozlan, a painter and illustrator. (photo: Dmitry Kostyukov/NYT)
'The Socialists are in a very bobo [bohemian] part of Ivry, with a lot of artist lofts,' said Benjamin Gozlan, a painter and illustrator. (photo: Dmitry Kostyukov/NYT)


A New Home for French Socialists, on Paris's Periphery

By Norimitsu Onishi, The New York Times

13 January 20


Short of cash, the Socialist Party has moved its headquarters from a Parisian mansion once owned by a princess to a converted factory in the suburbs.

aybe it was the equivalent of moving from the Upper East Side of Manhattan to Queens or Staten Island or even New Jersey.

For decades, the headquarters of the Socialist Party, which held France’s presidency until just a couple of years ago, was ensconced in the heart of Paris — a stroll to the nation’s top schools; the Orsay and Louvre museums; the National Assembly and, across the Seine, the Élysée Palace. A constellation of Michelin-starred restaurants shined from every direction.

Today, its new home, in a converted pharmaceutical factory, shares a block with a scrap metal dealer and a beverage wholesaler, just behind the railroad tracks of the commuter transit system that services the “banlieue,’’ or suburb, of Ivry-sur-Seine. A party stalwart grumbled that his “GPS couldn’t find the street,” but even some locals seemed lost.

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