Paris’s Champs-Elysées Christmas fair, which was canceled last year in a dispute between its operator and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, has found a new home blocks away in the Tuileries Gardens, on land rented from the Louvre.
The event, which runs from mid-November to just after Christmas, got its new location through intervention by the national government in an end-run around city hall, and does not need the city’s approval. A spokesperson for Hidalgo told the press “If that’s the case, it’s a big mistake for the government.”
The Mayor’s office made clear last year that it didn’t oppose having the fair and market, but was unhappy with the preponderance of cheap imported souvenirs and goods rather than French crafts and manufactures. The fair operator says that this year, at least 80% French goods will be featured.
