The President's Neighbour - Behind Façades Of Paris

Regardless of whether French President Sarkozy is receiving monarchs or presidents – he is always under close scrutiny: Marlys Schaeffer has been living opposite the Elysée Palace for more than 40 years and has had a bird’s eye view of every French president since Charles de Gaulle. The grande dame has followed some of the most important moments in French history from her living room window. For us, she opens up her window onto the courtyard of the presidential palace and her stately apartment, which – like herself – epitomises fine Parisian society. There is also another Paris however: young designer Mattali Crasset lives in the same city as Marlys Schaeffer – but in a completely different world. Her crazy apartment in a renovated print shop in the multicultural district of Belleville has nothing at all in common with the noble facades of the city centre. Her colourful life is a marked contrast to that of the Baudonnière family. Every morning they send their six children to an élite school in the high-class 16th arrondissement of Paris. And then there is Lea, the young tattoo artist from the somewhat dingy quarter around the Rue Saint-Denis, who is trying to work out how she can put a Klimt painting onto her customer’s skin. On our tour through Paris we see the different faces of a city, which is so much more colourful than the façade so often presented to the tourists.

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