Losing its sparkle

PARIS DOMINATES FRANCE, politically and economically. Some argue that in an essentially conservative country it inspired France’s revolutionary fervour over several centuries, from 1789 to 1968. Indeed, it was fear of the city’s political influence that led France to deny Paris a mayor of its own from 1794 to 1977 (except for brief interludes in 1848 and 1870). When the office was eventually reinstated, its first occupant, Jacques Chirac, nursed his presidential ambitions from the Hôtel de Ville.