Where To Stay In Paris: Mayor Blames Airbnb For Population Drop

Americans often quote Humphrey Bogart for saying “We’ll always have Paris,” as it invokes Proust-like memories of vacations with fresh baguettes and leisurely strolls through the Luxembourg gardens. But now Parisians, who have always been known to display an element of disdain toward the flocks of tourists that halt foot traffic in the alleys and squares surrounding the city’s top sites, are blaming the house-for-rent website Airbnb for expanding its number of units throughout the city’s 20 arrondissements and forcing local Parisians to move for monetary reasons.

Paris witnessed 13,660 of its former residents leaving town between 2009 and 2014-- from 2,234,105 to 2,220,445, according to data released by the French newspaper Le Parisien Tuesday.

The picturesque 14^th arrondissement on the left bank of Seine River, a highly affluent and central neighborhood where artists like Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway once trudged the streets, saw more of its residents leave than any other. The 1^st, 2^nd, 4^th and 8^th also saw their populations fall by more than one percent.

Mayor Jean-François Legaret of the 1^st arrondissement told Le Parisien that the population declines were a result of “the rise in the number of second homes in the city.” He cast the blame directly on Airbnb for expanding its amount of units in the French capital city since 2012, causing Paris to become the city with the most Airbnbs.

Airbnb had 60,000 listing in Paris in 2015, but just 2,000 in 2012, according to French 24 News.

“The drop in population can be attributed to the Airbnb phenomenon which has been a catastrophe for central Paris,” Legaret said.

French authorities estimated that since 2009, more than 20,00 primary residences had been turned into “seasonal tourist rentals.”

And authorities have alternatively pointed to the drop in the overall birth rate in France, which was the lowest the European country had ever witnessed in 2013, according to a Reuters report on Jan. 14, 2014. The population in France grew only .4 percent or by 280,000 residents from Jan 1, 2013, to Jan 1, 2014; the weakest growth rate since 2000.