Inequalities in Paris lead to segregation of poor from rich

Over months of Yellow Vest protests, public debate has centered on the urban rural divide and the resources eaten up by the Paris region of Île-de-France. But a new study shows that the country’s wealthiest region is also the most deeply unequal.

France 24 reports that the larger Paris region of Île-de-France is home to nearly 19 percent of the French population and represents 30 percent of the country’s GDP, but the report “Gentrification and growing poverty in the heart of Île-de-France” published Monday by the Planning and Urbanism Institute (IAU) shows that inequality has grown considerably since the early 2000s.

“With the Yellow Vest movement, there has been a lot of talk about poverty as a rural problem, as if cities are always better off,” the report’s author Mariette Sagot told FRANCE 24. “But that’s not true. There are poor suburban and rural areas, but deep poverty remains an urban phenomenon.”

Her study of household income data from 2001 to 2015 paints a startling picture of deepening inequality and entrenched segregation in the country’s largest metropolis.

via France 24