PARIS (EJP)---Rue des Rosiers is at the centre of the Jewish area in Paris’s fourth district, called "the Pletzl" which means small square in Yiddish.
In this picturesque street, which is pedestrian on Sunday, you find several stores of kosher food, some famous bakeries, barbers and typical falafel restaurants.
But today at a rent of 300,000 euros (470,000 dollars) a year, it's being fought over by famous fashion brands outlets.
A few metres down the road stands the former community hammam, or steam bath, which still houses a local Jewish radio station but which is about to turn into yet another store of the international Swedish fashion retailer H & M (for Hennes & Mauritz).
The establishment of this store, in the middle of “Le Marais”, at number 4 of the Rue des Rosiers, is provoking resistance.
Last month, bystanders saw a public display of this resistance at the initiative of a local association of concerned citizens which gained credibility in the framework of the recent municipal elections.
The association is holding regular protests to try to block the trendy boutiques.
Nicolas Secondi, secretary general of the association, stresses the importance of preserving the Jewish culture in the quarter. He favours the opening of a Jewish library instead of H & M.
On the side of the municipality, Dominique Bertinotti, Socialist Mayor of the 4th district, is trying to step in the polemic but it is not so simple.
“When the owners decide to sell the 600 square meter house, they are free to sell it to whom they want,” she says.
Paris’s department of urbanism is currently examining the case.
Bertinotti, who did her best against the opening of a branch of McDonald's fast food chain in the building a few years ago, says the hammam is a "lost cause."
And that despite the city's powers to step in and buy a building. "If what the owners are looking for is three or four times higher than our estimates, the city cannot preempt at any price because we're using taxpayers' money," she said, adding that the city was however keen to preserve the Jewish character of the area.
"We stopped McDonald's opening in the hammam building and we'll stop H & M," says Joseph Finkelstein, the head of the association, who has lived in the area all his life.
The French state architect will be consulted. “If there is a demolition it will break the structure of the sector. The other obstacle is to modify the front facade to make a shop window,” Bertinotti says.
New fashion concept
For H&M, it is out of question to modify the plan. The Swedish group wanting to open there its new fashion concept COS (collection of style), an upscale which already exists in four European countries.
The store opening in France was supposed to be in March but it is already postponed until the summer.
Rolf Eriksen, vice- president of H&M, said: "the opening of our new Parisian store is an important step of our development and the location is of course an asset".
Several other fashion outlets already opened in Le Marais, including Zadig & Voltaire, Annick Goutal, Lee, Patricia PePe, Kookai, Custo Barcelona…
The “Pletzl” is described as "the heart of Parisian Jewry, a thriving, busy slice of downtown Tel Aviv in modern Paris" in a recent history of the French capital by the British academic Andrew Hussey.
It is home to five synagogues, including an Art Nouveau one designed by Hector Guimard, famous for his work on the Paris Metro.
France is home to western Europe's largest Jewish community, estimated at around 600,000, a mixture of Ashkenazi Jews of eastern European origin and Sephardic Jews from North Africa and the Middle East.
