The river that crosses Paris and was designed by Napoleon Bonaparte turns 200 years old

A ship leaves Paris in the opposite direction to the sea. Instead of traveling up the river that washes the French capital, the Seine, he prefers to take turns using the city’s subway two kilometers of darkness with intermittent beams of light filtering through centuries-old skylights.

Around 1,500 boats from more than 20 countries follow this route every year, leaving behind the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Notre-Dame to sail the 4.55 kilometers of the Saint-Martin Canal, which celebrates its bicentenary in December.

Originally designed to supply Paris with drinking water, the canal connects the Place de la Bastille with the La Villette reservoir to the north, from where boats can either take a shortcut through the St. Dionysius Canal or travel along the Ourcq Canal, which leads northeast of Paris to the river of the same name.

However, the Saint-Martin Canal not only connects rivers and reservoirs, but also brings the past closer to the present, already because of its name, chosen at the request of an incipient French nationalism that saw in the popular saint a reason for pride.

On behalf of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802The development of the canal, inaugurated by absolutist kings in 1825 and transferred to the city of Paris in 1861 under another Bonaparte, Napoleon III, is inextricably linked to recent history and therefore to the national upheaval in France.

The white stone of its bridges, which comes from the same quarry as the Arc de Triomphe and the Basilica of the Sacred HeartThey also witnessed the barricades of the Paris Commune (1871), but also the first steps of cinema and photography.

A few meters from the canal, in what is now the Place de la République, a person was photographed for the first time in history, while its banks have been the setting for films from the golden age of French cinema such as Hôtel du Nord (1938) to more recent phenomena such as Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001) or the series of Netflix “Emily in Paris”, broadcast since 2020.

This cinematic legacy is the same that led the city council to rename its bridges and sidewalks after actresses, the last of which was dedicated on December 13 to the recently deceased Jane Birkin (1946-2023).

It is a homage that began with names such as those of the French Michèle Morgan, Arletty and María Pacôme or the Spanish María Casares, among others.

Salomé Muscat, a student who regularly visits the canal, said that the area is “very beautiful” and that, unlike other tourist-overrun places in the city, there are Parisians who “go to restaurants” in the area or sit “on the banks” of the canal.

“When my friends visit Paris, I bring them here because I think it’s not usually part of tourist plans and it’s much more authentic than going to Rivoli Street,” he added, referring to a central shopping street next to the Louvre Museum.

A passerby, Elena, who is there Influencers of travel and gastronomy in networks, Salomé agrees that there is something “charming” about the area, but warns that “you have to be careful because sometimes malicious people lurk in the area”, such as “young people who meet on the shore to drink alcohol”.

Guillaume Le Bas, one of the waiters at the famous hotel where the film “Hôtel de Ville” is set, agrees with the uncertainty that Elena points out and regrets that “from May” the channel has “a different story” with the arrival of good weather.

Chaim Narang, who has run a cafe next to the canal for six years, agrees with Le Bas’s statement and believes that those who come to him “especially in summer” are “many Americans” who have heard about the neighborhood “in recent years.”

“I think that every city experiences something, like in our case the Olympics (of 2024), that triggers a wave of gentrification, and with that there are good things and bad things. Here we see the good things,” he said.

Narang also highlighted that “people who have lived in the neighborhood for a long time” told him that “it has changed a lot in the last few years” and that it has gone from being “mainly a place where people lived” to one where there is now “mainly commerce.”