Boris Vian and Jacques Prévert, a memory in peril in Pigalle

Jacques Prévert in his apartment in the Cité Véron.

The apartments of Boris Vian and Jacques Prévert, perched in the Cité Véron in Paris, behind the Moulin Rouge, are now at the heart of a symbolic battle between cultural memory and real estate pressure. Two online petitions are calling for their preservation before a cabaret expansion project erases them from the Parisian landscape.

Cité Véron, in Paris: in this secluded corner of Pigalle, the apartments of Boris Vian and Jacques Prévert form a shared balcony of poetry, jazz, and cinema, a veritable post-war laboratory. Vian welcomed musicians, writers, and artists there, while Prévert shaped a part of the French imagination, through screenplays, poems, and creative friendships.

The building's owner, the Moulin Rouge, has an expansion project that would involve the transformation or demolition of these historically significant premises. Prévert's granddaughter, Eugénie Bachelot-Prévert, has been ordered to leave the apartment, while Vian's house, designed by the writer himself, sees its collections, furniture, and archives directly threatened.

A living heritage to protect

On Change.org , two separate petitions , each dedicated to one of the two apartments, call for the protection of these iconic spaces. For the signatories, it's not just about saving walls, but a living heritage made up of material traces, photographs, books, work tools, and memories shared with the public. The two apartments are seen as places of popular education and transmission, where one can still feel the presence of texts learned in school, cult films, and a certain idea of artistic freedom.

The petitions call for strong heritage protection, including listing and transformation into museum-houses or cultural venues open to all. Writers, publishers, artists, and ordinary citizens see this as a major test of the government's commitment to defending creative work against purely commercial interests.

Saving these two havens in the Cité Véron means preserving a piece of French literary history, but also affirming that poetry, song, and cinema deserve a tangible presence in the city. Through these signatures, the idea emerges that a country is recognized as much by its illuminated facades as by the modest apartments where people dreamed, wrote, filmed, and loved.

Pierre Fourny

• Petition "Save Jacques Prévert's apartment": https://www.change.org/p/il-faut-sauver-l-appartement-de-jacques-pr%C3%A9vert

  
  

• Petition "Save Boris Vian's house": https://www.change.org/p/sauver-la-maison-de-boris-vian