page_title: History of Paris (1946–2000)
section_title: Paris under de Gaulle  (1958–1968)
hierarchical_section_title: History of Paris (1946–2000) / Paris under de Gaulle  (1958–1968)
caption_attribution_description: English: P.M. David Ben Gurion has his first meeting with general Charles de Gaulle, pres. of France at the Palais de L'elysee in Paris, during his official visit to France. Depicted people&#58; &#32;David Ben-Gurion and Charles de Gaulle Depicted place&#58; Élysée Palace עברית: פגישת ראש הממשלה דוד בן גוריון (משמאל) עם נשיא צרפת שרל דה גול, בארמון האליזה בפריז, צרפת.
context_page_description: At the end of the Second World War, most Parisians were living in misery. Industry was ruined, housing was in short supply, and food was rationed. The population of Paris did not return to its 1936 level until 1946, and grew to 2,850,000 by 1954, including 135,000 immigrants, mostly from Algeria, Morocco, Italy and Spain. The exodus of middle-class Parisians to the suburbs continued. The population of the city declined during the 1960s and 1970s before finally stabilizing in the 1980s.
  In the 1950s and 1960s, the city underwent a massive reconstruction, with the addition of new highways, skyscrapers, and thousands of new apartment blocks. Beginning in the 1970s, French Presidents took a personal interest leaving a legacy of new museums and buildings: President François Mitterrand had the most ambitious program of any President since Napoleon III. His Grands Travaux included the Arab World Institute, a new national library called the Bibliothèque François Mitterrand; a new opera house, the Opéra Bastille, a new Ministry of Finance, Ministère de l'Économie et des Finances, in Bercy. The Grande Arche in La Défense and the Grand Louvre, with the addition of the glass pyramid by I. M.
context_section_description: In May 1958, the government the Fourth Republic, hopelessly deadlocked by divisions over the War in Algeria and other issues, resigned. The President of the Republic, René Coty, invited Charles de Gaulle to form a new government and prepare a revised Constitution. Within three months, the new Constitution was drafted and put to a vote on September 28, 1958; it was approved by more than 80 percent of voters. and a new government was in place. The Fifth Republic was born on October 4, 1958.
  During the ten years that de Gaulle occupied the presidency, France and Paris experienced rapid economic growth, which was accompanied by the building of new office buildings and housing, and the rehabilitation of historic neighborhoods in the center of the city. De Gaulle's Minister of Culture, André Malraux, oversaw the reconstruction of the historic neighborhoods in the center, particularly Le Marais. In Le Marais and the other designated historic zones, the rehabilitation consisted of leaving the façade and walls intact, while rebuilding completely the interior of the building. The Malraux law also required that the façades of buildings be scrubbed clean of centuries of accumulated soot and dirt. The most visible improvement was the cleaning of the cathedral of Notre Dame, which in a few months turned from black to white.
  In other neighborhoods in the center of the city, the rehabilitation took a different form: residential buildings of the Haussmann era were transformed into offices. As the price of land doubled in the city center, middle class residents moved out to the suburbs. Dilapidated and crumbling residential buildings were torn down and replaced by office buildings. The population of the arrondissements in the city center markedly decreased.
  The neighborhood of the central market of Les Halles was also a target for renewal. The old market was too small and traffic around it too congested to serve the needs of the growing city. One of the historic pavilions was preserved and moved to a park outside the city, but the others were closed down and the site, after long debate, was eventually turned into a park and underground commercial space, the Forum des Halles.
caption: De Gaulle with Israeli President David Ben Gurion (1960)
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