Stars Take to one of Paris's Most Volatile Suburbs

Aug. 9, 2010 - PRLog -- While it's hard to picture the widely neglected and deprived of Paris's suburbs being the destination for some of Hollywood's biggest stars, but this week Seine-Saint-Denis saw the arrival of a substantial amount of star power as the cast for all-star action movie 'The Expendables' showed up its French premier.

Yesterday the UGC cinema of Rosny-Sous-Bois rolled out a not so well tread carpet for the film's star-writer-director Sylvester Stallone to travail, along with Jason Statham and action star Dolph Lundgren.

The film is a star packed tongue-in-cheek action extravaganza, an endeavor in sheer star power and testosterone. Along with Stallone, Statham and Lundgren the film also has appearances from Bruce Willis and even the Governator himself Arnold Schwarzenegger.

As a die-hard Stallone fan, Olivier Fenvin, the director of the UGC cinema in Rosny was delighted over the arrival of one of his heroes. Prior to the screening he spoke of his dissatisfaction with the reputation of the French suburbs.

“Why should Paris get all the stars and premieres when most of their audience is in the rest of France and, above all, in the Banlieue?” asked Fenvin, who coordinated the screening.

“The suburbs are always talked of negatively: security, insecurity, drugs. The mere fact that Rosny and the Banlieue are being talked about, not in connection with "incidents" in the newspapers, but with cinema... gives it a different image. It helps show the people they are not completely abandoned,” he added.

If the suburbs feel abandoned today it is probably by politicians, rather than movie stars.

Over the years these neglected Parisian suburbs have seen an increasing number of stars, such as John Travolta attending the premier of 'From Paris with Love'. Yet most bizarrely was an impromptu visit from Travolta's Pulp Fiction co-star Samuel L Jackson, who turned up to the bewilderment of Bondy residents last year.

Jackson, who visited the Paris suburb of Bondy with US ambassador to France, Charles Rivkin, was greeted with astonished disbelief by local residents. He was overt about the political nature of his visit to the deprived area.

"When I was a small child ... I actually believed I was a second-class citizen," Jackson said to those that had gathered, "but my parents believed very strongly in me getting a good education."

Jackson delivered a political message suggesting that he firmly believed one day France could have a black president, and that there is great power in the young voting bloc.

This influx of stars to the less developed regions of Paris is a great step in regards to the regeneration of the area, adding credence to their plight as the disenfranchised.

Meanwhile French tourism is doing very well this year as Brits yearn to get abroad to villas in France. As Paris remains a strong tourist spot, as one of the most romantic cities in Europe, perhaps the glamour spreading in to the Parisian suburbs may encourage an influx in visitors to the more deprived regions of the capital.

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