Marché d'Aligre

Market · Place d'Aligre, Faubourg Saint-Antoine (12th)Paris,France

Three markets trading on one Paris square at once — a covered hall, shouting barrow traders and second-hand dealers on the cobbles — at three different prices.

The Marché d'Aligre is three markets trading on one square at the same hour, twenty metres apart, and each one works in a completely different way. The covered hall on one side went up in 1843 and holds established butchers, cheesemongers and fishmongers behind proper counters. The open-air stalls in front of it are barrow traders who shout their prices and undercut the hall from across the road. Between the two, on the cobbles, a small spread of second-hand dealers lays out books, plates, tools and clothes on the ground. The square has been a market since the 1770s. This is a market for the people who live in the streets around it. They arrive with shopping trolleys, and the produce is stacked rather than arranged for show. The result is a square where the same tomato carries three different prices inside a hundred paces. The hall itself burned twice, in 2015 and again in 2017, and was rebuilt and reopened in 2018. Look up inside it and the ironwork looks newer than the date on the front, because it is.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Mornings only, and never on a Monday — The open-air stalls and the second-hand dealers finish in the early afternoon; the covered hall opens again later in the day.
Nothing is packaged for the walk home — the barrow traders sell loose produce straight from the crate, and towards closing by the crate itself, so bring something for carrying it.
Saturday and Sunday mornings are shoulder to shoulder — On weekday mornings the square is far emptier and the traders have time to answer questions about what they are selling.
Ask before you touch — On the barrows the trader picks and bags for you, and reaching in to choose your own is the one thing that will get you told off.
Winter changes the square — The oyster crates come out onto the pavement from autumn, and the barrows shift from stone fruit and salad to roots, chestnuts and citrus.

Things to do

1
Price the same thing in all three places
Pick one ordinary item, a kilo of tomatoes or a piece of cheese. Ask what it costs at a waist-high counter inside the hall, where whole fish lie on ice and birds hang by the feet and almost nothing is wrapped before you ask for it. Then ask at a barrow twenty metres away, and again at the shop on the street corner. The gap between the three prices is what makes this square unusual, and you only find it by asking.
2
Stay for the last half hour
Come back just before the barrow traders pack up. They shout their prices louder and faster, whole crates are sold at once, and anything that will not keep until tomorrow has to go now. It is the noisiest stretch of the morning and it happens on every trading day.
3
Search the second-hand pitches at the east end
The second-hand dealers keep to the east half of the square. They spread out in a curve around the small free-standing building there, known locally as the Petite Mairie, the little town hall. They work out of vans and off folding tables rather than shops. Much of the stock sits at ankle height on sheets, so you have to bend down to see it. They start setting out at about half past seven and are packed away again by early afternoon.