The cultural landscape of Paris has always extended beyond the city's geographical borders: Paris has been the home of some of the world's greatest artists, writers, and thinkers in history and today has undergone a six-billion dollar facelift as the unofficial capital of the European Union. Immigrants from Algeria, Martinique, Senegal, Lebanon, Greece, Vietnam, and Cambodia crowd the city's quarters, and tourists from all over the world fill its shops and museums.

But the city remains proudly provincial: some residents of the Seine's Île-St.-Louis are reported not to have left their tiny island in years, referring to the city around them as "the continent;" and the Academie Française has repeatedly denounced the scourge of "Coca-colonialism" and banned certain English-language terms from the French Language.