Paris Without Parisians

In August, Paris disappears. Not the buildings — the people. Streets go still, shutters close, and the rhythm of the city changes completely.

Aug 27, 2025

Image credit: all images in this article Pamela Clapp

There’s something almost enviable about a place that agrees, all at once, to slow down. Few cities in the world could pull this off without a crisis — and yet here, it happens every year.

The butcher tapes a handwritten note to the door: Fermé jusqu’au 2 septembre. The florist is dark. A boutique is papered over in brown kraft, with a promise to reopen after themer.

It’s nostrike. It’s not a downturn. It’s tradition.

Every summer, the same shift: a city that runs on routine collectively pauses.

Imagine if your own city did this — if your favorite coffee shop, the local bookstore, and the corner grocery all closed for the month, without worrying about lost sales or customers drifting to the competition. The only concern would be vacation plans and how to rest after eleven months of work. The French call it profiter de la vie — making the most of life.

Before I had kids, I loved staying in Paris through most of August, saving my vacations for the off-season. There was something decadent about having the city to myself — gliding down empty boulevards, finding a seat on the Métro at peak hour, enjoying Paris in daylight on weekdays, with dramatically fewer emails to answer at work.

When I was a student, I even worked through July and August, covering for titulaires who were off on their three-week holidays. My summer job? Giving out information at the Eiffel Tower. On my early-morning bike rides to work, it struck me how few Parisians remained. The city felt peaceful and almost otherworldly — a capital city taking a nap.

In my twenties, many of my Parisian friends drifted in and out all summer. One week on Porquerolles, the next at a friend’s house on Île de Bréhat. There was no urgency to “use vacation time wisely” — just an unhurried shuffle between borrowed beach houses, lazy afternoons, and the occasional train back to Paris. A few days to unpack, water the plants, spend a short week at the office, and then leave again.

And then you have kids. The days of hopping on a ferry with a single tote bag are replaced with packing lists, bedtime logistics, and destinations where children are both welcome and entertained. August in Paris with children still feels quiet, but now there are closed playgrounds, bakeries on break, and reduced hours for everything from swimming pools to cafés. What once felt like a secret luxury now feels more like a logistical puzzle. So I joined the ranks of the aoûtiens, packing us up and leaving too.

Still, Paris doesn’t fall silent so much as it changes hands. On the Left Bank, English — American English — replaces French on sidewalks and café terraces. Tour groups cluster in front of Saint-Sulpice. Couples from Chicago or Dallas linger over late lunches. Families debate which museum to tackle next.

What I’m describing is the Left Bank in August — the boutiques, cafés, and residential streets where I live and spend most of my time. Other parts of the city have their own rhythms in summer. But here, the change is dramatic.

The locals who do stay tend to be juillettistes, those who took their holidays in July. But most Parisians are devoted aoûtiens, disappearing in late summer. The businesses that close are the ones that rely on regulars: the older woman who visits the butcher twice a week, the families who buy fruit and vegetables from the neighborhood primeur, the faithful customers who pick up olives for apéro from the same marché stall. When their customers leave, the shopkeepers leave too. It’s not lost business — it’s a coordinated pause. Everyone returns in September refreshed, ready for a new season.

I still remember my first August here, noticing how still the streets around my apartment had become. As a child, I lived in the suburbs of Paris, which was slightly different — fewer people could afford to leave for a full month, especially without access to a secondary home. The full August disappearance, I learned, really happens in Paris. The café terraces were half-empty, the produce shop dark, the Métro strangely calm. It felt like stumbling onto the set of a film after the crew had packed up and gone home.

It still amazes me that a city like Paris — with all its tourists, commerce, and noise — can simply decide to pause. In other places, that might feel like a crisis. Here, it’s almost a civic right. And it makes you wonder: what might change — in mood, in health, even in priorities — if more places treated rest as non-negotiable?

Who stays behind? Tourists, of course, wandering the quieter streets in linen shirts and sensible shoes. A handful of locals who relish the stillness. Older Parisians who no longer travel far. And a few people on deadline who couldn’t quite escape. And, of course, the many Parisians working in cafés, hotels, museums, and shops — the ones who keep the city’s heart beating for visitors all summer. They have the city almost entirely to themselves.

I’m part of the exodus this year too, writing this from far outside the périphérique — in one of the only cooler corners of France at the moment. (My thoughts are with everyone else in the heatwave.) But I know exactly what I’d find if I were there: a slower pace, quieter streets, and that peculiar sense of Paris waiting.

By the last week of August, the streets begin to fill again in preparation for la rentrée. By September, the shutters roll back up. The city regains its usual electricity — children in new sneakers rushing to school, office workers crowding back into the Métro, terraces spilling over for those last rosé lunches and apéros as colleagues trade summer stories.

In August, Paris isn’t closed. It’s on holiday. And that’s the difference — here, rest isn’t a guilty pleasure. It’s part of the calendar.

So tell me — is Paris without Parisians your dream (peace, quiet, and plenty of café tables) or would you find it just a little too empty?

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