From June 1 to October 7, 2026 , the Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris will host a photo exhibition that pulls together roughly 100,000 colour and monochrome images taken by 15,000 amateur photographers during the early 1970s. The pictures, captured across all 1,755 municipal sections, portray a capital still bearing the scars of the May 1968 revolt and the urban overhaul ordered by President Georges Pompidou.

30,000 colour slides and 70,000 black‑and‑white prints document a transforming capital

The archive contains an estimated 30,000 colour slides and 70,000 black‑and‑white prints, a volume confirmed by the library’s archivist Bérengère de l’Épine... The images range from bustling schoolchildren marching past construction sites to vintage tin buses navigating cobbled lanes. As curator Juliette Eyméoud noted, the photographers “cast a tender and attentive eye over the elderly,” offering a human‑scale view of a city in motion.

These visual records were originally gathered through a city‑wide contest launched by the French retailer FNAC in the spring of 1970.. Participants drew a square of the 1,755 districts by lottery and were tasked with documenting everything inside it, from shopfronts to hidden Renaissance courtyards.

Henri Cartier‑Bresson’s protest reshaped the contest’s copyright rules

When the competition required photographers to surrender all rights to their work, renowned photojournalist Henri Cartier‑Bresson quit the jury in protest, according to the exhibition’s catalogue. Professional unions followed suit, prompting the city of Paris to withdraw its sponsorship. FNAC eventually rewrote the terms to respect copyright, allowing the contest to proceed and preserving the images for public use.

June 1 launch highlights a Paris still littered with political posters and vintage cars

Visitors to the opening will encounter scenes of colourful political posters plastered on façades, a reminder of the activist fervour that survived the 1968 upheaval.. Vintage Citroën cars line streets that are simultaneously under demolition, illustrating the paradox of a metropolis being rebuilt while its historic fabric remains visible.

One striking black‑and‑white photograph shows Parisian women perched on a bench, elegant handbags in hand, while a nearby image captures a tin bus ferrying locals through a narrow, cobbled alley. These snapshots, described by Bérengère de l’Épine as having “a cinematographic edge,” let viewers explore the city’s diversity—from working‑class neighbourhoods to iconic tourist sites.

Who captured the images? A youthful army of 15,000 amateur shooters

On April 25, 1970, more than 15,000 participants—two‑thirds of them under thirty—registered at the Halles de Baltard to join the project, according to the library’s records. Their collective effort produced a visual time capsule that now resides in the library’s digitised archive, accessible to researchers and the public alike.

What remains unknown about the lost neighbourhoods?

While the exhibition offers a vivid portrait of 1970s Paris, it leaves several questions unanswered: Which specific districts experienced the most extensive demolition, and how many of those structures have been fully rebuilt? The catalogue does not disclose how many of the original 1,755 squares were later altered beyond recognition, nor does it identify the photographers behind the most iconic frames.