Square Jules-Ferry

The Square Jules-Ferry sits alongside the Canal Saint-Martin, tracing a path where the city once felt the strain of rapid modernization. It takes its name from a French statesman who served as both the mayor of Paris and the prime minister of France during the late nineteenth century. While he is remembered today for establishing free, compulsory, and secular education, his tenure as mayor was marked by the intense, difficult challenges of the Prussian siege of Paris in eighteen seventy. He was a vocal critic of the massive urban transformations directed by Baron Haussmann, famously lamenting the loss of the medieval city that once stood in its place.