Marché aux puces de Saint-Ouen

The Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen sits at the edge of Paris, marked by a sprawling, chaotic tangle of narrow alleys, rusted iron stalls, and stacked antique furniture that defies any orderly grid. It began in the eighteen eighties when ragpickers, forced out of the city center, set up makeshift camps just beyond the military fortifications. They sold the scrap and discarded treasures they scavenged from the streets of Paris each night, establishing a permanent marketplace for the city's unwanted objects.