Saint-Ouen flea market

The Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen stretches across hectares of chaotic, narrow alleys lined with thousands of stalls. It began in the late nineteenth century when ragpickers, forced out of Paris by urban renewal, set up their finds just beyond the city walls. They sold discarded furniture, scraps of metal, and old clothes to the working class. Today, high-end antique dealers operate alongside casual collectors in a sprawl that remains the largest antique market in the world.