At the Immigration Museum, an exhibition on the suburbs and for the suburbs
The Palais de la Porte-Dorée has just finished its exhibition "Banlieues chéries," which aimed to decipher the stereotypes associated with the outlying areas of cities. The "New York Times" visited the exhibition to witness this unprecedented museum success, which has also been acclaimed by young people.
Until the last day of the “Beloved Suburbs” exhibition, on August 17, 2025, the Museum of the History of Immigration in Paris “drew crowds,” writes The New York Times . Ségolène Le Stradic and Catherine Porter, the two journalists who cover French news for the American newspaper, visited twice to bear witness to this.
The reason? An exhibition called "Darling Suburbs" was a resounding success. But not with just any audience, the two journalists note. "Most of the visitors didn't fit the typical profile of Parisian museum-goers: they were young and racialized."
Opened on April 11, this exhibition at the Palais de la Porte-Dorée, in the 12th arrondissement of the capital, had a simple objective: “To fight against prejudices about the suburbs, which are associated in France with poverty, social housing, immigration and conflicts with the police.” But if the museum can boast of having had an unprecedented success – more than 150,000 visitors in four months, more than double the museum’s average – it is also because it succeeded in reaching a different audience, observe the two editors.
Well helped by “influencers on TikTok and Instagram won over by their visit”, “Banlieues chéries” also had po
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