Paris will name a street after Navalny

And it will be near the Russian embassy

At the end of last week, the Paris City Council took the unanimous decision to name one street in the city after Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who tragically died in an Arctic prison in February. What’s more, the street will be near the Russian Embassy in Paris as a not-too-subtle sign of defiance in the face of the current regime in the Kremlin and its authoritarian policies.

The proposal first came from Francis Szpiner, ex-mayor of the 16th arrondissement in western Parisian, councillor of Paris and today senator of the French capital. It is in that same arrondissement where the Russian Embassy is also located and where the proposed street to be named is located.

The street in question would possibly be on the current Avenue Chantemesse, which lies on one side of the Russian Embassy and is 150 metres long with a park between both its traffic lanes. The media reports, however, do not specify exactly whether this will involve the renaming of the avenue or the naming of an alley in the park itself.

District with a Russian legacy

In the text proposal arguing for naming a street after Navalny, Mr Szpiner argued that many White Russian exiles had settled in the 16^th arrondissement following the civil war after the October Revolution on the country.

Mr. Navalny died because he had a certain idea of ​​what freedom should be…and became in Russia and beyond Russia a symbol of freedom”. Such a name would be a “way of supporting” “resistance” to a repressive Russian regime, explained Francis Szpiner, quoted by Le Parisien.

Following the popular opposition leader’s sudden death on 16 February, there was a worldwide outpouring of grief and in the wake of the news, there were several proposals in different Western countries to rename the streets where Russian embassies were located after Navalny.

Yet, it seems that Paris might be the first capital to follow through with that idea.