PARIS — The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is gearing up for the holidays with all-new Christmas lights and the return of its traditional market, in the hopes of bringing back visitors deterred by images of looted stores and boarded-up windows during recent protests against student conditions and the high cost of living.
Cate Blanchett is scheduled to switch on the 32 miles of garlands wound across 400 trees in a ceremony on Nov. 22, the first under new Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire.
Marc-Antoine Jamet, president of the Comité des Champs-Élysées, is counting on the annual attraction to jumpstart foot traffic, which has been impacted by the fallout from the demonstrations on Oct. 17 and 24.
The organization, which groups 192 members including luxury brands, high street chains, sporting goods firms, restaurants and hotels, is working closely with Paris police chief Patrice Faure and private security firms to guarantee the safety of visitors, he said.
Last year’s Christmas illuminations drew 14.3 million people between Nov. 16 and Jan. 3, with a single-day record of 530,000 visitors on Dec. 27. “Of course, we’re hoping to set another record this year,” Jamet told a news conference on Wednesday.
Cate Blanchett
Greg Williams/Courtesy of Comité des Champs-Elysées
Annual footfall on the Champs-Élysées rose 10 percent in 2025 to 73 million visitors. In the first nine months of 2026, the famed thoroughfare has welcomed 49 million people, impacted by the conflict in the Middle East and the social unrest in France.
It has hosted more high-profile events than ever before, including the visit of Pope Leo XIV in September, the Viva Tech fair, the Chinese New Year parade and the arrival of the Tour de France, not to mention the annual Bastille Day military parade.
The Christmas market will return for the first time in 10 years with a new operator, event planner 2A Organisation. In addition to 200 wooden chalets, it will feature kid-friendly attractions like an ice-skating rink and a merry-go-round.
While long-term partner Blachere Illumination remains in charge of the lighting, this year’s display is all-new. The five-minute sound-and-music show, set to Max Richter’s reinterpretation of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” is scheduled every quarter of an hour.
And the avenue is preparing for the opening of several stores, including the arrival of Alo Yoga and the reopening of Swarovski and Pierre Hermé in new locations — not to mention Louis Vuitton, which is renovating a mammoth building for its new retailtainment flagship.
The poster for the 2026 Champs-Élysées Christmas illuminations.
Courtesy of Comité des Champs-Elysées
In the wake of rioting on Oct. 17 during which several of its boutiques were vandalized, the Comité des Champs-Élysées had called for urgent government action.
“The Champs-Élysées cannot become a battleground week after week,” it said in a statement on Oct. 18. “Our freedoms are under threat; our businesses have been destroyed; our investments wiped out; our employees traumatized; our customers deterred. Our property, our people and our initiatives must be protected — like those of all French citizens — by the public authorities entrusted with that responsibility.”
More than 1,100 stores nationwide were looted, trashed or torched that day, while almost 1,000 suffered lighter damage, according to preliminary figures released by the French Chambers of Commerce and Industry. It said revenues in city centers fell by up to 80 percent on protest days, while think tank IFRAP estimated the total damages at 1.1 billion euros.
But after a relatively peaceful second weekend of protests, Jamet struck a conciliatory tone, putting the emphasis on cooperation with the police prefecture and the other four organizations grouping high-end retailers in Paris: the Comité Saint-Honoré, Comité Montaigne, Comité Haussmann and Comité Vendôme.
In an interview with WWD, the executive explained why he’s banking on “clear-eyed vigilance and measured optimism” to draw back crowds to the city’s premier shopping hub.
WWD: How have the two Saturdays of protest impacted foot traffic on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in October?
Marc-Antoine Jamet: There have been four phases so far this year. The first was a period of very strong momentum, from January to March, which came to a halt when the war between Iran, Israel and the United States broke out. We saw a decline, then a recovery over the summer, particularly in some categories. Hotels were very pleased, and we started September on a strong note. It’s clear that we’ve now hit a stumbling block, but we believe Paris can recover, thanks to its resilience and appeal.
Clearly, there is a drop in foot traffic. But we believe we have two months to restore the situation, and that our holiday attractions are strong enough to bring people back.
WWD: When did you join forces with the four other Paris retail committees?
M.-A.J.: A year ago. The initial focus was urban planning and modernization. Then came dialogue with public authorities, with a debate among all the candidates for mayor of Paris, which was a very important moment.
Now we’re seeing a shared approach to security: the same standards should apply on Boulevard Haussmann, Rue Saint-Honoré, Place Vendôme, Avenue Montaigne and the Champs-Élysées. The chief of police has agreed. He has established a shared security channel that includes him, his chief aide and the heads of the five committees.
So, while we’re understandably concerned, we’re also encouraged by the exchanges we’re having with the group, the meetings we’ve had and the work that has been done on the ground.
We hope that resilience and common sense, and the three things we have called for — calm, dialogue and an end to violence — will be heard.
WWD: What further cooperation is planned with the police?
M.-A.J.: The chief of police wants to meet us in the coming days and bring together a large number of retailers to hear their views.
On our side, we’re standing behind his message and ensuring the five committees act in concertation: on opening and closing hours, on barriers and hoardings, and in our dealings with public authorities and the police.
WWD: You mentioned there are some issues on which you disagree with the chief of police. What are they?
M.-A.J.: The main issue is how often the avenue is closed to traffic for official visits, sometimes in addition to events such as football-club celebrations. We think the avenue is closed too often. As retailers, we’re affected by closures without compensation. That is the main point of disagreement between us and the chief of police: the notice periods, the way closures are handled and compensation.
Marc-Antoine Jamet
Sylvain Bachelot/Courtesy of Comité des Champs-Elysées
WWD: Have you been able to measure the economic impact of the protests, whether from damages or reduced opening hours?
M.-A.J.: We haven’t measured it, but the impact is real. The issue is not so much that some stores closed, because many chose to stay open and did so without any issues. There were fewer incidents on Oct. 24 than on Oct. 17. The problem is that fewer people are coming.
WWD: So you can’t quantify the impact yet?
M.-A.J.: We saw, for example, that business on the Sunday after Oct. 17 largely made up for the losses incurred because of the protests. We don’t have the figures yet, but I would say there were more people than on a typical Sunday.
That’s why we believe in resilience, calm and dialogue. We can see that when a peaceful Sunday follows a Saturday like that, the City of Paris does an extraordinary job of cleaning up. On parts of Avenue Montaigne and the Champs-Élysées, it looked as though nothing had happened. That also shows there was less looting and damage than some have suggested. There were highly visible incidents — construction barriers, fires and so on — but no apartment-building lobbies were set alight on the Champs-Élysées.
I’m optimistic. I call it clear-eyed vigilance and measured optimism. Clear-eyed vigilance means focusing on security and hoping things calm down. Measured optimism means looking at that Sunday, when more people came out. It means believing that what we’ve developed over the past five years around the holiday season will continue to work. And it means believing that calm and dialogue will return.
WWD: What about the Christmas market? Will there be additional security measures or limited opening hours?
M.-A.J.: We are recruiting 26 security staff to patrol the Christmas market around the clock. The market has been given the green light by the police prefecture, which has determined that it meets all the necessary security requirements.
WWD: Despite the broader context, do you still hope the Christmas lights will draw record numbers this year?
M.-A.J.: Despite the war in the Middle East, real pressure on people’s purchasing power and fuel prices, we’ve managed to attract around 50 million people in roughly eight months. So what’s going to prevail? Anxiety, uncertainty and panic? Or the longer-term trend, which clearly points to a strong recovery for the Champs-Élysées and the return of Parisians and residents of the wider Paris region?
I hope the second trend prevails, and I’m doing what I can to make that happen: putting on a beautiful light show and a superb Christmas market.
#ChampsÉlysées #Banks #Cate #Blanchett #Holiday #Lights #Draw #Crowds