THE LOUVRE, the invalides and a legion of other magnificent public buildings shine with the cleanliness of decades of proud civic attentiveness. The Metro and the buses run swiftly, regularly and on time. The cross town motorway speeds discreetly and often completely hidden along the Seine's right bank. The streets are washed twice a day from sluices under the footpaths.
The city's rubbish is whisked away from neat portable trolleys outside apartment and office blocks every evening.
For a citizen of the scruffy, litter strewn, fume filled capital of Ireland it is, at first sight, something of a revelation. Returning to live in Paris after a gap of nearly a quarter of a century, especially if one arrives during a crisp, sunny week in early April, is a most agreeable experience.
But behind the splendid facades seen by tourists, Parisians are increasingly unhappy about their quality of life in the world's best loved city.
The government statistical agency has reported that since 1990 the Ile de France region, which covers the 2.1 million people in Paris itself and the six million who live in its vast suburbs, has been losing residents at an average rate of 68,000 per year, double the exodus in the 1980s.
Until the mid 1970s the migration was in the opposite direction and had been virtually since the city was founded 16 centuries ago. And it is not just older and retired people who are leaving 38 per cent are in their thirties, many of them couples with young families.
Economically, too, the city is shrinking. As recently as 1989 optimistic commentators were forecasting that Paris, because of its geographical position and modern infrastructure, would become the economic and financial capital of the new Europe.
However, the economic crisis of the early 1990s hit Paris particularly hard. The region lost 175,000 jobs between 1991 and 1993. The building boom of recent decades most of it sensitively situated so as not to spoil the historic centre slowed almost to a complete halt because of the huge surplus of office space.
This has particularly affected many handsome older buildings, now thought unsuitable as offices by modern firms. These prefer to go to purpose built offices in the suburbs, of which the most dramatic example is the huge futuristic complex of La Defence Since 1989 Paris has been losing 30,000 jobs a year as firms move their headquarters out into the suburbs, with the industrial, construction and commercial sectors particularly affected. Between
1990 and 1995 5,000 shops disappeared.
Living in Paris is an expensive business. When shopping for most food or household goods I can expect to pay 30 per cent to 100 per cent more than I would in Dublin. Flat prices remain high, although they have fallen by nearly 25 per cent sin& the boom peaked in 1989-1990. However a small three roomed flat in a seedy area near one of the railway stations still costs around £100,000.
Such prices have meant that where 25 years ago working class and middle class, young and old, poor young and old, artisan and professional, lived more or less side by side, the historic city, apart from a few pockets, has increasingly been taken over by the young, single, highly educated and well heeled. Recent increases in property tax have not helped.
Then there is the pollution. Paris has little manufacturing industry so in what is probably the most car mad city in Europe with around six million car owners in the Paris region most of this comes from the almighty automobile.
In the early seventies the then president, Georges Pompidou, pronounced that "the city must adapt itself to the car."
This policy led to the construction of one of the continent's most extensive suburban motorway systems. Even as tourists are marvelling at the efficient public transport system in the city centre, scores of thousands of weary Parisians are regularly stuck in lengthy traffic jams on those motorways and their access roads on their way to and from work.
HOWEVER, until recently environmental consciousness among Parisians has been low compared with their fellow city dwellers elsewhere in northern Europe. This started to change in 1992 with the election of the first significant batch of Green representatives to the Ile de France regional council.
But in the city itself things only really started to move last summer, following a series of alarming air pollution alerts, leading to street demonstrations in areas where the ozone levels were highest. Pollution was one of the issues in the municipal elections which followed last year's presidential victory of Jacques Chirac, the long serving Mayor of Paris.
The alerts gave a momentary boost since stalled to plans by the new Environment Minister, Corinne Lepage, to bring in a new "law on the air." Mr Chirac's deputy and successor as mayor, Jean Tiberi, has promised a number of minor reforms, including two cross city cycle paths (cycling on the main streets, given the furious haste of most drivers, is a hazardous business). But there are no plans to restrict traffic. The city's prefect of police claimed last summer that only an impossible reduction of at least 50 per cent in traffic levels would reduce pollution.
Ms Lepage's proposal for an anti pollution tax on fuels has been blocked by her cabinet colleagues. An opinion poll in the popular daily Le Parisien earlier this month showed that only 58 per cent of French people were prepared to pay one centime (0.12p) more per litre of petrol to finance antipollution measures.