Opening the Mic

As I walked past the barbershops and dimly lit bars on the right bank of the Seine, young men, mostly Malian and Ivorian, called out, offering manicures and haircuts. The east-central boroughs of the tenth and eighteenth arrondissements of Paris are a haven for African touts, Turkish cafes, Pakistani shops, migrant tenements, hipster joints and a few shady ones too. But when I reached the Comédia, a concert hall built in 1858, the crowd queuing on the pavement was posh, fashionable and as mixed race as it can get in Paris. The audience of over six hundred people was here to watch Fary Lopes, a 28-year-old comedian who is one of the biggest stars of the French stand-up scene.

“We have a problem here in France,” Fary said during his act. “We don’t say we love our country enough.” The comedian, whose parents came