Avenue de La Motte Picquet

Arrondissements 7, 15

Numbers: 2

Demonstration September 1973 against Pinochet

Named in 1884 after Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de La Motte the road was first opened as the Avenue de l’Ecole Militaire in 1680.

The Chilean embassy was in a prime location at No. 2. It had previously been the private mansion of the Tour-d’Auvergne family.

Built in 1907 for Prince Henri de La Tour-d’Auvergne it was rented to the US Embassy until 1929 and then sold to Chile to become its Embassy

This is where Louis Aragon was allowed to take refuge for a few days on August 28 1939 by fellow poet and Communist, but also a diplomat there at the time, Pablo Neruda. Aragon had been attacked in the street by the extreme right-wing after the French Communist Party had been banned on August 25, two days after the Hitler-Stalin ‘Non-aggression Pact’.

In 1971 Neruda was named Ambassador to France, and he lived at No. 2 until the fascist coup in Chile in 1973.

The police attacked demonstrators protesting against the appointment by Pinochet of a new ambassador to France in March 1974

Jean Jaurès lived at No. 19 in the 1890s.

PLACES