He claims his goal is simply to reach the finish line in Paris rather than be a contender for the green jersey, awarded to the winner of the points competition and frequently the prize for the best sprinter.

BBC: Understanding the Tour de France

During the course of the story, Kerbouchard sees the Islamic world at its peak, Byzantine in decline, and the small, delicate green shoots of intellectual ferment developing in Paris.

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For the best examples of this, we have to look to areas like Germany's Duisberg Nord Parc in the Ruhr Valley, or the beautiful green spaces of the Park Andre Citroen in Paris.

BBC: Martha Schwartz

Other avant-garde gardening clubs operate in cities like Paris, Berlin, Tokyo and New York, where the Green Guerrillas, one of the first guerrilla groups, was founded by artist Liz Christy in 1973.

CNN: Guerrilla gardeners green their city on secret moonlit missions

The French were annoyed when Joschka Fischer, Germany's Green foreign minister, announced without consulting his colleagues in Paris an entry date for the first batch of countries seeking to join.

ECONOMIST: Still the best of friends in the Franco-German motor? | The

Fast-forward to the recent past and every green blog worth its solar-powered servers was celebrating the bike-sharing program in Paris.

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