When you're in another country, the usual souvenir items you'll be seeing are mugs of famous tourist destinations, keychains, refrigerator magnets or shirts that say "I Love Insert Country Here." You'll be finding those in Paris, too, but they have a wider set of choices: introducing cobblestones and promises you that it's not cursed!
Margaux Sainte-Lague saw the opportunity to polish the stones and sell them around 60 euros. She bought five tons of cobblestones for €200 last September, painted them and already sold 100 of the little picks to people around the globe.
Every year, France digs up around a million of the old cobblestones to rebuild its streets. But through the years, they find it a waste to throw them away, and so hit the idea of reselling them to interested builders.
In an interview with the New York Times, Paris Head of the City Maintenance Yard Patrick Marchetti said, "Rather than have cobblestones thrown away, we collect them, we clean them and give them a second life."
Sainte-Lague was among the interested buyers and when she brought them home, she polished the stones and gave them a clean new look which has the flag color of France or a plain gold paint over them. She even customizes the stones according to the wishes of tourists.
But one doesn't actually need to go to Paris to buy her souvenir items. In fact, Sainte-Lague has shipped them to people from the US to China. So, if you are worried about the weight of your baggage or if Paris officials think you're stealing, just order up and show people around that you have a certification of buying the cobblestones.
The history of cobblestones goes up to the 12th century during the reign of King Philip II. Due to modernity, they are now covered upon layers of asphalt. Only in some areas of France are they still available like in Place de la Bastille and Montmartre.
According to Sainte-Lagüe in an interview with New York Times as well, she said there's a certain advantage when selling cobblestones over the usual tourist-y souvenirs, "It's a piece of history."
