Is Paris going to have its own local currency?

A recent article from Le Figaro is talking about a new idea for Paris : having its own local money. Though some cities have their own local currency, it seems a challenging objective to create such a thing in a 10 million inhabitants city.

I recently watched the documentary Demain by Mélanie Laurent and Cyril Dion. Usually, films about the environment offer a pessimistic point of view on the future of our planet, but not this one. They split the documentary into six different chapters - the facts, agriculture, energy, economy, democracy and education. As you could guess, we're interested in the economical part. One starting point is the example of Totnes local currency, or Totnes Pound. In the film, we start with a funny fact: they have a twenty-one pound note in Totnes. Why? "Because you can, why not?", says Rob Hopkins, the founder of Transition Network, as movement created to inspire and help other cities to self-organise and create resilience.

That is the goal of a local currency. Keeping the money circling in the community helps local businesses to thrive, and nobody can speculate with this kind of money, because it's simply useless to be a billionaire in Totnes pounds! It's also a good insurance against the volatility of the currencies that are traded on the global market. An ecosystem can be resilient only if it is diverse. The local money in Totnes is not meant to replace the british pound, but to accompany it and build this diversity that communities can rely on. The economic backlash of a falling national currency could be lessened by a complementary currency.

Another example of local money is the WIR Bank in Siwtzerland, created after the global recession in 1934. It does not have the same role as the Totnes pound and its cousins - this currency is exchanged today between 62,200 members across Switzerland. These members are mostly businesses who use this currency for exchanging goods and services. It has been fully operational since its creation, even in times of economic crisis, although it faced some difficulties. Here is a short article explaining the history of  the WIR.

So why not in Paris? Hopefully, we'll have our own by fall 2017! But the project is still in progress today, and this would be the first capital city to have its own currency.

The rise of collaborative consumption

To anyone interested in collaborative consumption, I highly recommend the book written by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers "What's Mine is Yours : the Rise of Collaborative Consumption". Today we have a general idea of what collaborative consumption can be. Especially with all these new startups based on resource-sharing such as BlaBlaCar and Airbnb.
But the concept of collaborative consumption goes far beyond that, with a lot of different implementations. The first part of this book is aimed at making you realize how harmful massive consumerism is. We need to change our destructive habits. Moving from owning individually to sharing can be a good start!

Here are two TED talks to get you started with collaborative consumption, by one of the authors of the book, Rachel Botsman.

The case for collaborative consumption 

The currency of the new economy is trust

Want more? There is a great research library on collaborativeeconomy.com

Couchsurfers

My first experience with Couchsurfing was not as a guest nor a host, but just attending a meeting in Paris. Though I arrived a few minutes late, I was the first to enter the crowded bar on the canal Saint-Martin. But after a few minutes, I noticed someone scrolling through a long page on his smartphone, with the traditional color scheme of orange and white of the Couchsurfing.com website. I decided to ask him if by chance he was here for the meeting. And there began my first discussion with a couchsurfer and my discovery of this curious community. I met people from various origins, a Swedish-Iranian, a Dutch,  and so many others.

Different profiles

They had all different stories, different reasons for coming to France. Some were just working, some were just travelling. Most of them had very few acquaintances in Paris and were looking for social connections. But apparently, most people on Couchsurfing didn't stay friends in real life, even if they shared good moments together during meetings.

A lot of people just use Couchsurfing.com as a convenient way to find somewhere to sleep for free, will all the advantages of having a local host who can help you during your stay. Most of the requests I had were from students traveling in Europe and making a stop in Paris, for a few days.

But there are also the couchsurfing addicts. The hosts who organise all their social life around this social network. I had a guest who slept at a host who was continuously hosting people, and several at once (250/300 a year! ). On the other side, there are the addicted travellers. I hosted someone who had been travelling for 6 months, from America through Israel, Palestine, Greece, the Balkans, Italy and then France. He was planning to go to Mexico then – a year with Couchsurfing, meeting people from all over the world (and travelling with little costs too). It was so interesting that I tried to interview him, but the conversation shifted to a different subject.

Not only for backpackers!

There are definitely not only backpackers on this website, most of the members are just travellers who want to have a different experience of the city by staying with locals. Money isn't the only advantage of couchsurfing. The fact that you can sleep somewhere for free is not the only reason to use this network. The approach to travelling was different for all the people I met. They didn't want to just see the Eiffel Tower, go to the Louvre and then come back late and go to sleep. They usually spent a lot of time with me, and they wanted to have a taste of local culture.

A brief history of Couchsurfing

1999 

Casey Fenton buys a cheap ticket from Boston to Iceland. To find housing, he sends an email to 1500 students, asking if they could host him. The idea of a community using the internet to help travelers find a couch to sleep on was born. 

2004

Going online: after a few years, the beta version of the Couchsurfing website is online. One mission: "Creating a better world, one couch at a time."

2006

Couchsurfing 2.0: in June 2006, Couchsurfing experienced multiple computer problems that led to a database loss. The service shut down, apparently irrevocably according to Casey in an email to the members. But the members didn't want to give up the community, which relied a lot on the website: the Collective of Montreal started the development of "CouchSurfing 2.0", which relaunched in July 2006.

2011

Incorporation: before 2011, CouchSurfing was managed by a non-profit organization, and for many members, it was part of the identity of the community. Then its status changed, and Couchsurfing International Inc. registered as a B-Corporation (notice the change in the name, from CouchSurfing to Couchsurfing). Here is some information on what a B-Corporation is.
Some were disappointed by this radical change, which meant that the organization couldn't be managed by its members themselves anymore, but by employees. Despite the disappointment of some of its most active members, the community and its spirit lasted.
Today, Couchsurfing is putting more and more effort into increasing the safety of travelers and hosts, by changing the recommendation rules on the website for example. Many argue that it hurts the community by putting too many restrictions and rules, but it's also building more trust between members.

Some statistics

Sadly, I couldn't find recent statistics, the statistics page of the website doesn't exist anymore. The 2014 statistics about users, gender and the variety of locations and languages are presented nicely here. Today, the website has 12 million members, spread across 200,000 cities in the world. 
You can even find an article about "The Role of Geography in CouchSurfing Social Network Activities"! 

More to come soon!