Paris’s oldest food market, Le Marché Couvert des Enfant-Rouges, has burned down.
Lt Col Pierre de Bouvier, of the Paris fire service, said the landmark had been “completely destroyed”. “There is nothing left – all the stalls have burnt down,” he added.
Ariel Weil, mayor of Paris Centre, said that the market in the 3rd arrondissement had been “totally gutted”. He posted a photograph showing several fire engines at the scene.
“Fire under control but market completely destroyed,” he added in his message on Monday morning.
“We’re devastated,” he said, adding that about 20 traders had lost their stalls.
The cause of the fire, which mobilised some 150 firefighters and about 50 vehicles, is not yet known. The first emergency calls were made at 4.15am on Monday.
With the market nestled between blocks of flats, Mr Weil said: “There’s a lot of emotion and grief, but also a sense that we’ve escaped the worst.”
“We have the fire under control, so it won’t spread beyond the covered market,” he added in the early hours of the morning, noting that the market’s “steel structure” had “partially collapsed inside”. One firefighter suffered minor injuries.
The Enfants-Rouges market was founded in 1615 under King Louis XIII of France and took its name from a former hospital-orphanage established nearby in 1536 by King François I of France’s sister, Marguerite de Navarre. The orphans were clothed in red garments.
The hospital closed in 1772, and the market was named in its memory at the end of the 18th century. At the time, it featured a well, butchers’ stalls and a stable to supply the neighbourhood with fresh milk.
It was listed as a historic monument in 1982 and narrowly escaped being turned into a multi-storey car park in the 1990s.
After six years of restoration work, the new Enfants-Rouges market reopened in 2000, bringing together market gardeners, dairy vendors, florists, restaurateurs, caterers and wine merchants.
With its 19th-century-style iron beams and glass roofs, it was famed for its international food stalls in the fashionable Haut Marais district of Paris.
Visitors entered through an ancient arcade to find stalls selling charcuterie and cheeses, flowers, and dishes from Morocco, Italy, Lebanon and Japan.
This year, Food & Wine, a US magazine, ranked it the fifth-best food market in the world after polling more than 400 culinary and travel professionals.
It was beaten by London’s Borough Market, which came first, Bangkok’s Chatuchak Market, Lyon’s Halles Paul Bocuse and Mexico City’s La Merced.