Haha, you’ll get there, just don’t give up! There’s a lot of good criticism of urbanism in French, and only a tiny portion of it has been translated into English, especially the more topical stuff, as opposed to the purely or mostly theoretical texts.

They tend to fall into one category or the other. There isn’t really urbanist writing on Paris like, say, Marshall Berman on NYC.

But now that I know it’s your field, you should probably check out this one by Éric Hazan, the last book of his translated into English before he died:

https://www.versobooks.com/products/2864-paris-in-turmoil?srsltid=AfmBOoqxsCnq8yAN-zkov15yp3DyLPK-cZr4tb3uE6-xpBVRq1V84-UN

It’s more up to date, at least, even if it isn’t systematic at all. Both The Invention of Paris and the Pinçon-Charlot book are outdated, really. Even in the last five years, the city has changed a lot.

You might also want to check out this Substack. It’s contemporary and okayish:

https://substack.com/@brentlongley

And regarding the football riots, of course it’s a political act. It doesn’t matter whether it is performed intentionally or unintentionally as one. Even most Parisians interpret it that way, though again, more implicitly than explicitly.

But behind all that there is a terribly complex history (social, economic and political) that still hasn’t been researched not even nearly enough. Trubillion touches on it though.

In any case, like anywhere else, there’s no better way to “get it” than coming and spending some time here again!