Parisist has said before that the Champs-Élysées is for chumps. And though we enjoy poking a bit of fun, we still must admit that the historic avenue is mostly a playground for tourists and for media-circus events: shirtless men, long gamer lines at midnight, and guys on bikes who ride in circles on cobblestones...

When we asked you if you thought the Champs-Élysées was either a representation of Paris Life or a Tourist Mall in December, you agreed with us and chorus'd in unison, "MALL!" (Well, alright, three of you agreed, but we're guessing those three represented a large silent majority.)

Well, now an article in the International Herald Tribune is asking the same thing. Why? Because one month later, there are reports that Paris is reportedly pushing back on the 'banalization' of the Champs-Élysées.

Following up on a Clipperton Developpement study of the grand avenue -- in which the consultancy recommended that Paris immediately "ensure the avenue stays what the mayor's office called 'a symbol throughout the world of the Parisian art of living,'" -- Paris is taking action:

The first step was a decision last month to ban the Swedish clothing giant H&M from opening a megastore on the avenue. The decision is intended to slow the invasion of retail stores and to preserve what is left of the diverse character of the most visited site in France after the Eiffel Tower.

Though we fear that it may be too late to change the course of Champs-Élysées' over-commercialization (Gap, the Disney Store, McDonald's, Nike, the Virgin Megastore and Sephora are already well-entrenched,) Parisist was amazed at some of the real estate numbers that were included in the piece. Jean-Jacques Schpoliansky, whose Cinema le Balzac is around the corner from the famous strip, said that his rent is 15 times what it was in 1973. (We're curious as to what the rent was in in 1935 when his grandfather opened the theater.)

In fact, the Champs- Élysées is "the most expensive strip of real estate in Europe and the third most expensive in the world, after Fifth Avenue in New York and Causeway Bay in Hong Kong." The price? A high of "$1.2 million a year for 93 square meters."

With such daunting real estate costs, we can hardly imagine anyone other than large retail corporations with the pocketbook to rent space along the Champs- Élysées. But only time will tell if Paris' new attempts to protect the "soul" of one of its historic districts will have any effect.

Photo of Louis Vuitton's Disneyland-proportioned storefronts in 2004 by Half Crazy Girl on flickr. Photo of the Champs-Élysées crowds in December, 2006 by Palagret on flickr.