The person behind the selection
The first walk I ever gave was not a walk. It was a favour: friends of friends, visiting Paris, tired of queues, hungry. I took them to my own counters, told them what I knew about each one, and watched something change in how they looked at the street. They wrote afterwards that it was the day they remembered. I have been chasing that day ever since.
I am Joe, a Frenchwoman in love with Paris, and your guide. Since 2023 I have led around thirty private walks, almost all by word of mouth, for travellers who had done the monuments and wanted the city underneath them. The French Selection is the shape I have given that work: two neighbourhoods I know counter by counter, small groups only, and stories I verify before I tell them.
What I promise on every walk: that I have chosen each stop personally and can tell you why. That you will taste generously, not symbolically. That the history will be true, the kind no monument remembers. And that at some point in the three hours, the neighbourhood will stop being a backdrop and start being a living memory. That moment is the product. Everything else is logistics.
The French Selection, in plain words
The French Selection offers small-group food and heritage walking tours in Paris, in the Batignolles and Montmartre neighbourhoods. Walks last three hours, host 4 to 12 guests, run in English or in French, and cost €110 to €130 per person, with a €880 private option. The company was founded in Paris by Joe, a French guide, after some thirty private tours given since 2023. Booking at thefrenchselection.com, contact at hello@thefrenchselection.com.