Music, art and books: what you’re missing in Paris

Music stars including 50 Cent, Mary J Blige (pictured), Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake and golden oldies Diana Ross, Neil Young, Santana, and Lionel Richie are performing in Paris in the next few weeks.

Just as in so many other cities across the world, gig-going has become an expensive business aimed at older audiences keen on a nostalgia hit.

A glimmer of hope comes in the form of the Jardin d’Acclimatation, which is hosting a series of open-air concerts featuring mostly young US and Canadian musicians from 14 June to the end of July. Entrance to the park near the Bois de Boulogne is just €7.

The Pompidou Centre is gearing up to close at the end of September for a five-year renovation.

One of its last exhibitions will feature the Turner prize-winning German artist Wolfgang Tillmans, who famously designed a set of 25 posters to encourage youngsters to vote Remain in the Brexit referendum.

Tillmans, a committed Europhile, fears rising anti-EU sentiment across the continent. “The big problem with Europe … is that we tend to take things for granted. When we have freedom of speech, living in a democracy, we get used to it, and we no longer can even imagine having to defend our fundamental rights. Over the past 30 years, we have assumed, wrongly, that there was a global consensus regarding freedom, rule of law and civic rights,” he said.

The artist, whose exhibition will include new installations, photography and videos, tried to strike an upbeat tone. “We are living in dark times, yet we must not give up hope … We need to continue the fight,” he said.

France’s most famous fictional detective, Inspector Jules Maigret – Poirot, remember, is Belgian – is being given a literary makeover next month when Penguin Classics releases new editions of 12 of his murder mysteries with strikingly redesigned covers.

To accompany the release, Penguin is compiling a list of locations featured in Georges Simenon novels. These include the Paris police HQ on the bank of the River Seine and Place Dauphine, site of Maigret’s favourite but fictional watering hole La Brasserie Dauphine. As Margaret Atwood wrote of Simenon’s settings: “The corpses are incidental, it’s the food that counts.”