Student events in Paris

The Fete de la Musique is the easiest event to plan around because the date never changes: every 21 June, all over France, anyone can play music in the street and the whole city turns into an open-air stage from late afternoon until late at night. In Paris you will find concerts on squares, in bars, in courtyards and outside metro stations, all free. It is the single best night of the year to wander, meet people and discover neighbourhoods. The official site publishes the programme and the rules each year.

Nuit Blanche is the City of Paris free contemporary-art night: for one evening, museums, monuments and public spaces fill with installations, performances and concerts, most of them free and open late into the night. It draws huge crowds and is a great low-cost way to see the city differently with friends. The exact date is set by the City each year (it has run in autumn historically and the recent anniversary edition was held in June), so check the official page rather than assuming.

Each summer the City sets up Paris Plages: free beaches, deckchairs, concerts, open-air cinema, sport and workshops along the Seine (Parc Rives de Seine) and at the Bassin de la Villette, usually running from early July to late August. It is free, central and ideal if you are in Paris over the summer break. Dates and the full programme are published on paris.fr ahead of each season; use the City agenda below to confirm them.

The student year starts in September with welcome weeks on every campus and a wave of integration events. A national highlight is the Nuit des Etudiants du Monde (NEM), a free welcome night for international students held between September and November in many French cities, organised with the CROUS, universities and the ESN network. The local Erasmus Student Network section also runs welcome desks, city tours and a weekly meetup. Watch your university calendar and the ESN agenda from late August onwards.

Paris has a few neighbourhoods students gravitate to in the evening, each with its own feel:

• Oberkampf and Republique (11th): rue Oberkampf is a Parisian byword for a night out, with a dense mix of music bars, wine bars and clubs.
• Bastille (11th/12th): bar-hopping around rue de Lappe and rue de la Roquette, easy to drift from a drink to a dance floor.
• Butte-aux-Cailles (13th): a village-like hill with small, lively, relaxed bars and restaurants, popular with a young crowd.
• Canal Saint-Martin (10th): canal-side drinks and casual evenings, big in summer.
• Rue Mouffetard / Latin Quarter (5th): a long student-favourite street of cheap eats and bars.

For the recurring student party scene, the ESN Paris section runs regular international-student soirees, a weekly meetup and trips, which is the easiest and friendliest way to go out with other newcomers. For one-off concerts, club nights, peniche (river-boat) parties and rooftop events, do not trust unofficial lists: check the City of Paris live agenda, filtered for the evening. And whatever you do, plan how you get home (next section).

The Paris metro stops running in the small hours, so the key thing to know is the Noctilien night-bus network, run by Ile-de-France Mobilites with RATP and SNCF. It runs roughly from around 00:30 to 05:30 every night, with dozens of lines fanning out from a few central hubs (around Chatelet and the big railway stations) to the suburbs, so you can usually get home even after the metro has closed. Your normal Navigo pass or t+ ticket is valid on it. A simple habit: before you go out, look up which Noctilien line passes near where you are staying. Plan your return route in advance, travel with friends where you can, and keep enough battery to navigate.

Do not rely on second-hand lists. Bookmark these official agendas and check them weekly:

• Que faire a Paris (paris.fr/quefaire): the City of Paris agenda, filterable by date, type and arrondissement, with a free weekly newsletter, including evenings out.
• CROUS de Paris: student culture programme, the Summer Crous Festival, and student-priced events.
• CIDJ agenda: the public youth-information service lists job forums, workshops and student events across the region.
• ESN Paris: weekly meetups, trips and soirees for international students.