Roswell, nouveau Paris de metro?

Partial credit — or blame — for Alliance popping up in the quintessentially American city (Teddy Roosevelt’s mom was born in Roswell, Sherman’s troops occupied it) has to go to metro Atlanta’s nightmarish traffic scenario. Francophiles find the Midtown location just too difficult to get to.

Whatever. The Roswell natives couldn’t be plus happy.

“I would love for Roswell to be the next Paris,” Mayor Jere Wood said half-jokingly. “But it took [the real] Paris a thousand years to get there, so it might not happen during my administration.”

Truthfully, many see Alliance Francaise’s arrival on Jones Drive as confirmation that the city of 88,000 people is firmly on the map as a sophisticated place to live, work and enjoy the arts.

“It’s a validation of the direction we’re going in,” said Wood, who detects the seeds of a “cultural Paris” growing outside the Perimeter in Roswell’s wealth of galleries, residential theater and performing groups and international restaurants.

Founded 100 years ago, Alliance Francaise d’Atlanta now boasts a database of 5,000 people who take classes or attend events at its Colony Square headquarters.

That will remain the site for cultural programs and French classes for all ages and proficiencies. (There’s even a “Bebe Alliance” class for 1- to 2-year-olds on Saturday mornings) For now, Alliance-Roswell will offer beginner and intermediate classes in grammar and conversation for adults (ages 16 and over). A French language camp for youths is planned for this summer.

Mon dieu. How things have changed.

“I moved here in 1973 when Roswell was a village with 5,000 people, a restaurant and a Dairy Queen,” said Janet Russell, a travel consultant. Now, she enthused, there are Italian, Greek and Japanese restaurants nearby and a coffee house selling Rwandan “fair wage” coffee right next door to the Alliance satellite.

Alliance Francaise seems equally delighted to have ended up in Roswell — even if one of its primary reasons for expanding northward isn’t quite as romantic as, say, Paris in the springtime:

Atlanta traffic.

How you say?

Eeet stinks.

“Many people were telling us — sometimes in the evenings, it was difficult for them to drive to Midtown,” said Ségolène de Marolles, marketing and communications director for Alliance Francaise d’Atlanta. “They asked, ‘Why do you not have a location north of the Perimeter?’ So we decided to start looking.”

That search eventually led to a charming Mediterranean cottage-style building with a red-tiled front porch that sits along a quiet lane just off busy Highway 9.

“We like the aspect of being in what almost looks like a little country house,” de Marolles said.

The French footprint continues to grow here, said Claire Collobert, press attache for the Consulate General of France in Atlanta. There are about 100 French-affiliated companies in Georgia now (up from 80 in 2007) and the French population in the Southeast has grown by about 20 percent annually since 2010 — much of it in metro Atlanta.

Many Atlantans work for companies or other organizations (CARE, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) with significant presence in the 50-plus countries where French is spoken.

More than half the people who take language classes at Alliance Francaise d’Atlanta do so for professional reasons, de Marolles said.

Alliance-Roswell students will be greeted by a cheery Eiffel Tower on the front door. And, better still, quick access to Georgia 400.

“Someone who came to the open house told me she didn’t finish her session [of French classes] at Midtown because there was too much traffic after work to make it in to the city,” de Marolles recalled.

“She said, ‘OK, now I want to start over here. Now, it’s like 10 minutes from my house.’”