If you're considering staying at a Premiêre Classe, you already have low expectations. This place won't exceed them. On the positive side, it's quite centrally located -- twelve minutes' walk from the railway station, less than five from Place de la République. The reception desk is manned twenty-four hours a day, a comparative rarity for this chain. Otherwise it has little going for it. The somewhat decrepit rooms emit a powerful odour of bleach, cigarette smoke and mould, immense quantities of which I found growing in the shower cabinet. As is typical of Première Classe rooms, the bathroom soap dispenser was empty (experienced travellers bring their own). Bedlinens and towels, while not stained, were uniformly grey. The wi-fi is so slow as not to be worth bothering about. All told, it's the sort of place where even the less fastidious traveller, attracted by the low price, will want to keep his or her stay to an irreducible minimum.