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As the (former) colonial centre and the mythical City of Light, Paris occupies a prominent position in the Francophone African literary imagination. While the alleged centrality of Paris has been challenged by critical readings of texts that provincialise, suburbanise, and move beyond the French national framework altogether, the present article focuses on the peripheralisation of Paris from the perspective of “mobile urban peripherality.” Adapting a mobility humanities perspective for use in a postcolonial literary analysis, the article concentrates on aeromobile portrayals of Paris as perceived by the figure of the newcomer-air traveller in a set of Francophone African literary texts dating from the mid-twentieth century to the present. The shift in viewing position enabled by the perspective of the newcomer in the context of aeromobility produces peripheralised representations of Paris, challenges romanticised ideas about the city, and underlines the role of mobility in making meaning out of urban spaces. My reading also extends aeromobility from its use in the air to the action on the ground. By focusing on African literary texts, the intention of the article is to contribute to enhancing dialogue between mobilities research and postcolonial literary studies.