(en) France, Organisation Communiste Libertarie (OCL) - Courant Alternatif #246 - "Le Grand Paris: gentrification and destructive projects, " followed by "Countering the capital of Capital" (fr)

(en) France, Organisation Communiste Libertarie (OCL) -
Courant Alternatif #246 - "Le Grand Paris: gentrification and
destructive projects, " followed by "Countering the capital of
Capital" (fr) [machine translation]

Competition between territories, land and property speculation, gentrification of 
neighborhoods, implementation aberrant projects, loss of farmland: these are some 
little-known aspects of the Grand Paris. Highlight this reality to oppose it is still a 
task to carry out. ---- Launched in 2007 and endorsed by a law in June 2010, the "Grand 
Paris" is a development of the Ile-de-France, which, according to its proponents, seeks to 
strengthen the "attractiveness" and "competitiveness" the "capital region", already the 
most prosperous of France, that is to say, ever submit territories to the global economic 
logic of war in a perpetual quest for growth. Naturalized in policy discourse, this 
process of confrontation between "city-worlds" is presented as a fact without identifiable 
cause "[The Grand Paris] is the gateway to France as part of globalization. Today, it is 
more the Val-de-Marne, Seine-Saint-Denis, Paris, Hauts-de-Seine in rivalry. It competes 
with Shanghai, Hamburg, Berlin, London, Rome, "explains the president of the National 
Assembly, whose words resonate flawless with those of Nicolas Sarkozy in his speech on the 
Grand Paris April 2009.

Megalomaniacs and administrative upheaval projects

Specifically, the "metropolisation" francilienne based on a set of large projects, the 
most media is the "Grand Paris Express", a new transportation network of 205 km of track 
and 72 stations, which should gradually emerge between 2020 and 2030. It is also based on 
a set of territorial development agreements (CDT) - planning documents that emphasize a 
score of "strategic" territories for economic, social and urban. However, any development 
project, promoted by the same arguments of competitiveness and by the same promises of job 
creation is easily attached to the dynamics of Greater Paris. More recently, the law of 
modernization of territorial public action and affirmation of metropolises (MAPTAM) 
imposed a new institutional organization in Ile-de-France (and France) by creating a new 
type of inter The metropolis: from 1 January 2016, the municipalities of Paris and the 
Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne will be grouped in the "metropolis of 
Greater Paris" that will capture most of supra-municipal powers (housing, spatial 
planning, urban policy, etc.). Municipalities also have the obligation to come together in 
new public establishments for cooperation of at least 300,000, "territories", which will 
replace the old towns. Without legal personality, these "territories" will be deprived of 
fiscal resources to the benefit of the metropolis whose "metropolitan council" will be the 
governing body.

For whom the Grand Paris?

While officially 550,000 households were still applicants for social housing in December 
2013, the experts of the Grand Paris are considering an increase in the regional 
population of up to 1.1 million people by 2030. Promise to build 70,000 new homes per year 
on average failing to be held (less than 40,000 per year over the decade 2001-2011), the 
government has recently decided to provide "exceptional powers of urbanism "to accelerate 
the construction where technocratic" territorialisation housing supply "was decided - 
particularly in the dormitory towns where it proposes to further increase the population 
(remote job areas celle- it will then "benefit" of the new subway lines to work off). 
Extending the process of "gentrification" beyond the limits of the device, the Grand Paris 
promotes programs of "urban renewal" and "fight against unhealthy", the result - if not 
the goal - is eviction of the popular classes to Great crown or regional periphery and 
their replacement with more solvent and more appropriate to service activities that are 
developed there populations. While the region already concentrates a very high proportion 
of high-skilled occupations (31% of the workforce against 14% on average in the rest of 
the country), the city puts forward the creation of the same type jobs deemed essential to 
strengthening its competitiveness, which does not fit the profile of the population but 
francilienne attract graduates from other regions. The promises are also based on a tamper 
numbers when we include collections of activities that are only movements of jobs.

Threatened farmland

Despite the rhetoric about the dense city, metropolization is also evident in urban 
sprawl. Several major projects are harmful to the iconic view. First, the desire to create 
a "Silicon Valley" in French focusing on the Saclay plateau, north of Essonne, colleges, 
research centers and businesses within a large "cluster" techno-scientific. The Saclay 
plateau and surrounding area already home to the CEA, the Paris center of nanotechnology 
development (NanoInnov) and a set of large industrial groups such as Thales, EADS and 
Renault, the gestation cluster that is built to work for the interests of these last. 
Saclay is a vast agricultural land renowned for its fertile soils. Mainly plowed by 
industrial agriculture, it is also home to organic farming experiments on a human scale 
and development of short supply chains. The construction of the cluster, with the forecast 
30,000 more inhabitants, urbanisera 400 ha of these lands. If the remaining 1300 ha are 
preserved in a smoky "sanctuary", there has to fear that the development of a line of the 
Grand Paris Express across the plateau still encourage more urban sprawl. In the Val 
d'Oise, near the Grand Roissy, they are also agricultural land are threatened by concrete.

At the heart of the Triangle de Gonesse, Auchan plans to build "Europa City", the largest 
shopping and leisure center in Europe that asserts competitor EuroDisney. This aberrant 
project is supported by local elected officials ("it creates jobs") and by the State which 
authorized the creation in the fields of a station of the Grand Paris Express, necessary 
to service the project. Associated with a real estate office complex, Europa City 
threatens 300 750 ha of agricultural land between the Triangle and also compete with very 
similar malls. But whatever the case, since it is not the major groups who will suffer but 
traders of their shopping galleries that pay their rent. Opposition to the Grand Paris is 
struggling to cope with the daily propaganda conveyed all the time. Apart from some 
institutional reviews, struggles and challenges exist locally - against the urban renewal 
projects of Ivry in Saint-Denis via Montreuil, against projects on the Saclay plateau, in 
the triangle of Gonesse or d other locations. But a comprehensive critique of the Grand 
Paris and cities, that can federate local opposition, can not drill (see next article).

Notes

1. - Claude Bartolone, France 5, February 2, 2014.

2. - The nearby towns of the "Big Crown" are also affected by similar forms of groupings 
directly imposed by the regional prefect.

3. - Regional Directorate and Interdepartmental accommodation and housing, Who asks for 
social housing in Ile-de-France, May 2014. 4. - Planning Institute of Planning 
Ile-de-France, Quick Note No. 598, July 2012.

5. - Press release of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Greater Paris, 13 October 2014.

6. - So so very vivid, Dominique Vernay, former research director of Thales and is 
francilienne promotion of nanotechnology, former president of the Systematic 
competitiveness cluster, chaired the "scientific cooperation foundation" that gate of the 
campus project in the heart of the cluster, and is a member of the Board of the Public 
Establishment Paris-Saclay whose mission is the overall development of the project.

7. - The difficulty shopping centers also allow them to obtain waivers to open much more 
often on Sundays.

"Countering the capital of Capital"

The great paris: this is a great project that should mobilize the world and yet shy 
mobilization, born here three years, continues to look for.

This difficulty is due because it is not a project but a dozen (Europa City, Village 
nature, Silicon Valley, etc...) in the same region. It is therefore not so much a big 
harmful project of a global capitalist planning project of an international metropolis. 
Two issues stand out: the maintenance of agricultural land and gentrification of the inner 
suburbs. Both the Grand Paris and Paris metropolis. So, it is not the same activists who 
campaign on the large crown and are on urban struggles in small periphery. On one side of 
the collective "citizens" to defend agricultural land with older people, the more settled, 
and on the other hand against gentrification radical militants grouped around squats. This 
disparity, the magnitude of the task, generational and sociological differences explain 
the difficulty of building an overall movement. The focus is to keep in mind with respect 
to the struggles that exist now for three years.

2012-2013, the birth of a resistance

The first founding act takes place in May 2O12, a meeting organized by the FRAP against 
nanotechnology and the draft Silicon Valley on the Saclay plateau leads to a coordination 
meeting different sites threatened Ile-de-France. This will be the COSTIF which is a 
liaison office between different Ile a true collective. Then the movement around Notre 
Dame des Landes will take off and land at the national land use issues. In July the COSTIF 
will also participate in the forum against big useless projects on the ZAD. Expulsions of 
winter will cause an influx of new activists in Paris. A debate is organized Lavoir 
Moderne Parisien and becomes a general meeting of 2OO people on the issue of Greater 
Paris. However the presence of elected officials and members of the institutional 
left-wing political parties create frustration and dissatisfaction of each other. How 
could it be otherwise when they are involved in the region and its development project? 
Then it will take the winter to a major initiative born. 6, 7 and 8 December, as part of a 
national day of action against the major harmful projects, a whole weekend of mobilization 
is organized against the Grand Paris; Friday, about thirty people build a fake ski slope 
Defense outside the headquarters of Auchan against the Europa City project on Saturday, 
more than 1OO people demonstrate in the fields on the Saclay plateau and Sunday 2OO people 
cross Ivry against the planned gentrification. Stock rather interesting though with this 
constant, only twenty people attended the three events, most polarizing their local struggle.

2014: Europa City, symbol of the struggle against the Grand Paris?

Remember it! Europa City is the most spectacular project in Ile-de-France, the largest 
shopping center in Europe coupled with a ski slope. Should we make THE symbol that will 
boost other struggles? In fact, this year the fight against Europa City took center stage 
with two major initiatives: 17 May 2O14, a national demonstration against Auchan projects 
is at Roubaix on the lands of the Mulliez family, which owns the multinational. 5OO people 
lined the head office in France N?chin in Belgium, home of the cited above; Europa City, 
Farm broths in Rouen, Decathlon in Orleans, project in the Vaucluse, more collective and 
parading in good humor thirty Parisians. Then the 2O and 21 September Alternatiba (the 
Marjolaine lounge alternative) is exported in Gonesse, constituting an attempt to mobilize 
all Ile-de-France on GPII open field: demonstration of 2OO people in the deserted village, 
concerts in the mud, skeletal traditional debates, the festival misses the target to 
impose a balance of power therefore. The political choices of the organizers with respect 
to grants and institutions have prevented the formation of a broad movement uniting all 
the possible components of this struggle. Beyond a little trashy side and mythical of the 
event, the weekend will nevertheless helped to emerge from anonymity Europa City.

2015: fighting against the Grand Paris itself

Le Grand Paris advance, and with it the promotion of debate: the opportunity for opponents 
to be heard. Suddenly, two initiatives were held in late December to mobilize the very 
center of power against the Grand Paris beyond the local struggles: November 27: The 
Minister of Research is announced at the House of architects during the development the 
Saclay plateau and Silicon Valley project. Potato distribution and questioning guests in 
suits and ties, "your future is not ours" November 29, 2014: Release organizes a forum 
"Own the Grand Paris"; ten people with banner and leaflets will host Hidalgo, Devedjian 
and all the cream of the enlightened bourgeoisie. The fight against them in Paris is 
there: fight tooth and nail against each project and try to unify both at the Great Crown 
against various projects, one of the Little Crown against the gentrication and finally all 
set against Greater Paris. Still lacks the founding event that would allow the fight to 
take off...

jpp

http://oclibertaire.free.fr/spip.php?article1636