Protest mounts against urban renovation operations

“People are anxious, especially the elderly,” says Monique Torres. In Pessac, in the Bordeaux suburbs, this 73-year-old lady has been fighting for years against the urban renovation project in her Saige district.

Led by Bordeaux Métropole, it aims to destroy three 18-storey towers and part of a three-storey building, i.e. 373 housing units, to dedensify and produce a “new offer of 260 diversified housing units” according to the lessor.

“We are destroying 373 social housing units good for the service for a green flow,” deplores Monique Torres, member of a group of tenants opposed to the project, who denounces an operation of “gentrification”, that is to say eviction poor residents for the benefit of a wealthier population.

“Not for us”

Arguments found almost everywhere in France in the comments of opponents of urban renovation projects.

“In very impoverished neighborhoods, gentrification is not really there. It comes into play when we are in neighborhoods already caught up in development dynamics,” sociologist Marie-Hélène Bacqué explains to AFP, as in Aubervilliers or La Courneuve, in a suburb close to Paris, or around the Grand Paris Express stations.

“It mainly reflects a great concern among residents: +we are transforming our neighborhood, we are going to improve it, but who is it for? It’s not for us,” says the researcher at Paris-Ouest Nanterre University.

The Appuii association (Alternatives for urban projects here and internationally) has identified 44 contested projects throughout France, whether or not supported by Anru. “But there are many more,” says Siamak Shoara, project manager at the association.

It is part of the “Stop Anru demolitions” collective, which emerged at the beginning of the year and brings together local initiatives from residents of working-class neighborhoods.

“We have seen an upsurge in protests following the Covid period, since many of the projects were concerted by video, or not concerted. And so, we are currently arriving at the start of these projects,” observes Siamak Shoara.

“It had already started before,” he says, however. “We saw less and less budget devoted to these consultations, but Covid was a pretext for many donors or cities to reduce access to information, reduce participation, and these are things that remained After."

“Crucial” rehousing

“The feeling I have is that of the 450 neighborhoods in which we finance urban renovation projects, the vast majority of projects go well, when they have been the subject of co-construction with the inhabitants and where elected officials work on projects with the inhabitants", tempers the general director of Anru, Anne-Claire Mialot, to AFP.

According to a Harris Interactive survey commissioned by Anru, 62% of the 700 residents of priority neighborhoods surveyed believe that urban renewal programs have a positive effect on their living conditions. But a significant minority, 18%, find them to have a negative effect.

Anne-Claire Mialot concedes between "around ten" and "around thirty" contested projects, deploring "the gap between what we impose in our general regulations and the reality which comes back to us from certain territories, where co-construction is not "didn't necessarily happen."

This observation “leads us to think about how we can do better,” she said, stressing that rehousing people whose buildings are demolished “is crucial.”

“These rehousings must go well, because in demolitions, when they go badly, it is a driving force behind protests about the project,” she explains.

But she refutes criticism around the gentrification of working-class neighborhoods.

“When we talk about gentrification, I think we are far from it in many neighborhoods. But the fact that other populations come to neighborhoods undergoing urban renewal is rather a success,” she judges. . “One of the important objectives of urban renewal programs is the fight against social segregation.”