Extending Paris beyond the ring road: a remedy for territorial inequalities?

According to the "viewpoint" published a week ago by Clément Beaune, the capital is now cramped, crammed into 105 km2 for 2,1 million inhabitants.

Its administrative boundaries, marked by the road wall of the ring road, have not moved for "more than 150 years" even though the first metros of the Grand Paris Express will enter service at the end of 2026.

However, the challenges in terms of housing, mobility and ecological transition "require measures taken on the scale of a wider community to guarantee their clarity and effects", argues the High Commissioner.

"Since the creation of the Greater Paris Metropolis (MGP) in 2016, the debate on governance has been blocked, while the idea of ​​a dysfunction is widely accepted," confirms Xavier Desjardins, professor of urban planning at Sorbonne University, for whom the report has the merit of throwing a stone into the pond.

The reappointment in mid-April of Patrick Ollier (LR) as head of the MGP, who has chosen to "intervene little" in municipal policies, is, according to him, a sign of a cross-party agreement to maintain a "structurally weak" metropolis.

Faced with the layering of strata and the overlapping of responsibilities between Paris and its arrondissements, the eleven territorial public establishments (EPT), departments, MGP and Region, Clément Beaune proposes to merge the capital with the departments and municipalities of the inner suburbs in order to form a "City of Greater Paris" of 6,9 million inhabitants, with a mayor.

No more Seine-Saint-Denis, Montrouge or Nanterre. In its place are forty "districts" of approximately 170.000 inhabitants each, based on existing municipal boundaries.

"This project stems from a top-down vision," criticizes Frédéric Gilli, an affiliated professor at the Sciences-Po Urban School.

"No political outlet"

"On paper, this big bang seems simple, but the institutional costs are systematically underestimated, if only to get 160.000 agents working together," he notes.

According to him, we cannot "scratch out with a stroke of the pen the communes" which, despite the bucolic names imagined for the districts, embody a "historical rootedness, but also political and personal histories".

The shortcomings identified by Mr. Beaune are nevertheless major, such as the "minimal number" of projects of metropolitan interest carried out by the Metropolis and the widening of social inequalities, due to the lack of redistribution from rich municipalities to the poorest.

"These two issues are truly problematic," acknowledges Frédéric Gilli, pointing to the inertia in social housing planning, despite immense needs. "There are too many layers in absolute terms," ​​he admits, but the real problem, according to him, stems "from the political will to act."

"Expanding municipalities to a larger scale, like Greater London, is not extremely original and the size doesn't necessarily change much," observes Xavier Desjardins, for whom the real problem is "what problems we want to solve by changing scale."

However, reducing tax inequalities between Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis does not necessarily require a major institutional overhaul, he argues. "Financial equalization systems can achieve the same results," the urban planner and geographer asserts.

"Moreover, no political outlet is being offered," he continues, even though none of the entities concerned have any interest in such a revolution, including the Ile-de-France Region which would "look unfavorably" upon the arrival of a powerful Greater Paris City.

"Everyone shares the observation. The debate is more about the objectives and how to achieve them, how to convince, knowing that the political repercussions are also unknown," summarizes Xavier Desjardins.

"I am not convinced that wiping the slate clean of the current institutional organization is the best way to be immediately operational," Mr. Gilli says ironically, preferring to argue for "giving a chance to the new generation of mayors who have just been elected."