A controversial parking project in Chambéry finally accepted by the majority

This car park in the making was a source of tensions and debates during the municipal campaign, between the outgoing LR majority at the initiative of the project and the Repentin-Le Meur duo supported by a political arc ranging from environmentalists to the UDI, against the project as it is.

In June, a few days before the second round of the municipal election, opponents of the project, bringing together activists from Extinction Rebellion, Youth for Climate and a citizen collective, had occupied the construction crane for three days and two nights, before going down.

Work is expected to resume in January, Repentin said Thursday, after being halted in July at the request of his newly elected majority.

A consultation was then offered to residents who could comment on various alternative projects. "We could not do otherwise because the project had crystallized tensions in the population," Ms. Le Meur told AFP on Friday.

The seven levels will be kept as initially planned. But improvements will be made, specifies the municipality, with in particular better consideration of carsharing vehicles and bicycles.

According to Ms. Le Meur, "all the financial impacts of this choice are reintegrated into the cost of the public service delegation" with the specialist in Q-Park parking, which is to run until 2047.

"It will therefore not cost a cent more to Chambériens", affirmed the elected official, first at the head of a citizens' list before her alliance with Mr. Repentin for the second round of the election.

"This is wrong," retorted the opposition. For Aloïs Chassot, LR leader at the town hall, “all that for that”: contesting the project, organizing a consultation after the election “to return in the end to the initial project”.

"But we are satisfied that this project is going as planned." Pointing to the conditions of the delegation imposed on the City as a result of a contract concluded by the previous majority with Q-Park, "the majority in place is trying to find an excuse for abandoning the campaign," said the elected member of the outgoing majority.