A popular city in Seine-Saint-Denis emerges from its isolation thanks to a new footbridge

A red helmet screwed onto her head and equipped with a vest as fluorescent yellow as her bike, Nissa Ikhelif was the first to set off onto the ramp of the brand new footbridge.

“It will really change the daily lives of women here to get around, to do all the things they have to do by bike,” testifies this 49-year-old woman, who only learned to ride a bike when she was arrived in France two years ago.

Encouraged by her husband, she was able to control the little queen thanks to the Franc-Moisin women's association, whose members widely walked the new footbridge on Saturday, forcefully taking up the slogan "Women, life, freedom" of the Iranian movement .

In 1998, the establishment of the monumental sports arena nearby was enhanced with a swing bridge over the Saint-Denis canal, but the structure, very often broken down, had only amplified the isolation. from the town of Franc-Moisin, stuck between the waterway and the A1 and A86 motorways.

Replacing this failing structure had been in the pipeline for several years and the holding of the Paris Games (which will begin on July 26 and end on September 8) has accelerated the timetable for this 10,5 million euro project, financed by two thirds by Olympic money.

“This is one of the real positive effects of the Olympic Games, this legacy in terms of urban seam,” greeted Mathieu Hanotin, PS mayor of Saint-Denis, on Saturday.

Adapted for people with reduced mobility, the two access ramps are a relief for the families of the city, some of whose children, due to school permits, attend school on the other side of the canal.

Named Lucie-Bréard, in homage to the first French athlete to win a gold medal at the Olympics, in 1922, the footbridge is flanked by small wooded spaces at its feet. Its large apron, 13 meters wide, will be equipped with benches and street furniture at the end of the Games.

A territory with fractured urban planning inherited from its industrial period, Seine-Saint-Denis has been engaged for twenty-five years in a phase of long-term urban revitalization.