After Europacity, tensions and greed around agricultural land north of Paris

Saved from artificialization by Emmanuel Macron who abandoned the Europacity mega-shopping and leisure complex in November 2019, the fate of the 280 hectares of agricultural land located about fifteen kilometers from Paris still remains uncertain.

"The President of the Republic has had the political courage to abandon Europacity, now we must go to the end and make a project of the 1st century", impatiently Bernard Loup, president of the Collectif pour le Triangle de Gonesse (CPTG), at the in the middle of a muddy patch very close to the AXNUMX motorway overflown by a few planes.

For the time being, it is planned that this area will be closed to housing because it is wedged between Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Bourget airports, and will host a station for line 17 of the Grand Paris Express metro by 2027, and a ZAC with offices.

"The Paris region is one of the richest market gardening lands in the world, it's a shame to build yet another construction ... Maybe we can do it a little further?" Asks Guillaume Moucheroud. , came as a "simple citizen" and in family from Vanves (Hauts-de-Seine) to participate Sunday in a mobilization action.

For its part, the CPTG supports the agricultural project of the Carma association, which would notably include the installation of market gardening and horticultural activities, in a dynamic of short circuits.

"We must protect these lands which can become a showcase at the gates of Paris and the world of ecological transition is ready to invest in it", insists Alice Leroy, secretary general of CARMA.

Among the some 500 demonstrators on Sunday, several elected environmentalists and left spoke, like Eric Piolle the mayor (EELV) of Grenoble or the rebellious deputy of Seine-Saint-Denis - candidate for regional - Clémentine Autain.

"We won on Europacity, it is absolutely necessary that the mobilization remains" to "leave the land to agriculture", estimates the MEP and probable candidate for the EELV primary in September Yannick Jadot, according to which "Emmanuel's project Macron on the artificialization of land, it's a "guignolade."

Unique metro station

On the judicial side, however, the defenders of the Carma project have just suffered several setbacks.

The administrative justice definitively validated the creation of a ZAC in July and appealed, in December, to an appeal against the local urban plan of Gonesse opening the way to the development of the site. A third procedure is also underway before the Administrative Court of Appeal of Paris.

Attached to the creation of a metro station, which would be the only one in Val-d'Oise, elected officials from the department and Seine-Saint-Denis - supported by the president of the Ile-de-France region Valérie Pécresse - insist on the necessary improvement of the public transport offer in the east of Val-d'Oise, affected by poverty.

"A hundred politicized activists representing a minority cannot continue to hold hostage the future and the many job opportunities of hundreds of thousands of Valdoisiens in the east of the department", reacted Sunday Marie-Christine Cavecchi, president (LR) of the departmental council.

"If you build the station, in a few years there will be no more farmland", fears the deputy for Val-d'Oise (The New Democrats) Aurélien Taché.

In a report dated December and addressed to the Prime Minister, which AFP was aware of on Sunday, the prefect of Val-d'Oise believes that the station site must be "reinforced" and is favorable to the development of 'a 110 hectare ZAC to accommodate public facilities and projects ranging from industry to "urban agriculture".

"The location of the Triangle de Gonesse makes this ZAC the right place to conduct an ambitious development operation", writes Prefect Amaury de Saint-Quentin.

His proposals are part of the future "plan for Val-d'Oise" announced by Jean Castex in November, in particular with the objective of strengthening public services and which must be unveiled soon.