Controversial sale by the State of the Grignon estate to the Altarea group

The Patrimoine AgroParisTech-Grignon 2000 association recalls having presented with the community of communes Coeur d'Yvelines an alternative project to create an international center, with laboratories and start-up accelerators, around issues related to agriculture, food and the environment, while opening up the 300 hectare estate to the public.

While the engineering school is in the process of moving to the Saclay plateau, the Altarea group, with its subsidiaries Patrimoine & Histoire and Cogedim, declared Wednesday in a press release to be "the bearer of a project that respects the natural environment and the heritage of the site "and" of its buildings ".

It undertakes to "make the forest accessible to the public" and to "create an ecological sanctuary conducive to the development of biodiversity".

But the promoter is also planning "an adapted residential program" with "new buildings perfectly integrated in already urbanized areas" as well as "the establishment of local shops in short circuits carried by artisans of the Ile-de-France region".

The prospect of seeing the 20 hectares of the domain now occupied by the university campus being transformed into housing does not delight the general delegate of Grignon 2000 Mathieu Baron, who fears for the sustainability of the preservation of forests and agricultural land. He told AFP that his association "was considering an appeal to the administrative court".

He recalls that in 2015-2016, the collective had already mobilized against a plan to buy Grignon by PSG.

This year, from mid-March to early April, a hundred students blocked the Thiverval-Grignon campus to protest against the sale of the site, while the takeover offers were filed on March 26.

Asked about this file, the Ministry of the Economy, which manages the real estate of the State, and the Ministry of Agriculture did not respond to AFP on Wednesday evening.