"It is deteriorating but despite everything, we are good here, we have lived here, we will stay there", does not budge Madeleine Lino, 51, gray jogging and arms crossed.
The janitor "sacrificed" the position she shared with her husband. She hoped to relieve Jupiter plagued by unpaid charges and stay in "her tower", "the only one in Val-Fourré with flowers" at her feet. A few orange tulips, hyacinths and rosebushes next to full garbage cans.
Despite these ornaments, Jupiter cannot withstand the competition imposed by Neptune.
Just cleaned, it dominates, opposite, the cold concrete slab which serves as a public forum. Its bright white facade clashes with the gray palette of the huge city: 6.000 housing units, including 5.000 social ones, packed together on the banks of the Seine.
Together, the quasi-twin towers illustrate these urban dreams of the 1960s caught up in poverty, these condominiums torpedoed by deadbeat co-owners and sleep dealers.
Unpaid charges
They are today at the heart of one of the four Ile-de-France operations to requalify degraded condominiums of national interest (Orcod-In): an exceptional rescue plan, piloted by the Ile-de-France Public Land Establishment (Epfi). More broadly, 400 million euros are planned to "open up this priority district to the city by 2030.
Neptune, mostly occupied by owners, will be kept afloat. Jupiter, smaller areas inhabited 80% by tenants, must disappear.
"When I bought in 1982, I was told that here it was the 4th arrondissement of Paris but in Mantes-la-Jolie", assures Mohamed Hzeg. The district is "calm" and the F35.000, acquired for the equivalent of XNUMX current euros, perfect for his children, then thinks the surveying engineer.
"There was a jewelry store, costume merchants, it was a good standing", abounds Jean Bégué, president of the syndic and founder in 1975, on the ground floor, of a medical analysis laboratory still in activity. .
"We weren't aware of the condominium accounts when we bought. At one point, we wake up and we understand that there are so many unpaid bills, and there, we started sticking our tongues out," explains Ms. Hzeg, 80, still in his comfortable F4.
The situation deteriorated "little by little". Legal proceedings, time-consuming, do nothing, any more than reminders. Some debtors bail out, ten do not. The charges are getting heavier, 1.000 euros per quarter for an 82 m2. Unpaid bills exceeded 200.000 euros at the end of 2020.
"Dilapidated, right?
As the district began its transformation in the 1990s by bringing down the HLM towers to dedensify the area, public financial buoys were launched at Jupiter and Neptune.
"We did the work. Look at the paintings, the mailboxes, is that dilapidated?", Designate the owners in generally clean floors.
There are cockroaches, unworthy habitats, retorts Epfif, not to mention "quite significant cases of overcrowding" and "unsanitary electrical installations". "There are no other options" than the destruction announced in the fall for 2026, assures Guillaume Idier, director of communication for the Epfif.
Already fourteen owners have sold their property, on the basis of "market prices and value in use".
Selling a 90 m2 to the Epfif for, at best, 75.000 euros? Lahcen Tioual opposes it. "I will not sell for crumbs", insists the ex-worker of the Simca factory in Poissy who says he has "tightened his belt" to buy nine of the 105 apartments in the residence.
It asserts itself all the more despoiled as the owners of Neptune only spent an average of 700 euros each, compared to the 3,3 million injected to renovate this thermal sieve.
In Neptune today, "it's much better", confirms on condition of anonymity one of its tenants. Even if one of the two elevators has been "out of service for three years" and "those who did not pay their charges yesterday will not pay tomorrow".