Valérie Pécresse calls for the evacuation of the ZAD of Triangle de Gonesse

"The subject is simple: it is an illegal occupation of the public domain which blocks the realization of a metro which is expected by 1,5 million inhabitants in the Val-d'Oise", she argued. on Cnews.

She demanded "that we enforce the law, that we evacuate this ZAD and especially that we make this line 17, the only line of the Grand Paris Express of Val-d'Oise".

The occupation by, "at this stage, a hundred" militants, "blocks the entire construction" of this line because it prevents a tunnel boring machine from descending into a shaft to dig, she explained. She underlined that the inhabitants of this poor territory "wait for this public transport to go to work".

This figure is very far from the count made by the Collective for the Triangle of Gonesse (CPTG), which told AFP that it was not at the origin of the occupation but "supporting" this action.

A "ten" of activists take turns on the site, the CPTG told AFP on Tuesday evening. "We are asking for the station to be abandoned: if the station is abandoned, everyone will leave," said Bernard Loup, the president of the collective.

This area of ​​280 hectares of agricultural land, neighboring Roissy-CDG airport, had escaped artificialization by a decision Emmanuel Macron. The president had indeed abandoned the Europacity mega-shopping and leisure complex project in November 2019.

The activists, installed since February 7 on part of a piece of land, owned by the Île-de-France public land establishment (EPFIF), defend an alternative agricultural project, instead of the future station.

"These extremist militants have a very limited conception of democratic debate and respect for authority in our country," denounced Marie-Christine Cavecchi, the president (LR) of the department of Val-d'Oise. It also asks "the State to immediately evacuate these lands".

La Fnaut (users) does not want line 17

The National Federation of Transport Users (Fnaut) has called for the freezing of work on line 17 of the future Grand Paris metro, which it considers premature until the State has decided what it wants to build on the Triangle of Gonesse.

Noting that "the prospects of urbanization of the triangle of Gonesse remain completely uncertain" after the abandonment of the project of building complex Europacity, "nothing currently allowing to affirm that constructions justifying a station will be carried out in this sector ", Fnaut wrote to the Prime Minister.

A station which would remain isolated "in the middle of the fields", "would constitute an unprecedented waste of public official", she adds in her letter to Jean Castex.

"We therefore demand the freezing of all works on line 17 north of Le Bourget airport and in particular those of the Triangle de Gonesse station, as long as the future of this area has not been fully defined, d 'as much as this urbanization is more and more contested ", adds Fnaut.

More generally, Fnaut is calling for a public debate on the development and transport needs in this sector.

More than 40% of the ridership of line 17, which in 2030 will link Saint-Denis to Roissy airport via the Villepinte exhibition center, had to come from Europacity, she notes.

"Cumulated with the uncertainty at Roissy terminal 4, the socio-economic profitability of line 17 is no longer established at all", especially since the area is not very populated, she assures.

The 3 billion euros that the line must cost should be reallocated to other public transport projects in the northern suburbs of Paris in lack of funding, argues the Fnaut.

"Whether we do or not do Europacity, line 17 remains useful" because it is "a real daily transport route", recently said Thierry Dallard, president of the Société du Grand Paris (SGP ) responsible for building the supermetro around the capital.

He is nevertheless waiting to know what the State intends to build, or not, on the site to reconfigure the station planned at the Triangle de Gonesse, now announced for 2028.