Paris city hall wants to confiscate a hotel to turn it into a HLM

For a long time now, there have been no more tourists who put their suitcases there, a receptionist who handed over the keys to the 35 rooms, and room service.

The Hôtel des Balladins, closed for ten years and located at 35, rue Maurice-Ripoche (14th century), at the corner of avenue du Maine, is in the eye of the cyclone, or rather the Hôtel de Ville.

His fate should be sealed by those elected at the next Paris Council in July.

In the program ?

A deliberation to initiate a public utility declaration procedure with a view to expropriation, by prefectural decree.

The owners - they are in fact three co-owners - of the hotel should simply have their 315 square meter establishment confiscated, or more exactly be forced to sell, at the price set by a judge.

"Expropriation makes it possible to take possession of a building whose owner is not a seller," specifies bluntly Ian Brossat, the deputy (PCF), Anne Hidalgo (PS), in charge of housing and of this file. .

To expropriate, specifies the elected official, there must be a reason for the general interest, to provide social housing, in Paris, where the housing situation is tense, where many people are still sleeping outside.

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Studios for people in precarious situations

The City wants to make fifteen studios to accommodate people in very precarious situations, from 2022. For Ian Brossat, this expropriation is "a strong message to unscrupulous owners who enrich themselves with real estate speculation and leave buildings. empty, without any consideration for the need of Parisians for housing ”.

Read also Health crisis: the turnover rate in public housing has never been so low in Paris

Tuesday, the Hôtel des Balladins - faded, screened windows, vestiges of its squat periods, covered with stickers from the DAL (Right to Housing) and the Réquisition Logement collective with her naked Marianne, on a red white blue background, a foot of doe in one hand, a bunch of keys in the other - it looked like a ghost building. “It's been so long since it's empty, sighs this local woman, that we hear about expropriation. Here, we saw a lot of people. There was a squat, noisy but also nice animations. "It's crazy to see this empty building in the middle of Paris," reacts another resident.

To get there, the City played its last "cartridge".

“For a long time, we tried to contact the owners, regrets Ian Brossat.

We never had them live.

They refused any constructive dialogue.

The municipality then turned to the State which has the competence for requisitioning, an extremely rare procedure.

In vain.

"Ian Brossat is paying a hit"

There remained the expropriation procedure. Extremely rare too ... The City has, however, already activated this lever on cases of sleep merchants, in the context of unworthy housing. 45, rue Davy (17th century), 1-3 villa des Tulipes or 71, rue Philippe de Girard (18th century), have thus become or will become social housing. The most spectacular and media expropriation will however remain that of Rifaat El Assad, the uncle of Bashar al Assad. Its buildings, acquired in the context of organized gang money laundering, aggravated tax evasion and embezzlement of Syrian public funds, between 1984 and 2016, located in the chic 16th district, rue Jasmin and rue Henri-Heine, will become public housing!

Of this new arrival of the central town hall, Eric Azière, elected on the right in the 14th century (UDI) is not fooled… “Ian Brossat is getting a hit. The Communist jumps at the chance. It swells the muscles. We must scare the bourgeois! Property is theft! "However, on the merits, the elected representative welcomes the decision:" This empty building was a wart of degradation in the neighborhood. And we must create housing where there is it. "

This Wednesday, the news also delighted Fatima-Ezzahra Benomar! “The owner is all he deserves! "In 2014, the activist for women's rights, co-founder of the collective Les Effrontés, ex-Femen, there, with her comrades, opened a feminist, ecological and artistic squat, called the" Collective of happiness ". The activists organized exhibitions, cinema evenings, meetings, literacy courses, emergency accommodation… An AMAP called LCL (La Cagette en Folie) had been founded, with the distribution of leeks. Not to the liking of the owner who had learned of the squat through the press and sued them.