Paris 'ugliness'? The Municipality takes cover - Lifestyle

The Parisians complain that the Ville Lumière has become dirty and badly managed, the Municipality and the mayor Anne Hidalgo are not there and open the construction site to redesign, embellish, make the capital more modern and sustainable.

Rationalizing the roads, circulation and renewing the street furniture.

And so came the announcement of the launch of

.

    The commitment is not to betray the roots, the Haussmanian heritage of the boulevards and perspectives will remain the same, but according to the Mairie, "

be born to silence those - much to the surprise of the its rulers - no longer considers it "the most beautiful city in the world".

    After the

that now plow through the entire area of ​​the city, the drastic and in some cases unsuccessful narrowing of the space for cars

such as the Bastille, Nation, place d'Italie, Anne Hidalgo, re-elected in June for a second term , wants to go straight: less and less space for cars - which however do not resign and remain in columns - and cities updated according to the new imperatives dictated by climate change.

    The competition for the new design, in the form of a popular consultation of Parisians, aims to understand how to rationalize and renew the street furniture, the aspect with which the city presents itself to Parisians and tourists.

The projects will arrive by the end of the year, with the aim of having the changes in the streets ready for September 2021. But the mayor and the junta also want to battle the accusations of dirt and sloppiness.

    "Paris gets ugly year after year with a demeaning constancy," recently declared an opposition councilor, Nelly Garnier (Les Republicains).

Who, like many Parisians, also reproaches the mayor for the new appearance of the squares: "The millions spent to renovate these large spaces have only served to make them less functional and not at all green. It is an absolute failure".

    To recognize that Paris, for its inhabitants, has lost the presumed scepter of the most beautiful city in the world was the councilor and deputy mayor Emmanuel Grégoire, responsible for the architecture and street furniture of the capital.

In particular, Grégoire admitted that the adjustments found in a hurry to allow restaurants to set up outdoor tables up to the spaces for car parks or the unsightly marble walls to impose cycle paths in all the streets and squares during the pandemic (thus avoiding public transport as much as possible) did not make Paris more attractive: "The emergency was privileged to the detriment of aesthetics".

    The municipality's idea is therefore to launch into a coherent and sustainable renewal, avoiding "

".

Instead, it will be a question of inserting the future, modern and innovative elements in the typical character of the urban furniture of the capital inspired by the Belle Epoque.

A bet, an even more daring project than those that Anne Hidalgo's team has launched so far and which have divided public opinion and citizens.