In the middle of the electoral campaign, the expert report could not have been worse for the outgoing municipality. Eighteen months after the violent gas explosion in the rue de Trévise (IXe) which left four dead and 66 injured on January 12, 2019, the final expert report commissioned by the justice system confirmed at the start of the week of the City of Paris. The conclusions point to "a lack of vigilance and technicality" of the road service.
The experts are formal: "the explosion could have been avoided" if the cause of the sagging of the sidewalk in front of the porch of the building where it occurred had been sought by the municipality before the repair was carried out " .
An observation that revives the controversy when the campaign for the second round has just restarted. Anne Hidalgo's (PS) rivals do not hesitate to seize the opportunity to criticize the management of public space under the mandate of the outgoing socialist mayor.
Poorly maintained pavements?
"Look at Boulevard Saint-Germain, Quai Branly or the area around Porte Maillot ... There are huge holes!" In the Bois de Boulogne, the roads are broken. This is also the case on Ney, Brune or Mac Donald boulevards. Building sites are abandoned, “lists the candidate on the right. Rachida Dati drives the point home: “It is good to make cycle paths but when you do not repair the roadway, there are accidents. Since January to date, there have been 26 deaths on the public highway. The victims are cyclists or pedestrians, some of whom have been injured in scooters. "
If Agnès Buzyn, LREM candidate, refuses to comment on the file on rue de Trévise "because it is still under investigation", she criticizes "the approximate management" of the City of Paris, especially in the area of roads. "Many two-wheeler drivers point to more and more and deeper potholes in all the streets of Paris and motorists make the same observation", attacks the former Minister of Health who deplores "the lack of harmony" and even "anarchy" in the Parisian public space which "has not been thought of in its entirety", as evidenced, according to her, "the urban furniture chosen for the place of the Pantheon ".
Sidewalks to redevelop
For the candidate of the presidential majority, maintenance problems are compounded by "ergonomic" deficiencies. “The elderly who today want to cross a crossroads are terrorized. The public space was not thought either for people with disabilities or parents with strollers, "criticizes the leader of LREM. Agnès Buzyn promises, if elected, to rearrange the sidewalks and fill the potholes.
If Agnes Buzyn prefers to remain cautious on the questioning of the responsibility of the City in the affair of the rue de Trévise, Rachida Dati, it goes on the offensive.
“When it is necessary to repair potholes, the City usually only installs patches rather than completely redo the roadway in the City and check the basements. However in Paris, a large number of gas pipes are in very poor condition. When we wanted to redo the corner street rue du Bac / Bd Saint-Germain, we realized that the heating pipes were completely dilapidated. Worse, rue de Bellechasse, we did connection work and once completed, we had, on September 6, 2018, an explosion of a pipeline that raised the roadway. This serious explosion could have been fatal if there were pedestrians. There are other Treviso in Paris… It's a kind of AZF ”, predicts the old Grade des Sceaux.
The City is waiting to explain itself before the judge
Asked about the conclusions of experts who confirm the provisional reports made at the end of 2019, the City said it took "note of this advance in judicial information which will allow it to provide useful explanations to the investigating judge in order to participate in the demonstration of the truth ".
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A year and a half after the deadly explosion that shook the entire district behind the Grand s Boulevards, three buildings remain uninhabitable to this day. The inhabitants of 6, rue de Trévise are still waiting to know if their building can be rebuilt.
