Gathered behind a banner proclaiming "No to Auchan station, an extraordinary project unsuited to the needs of users", about fifty people sang "La Gare du Nord is not for sale", this Wednesday noon, on the square of the Town Hall (4th century).
Their intention: to protest against the plan to redevelop the largest station in Europe, where 700,000 travelers pass every day.
President of the collective "Retrouvons le nord de la Gare du Nord", which brings together around a hundred members (users, urban planners, architects, etc.), Serge Rémy denounces "the transformation of the station into a vast commercial bunker with 270 shops on 4 floors with a few flower boxes on the roof and a few coworking spaces rented at exorbitant prices ”.
He continues: “We do not accept the 46-year concession granted to the Ceetrus group, a subsidiary of Auchan.
This is a privatization of public space while a station, by definition, belongs to the nation.
"
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Two and a half months after the mayor (PS) of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and the president of the SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, reached an agreement to reduce the commercial scope of this much criticized project (by deleting in particular 7,500 square meters of retail space), the debate rebounded this Wednesday afternoon in the hemicycle of the Council of Paris.
Elected from the 10th arrondissement, Sylvain Raifaud (EELV) recalled the obvious: "A station must above all be a place to take the train".
Before qualifying the pedestrian and cycle footbridge project, one of the concessions obtained by the City to open the station to the north and the 18th century, as a "phantom footbridge which is not financed beyond the studies and which will not connect not boulevard la Chapelle at the station platforms but at the shopping center ”.
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Very lively, Danielle Simonnet (LFI) exclaimed: “What democratic denial!
"And the elected representative to denounce" the privatization of the Gare du Nord for the benefit of the Ceetrus group ".
First Deputy of Anne Hidalgo, Emmanuel Grégoire (PS) recalled that “the building permit is issued by the State, therefore the regional prefect.
We regret it, but our assembly is not sovereign in this matter.
"And if at first," the SNCF did not hear our observations, it is because they believed that we would not win the elections of 2020 ", entrusted the elected official.
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On the merits, the first deputy declared: “We fundamentally contest this model which consists in delegating the financing of the project to the private sector.
But it has been improved a lot: it is less dense and there are less commercial spaces.
".
For the attention of Danielle Simonnet, he concluded: “To start a contentious battle was to plant the renovation project of the Gare du Nord for at least ten years.
This is the difference between populism and governance.
"