Around fifty members of CLAP, the Montmartre pétanque club, dressed all in red, invaded their bowling green and lay down there on Thursday to symbolize the death of the club. This “happening” comes as this historic club was rejected last Thursday by the Council of State which forced it to leave its public grounds by April 20 under penalty of a fine of 500 euros per day of delay.
In response to this decision, experienced as a “massive blow”, the club is not giving up and has therefore launched a visual counter-attack, before another demonstration planned for Sunday. These pétanque fans implored the city of Paris not to evict him and to reverse its decision to grant the land to the neighboring hotel.
“Our licensees do not want to leave,” said Nicolas Jammes, vice-president of the Lepic Abbesses Pétanque Club (CLAP), at a press conference. This club with some 300 members, nestled since 1971 at the top of the hill, on a walled plot out of sight, hopes "that within a week", the town hall "wants to initiate a real reflection, a dialogue and not to proceed with the expulsion,” he said.
In July 2023, the Paris Council, divided, validated the agreement which entrusts this protected green space of nearly 900 m2 for twelve years to the neighboring Hôtel Particulier, which presented the “best price” offer according to the town hall. , including “free opening of the site to the public and schools”. Before the referral to the Council of State, a real battle had taken place between the two camps with, among other things, four appeals to the administrative court as well as a petition bringing together more than 10,500 signatures.
Oscar Comtet, general manager of the neighboring Hôtel Particulier, will finally be able to transform the premises into a “unique green space”, as he envisioned to Le Parisien in December. “There is no economic interest, we just want to green the entire space,” he insists. Out of 900 m2, only 230 m2 will be accessible to local residents, according to him, and the rest will be “vegetated with 200 introduced species and the creation of two ponds”.
“A real social mix”
“We have been criticized in the past for our lack of openness”, admitted to AFP the Vice-President of CLAP, who wants “to show that the club is open”. “In January, everyone who showed up was taken,” argued the vice-president, defending “real social diversity” in his structure. He also denounced, "three months before the Olympic Games", a "very brutal decision" regarding the "first women's club in France", according to him, with 90 members.
“At a time when we are talking about female inclusion in sport, we do not understand the town hall’s decision,” insisted one of the licensees, Carole Guillaume. Several elected officials, including EELV senator Yannick Jadot and related LFI deputy Aymeric Caron, came to support the bowlers. “You embody the Paris that we love,” declared the elected official, denouncing the “greenwashing” of the selected project, aiming according to him to “commodify and privatize” a public space.
Comments supported by the Ecologists group which strongly condemned this decision in a publication X: “This land must remain public and open to all. We firmly oppose the commodification of the place by a luxury hotel.”
“This matter is not over,” Aymeric Caron finally said, considering that the bowlers could “occupy this place peacefully”.
Only a few days ago, the City of Paris assured its side that it “welcomed” this decision and then committed to “rapidly allowing the development of this public place, in accordance with the new adopted project”.