The Triangle de Gonesse, the Saclay plateau, the Workers' Gardens of Aubervilliers, the Domaine de Grignon… There is no shortage of fronts in the fight against the artificialization of natural spaces in Ile-de-France.
However, with a little less than 600 ha of artificialized natural spaces per year - mainly agricultural land - Ile-de-France is the metropolitan region which consumes the fewest natural spaces per year.
But the capital region is still far from zero net artificialization, a target that France has set for itself for 2050, recalls France Nature Environnement.
This weekend, four large marches will converge on Paris to denounce these nibbles of land.
They should not go unnoticed this weekend along the roads of the Ile-de-France region, with their processions of bikes pulling large papier-mâché snails.
Saturday morning, environmental protection groups from the Ile-de-France region will set off from the four corners of the region for the “Land March”, coordinated by France Nature Environnement (FNE) Ile-de-France.
The mobilization is inspired by the “citizens' march” towards Matignon organized in October 2019 by the Collectif pour le Triangle de Gonesse (CPTG).
In the sights of the walkers, there was then Europacity, this mega project of shopping and leisure center of 80 ha endorsed by the government and which was to mark the beginning of the artificialization of the Triangle de Gonesse, in the Val-d 'Oise, one of the last pockets of agricultural land (670 ha) so close to Paris.
Fronts far from being limited to the Triangle de Gonesse
Matignon will also be the point of arrival for this new Land March on Sunday.
But the theater of struggles has broadened very widely since the idea, this time, is "to federate all the collectives who oppose projects of artificialization of soils in Ile-de-France", explains Margot Holvoet, regional coordinator of FNE Ile-de-France.
On Saturday morning, Gonesse will only be one of the four starting points [details here].
The one in the north.
A month after the October 2019 march, Emmanuel Macron buried the Europacity project, but the CPTG remains mobilized while the construction of a metro station for the future line 17 remains relevant in the middle of the fields of the Triangle de Gonesse .
Which, in the eyes of the collective, leaves few doubts about the will of the State to urbanize the surroundings.
To the east, the march will start from Les Chapelles-Bourbon (Seine-et-Marne), where residents oppose a project to extend the Val-Bréon commercial activities zone. In total, 150 ha of agricultural land are threatened. To the south, walkers meet at Zaclay camp, this zone to defend (ZAD) created last spring in opposition to the creation of line 18 of the Grand Paris Express metro and the nibbling of new agricultural land that it involves on the Saclay plateau.
Finally, a final march will start from Thoiry (Yvelines), focusing on the challenge of the 43 million tonnes of backfill that will be generated by 2027 by the Grand Paris Express site with its 200 km of metro lines.
“Several projects have encountered local opposition *, some of which are, again, at the cost of artificialisation of agricultural land,” continues Margot Holvoet.
600 ha of artificialized natural spaces per year in Ile-de-France
So much for the four processions, which will include other fronts in the fight against the artificialization of land along their routes. The Marche de Gonesse will thus pass through the Jardins Ouvriers d'Aubervilliers, threatened by the construction of the future swimming pool for the Paris Olympic Games. The backhoes were in action in early September, a few days after the expulsion of the opponents, but the building permit has since been suspended by the courts. In the same way, the Thoiry march planned a stop on Saturday at the gates of the Grignon estate, which the State plans to sell to a real estate developer when an association of former students of AgroParisTech, which had its campus there for some decades, proposed to make it an economic center dedicated to agriculture, food and the environment.
Regarding these various artificialization projects, FNE Ile-de-France totals around 600 ha of threatened natural areas, mainly agricultural land.
Six hundred hectares, this also corresponds to the surface of natural spaces (agricultural and forest) consumed each year, on average, in the capital region, between 2012 and 2017. “We are talking about net artificialization, ie gross artificialization less renaturations.
When, for example, quarries that are no longer exploited are restored to their natural state [which is required by law] ”, we told the Institut Paris Région, the institute for planning and town planning. Ile-de-France.
Gross artificialization amounts to more than 840 ha per year, on average, over the same period.
Less advanced artificialization than in the past ...
It is less than in the past.
The Paris Region Institute, which has been doing the count since 1982, speaks of a peak reached in the late 1980s - early 1990s, with more than 2,500 ha artificialised per year in those years.
The curve then fell globally from 1999, to arrive at 590 ha of net artificialization today.
In France, estimates agree to estimate the rate of artificialization at 27,000 ha per year on average.
That's the equivalent of three to five football stadiums per hour.
And "Ile-de-France is the metropolitan region which urbanizes the least," says one at the Paris Region Institute, although it concentrates 20% of the population and 20% of jobs.
But comparisons between regions remain perilous on artificialization, in particular with Ile-de-France, historically urbanized.
And who, as such, can more easily opt for rehabilitating already artificialized spaces rather than nibbling new land for their development projects.
A track not sufficiently taken into account to date?
"Only 11% of housing produced in the region each year is built in urban extension", tempers all the same the Institute Paris Region.
… But can still do better?
For Luc Blanchard, however, it is urgent to do much better. The co-president of FNE Ile-de-France refers to the Climate and Resilience law, promulgated on August 22, which sets the objective of zero net artificialization in France in 2050, and that of halving the pace by 2030 . "Declined in Ile-de-France, it would be necessary to arrive at 300 ha of artificialization per year in nine years", he indicates. Before recalling that in a month, the region must revise its regional master plan (SDRIF), a territorial planning document of which one of the pillars will be zero net artificialization. “We cannot be content to set off limply towards this objective,” continues Luc Blanchard. Especially since everything pushes us to maintain green networks and agricultural land in and around large cities,both to fight against heat islands and to preserve biodiversity and move towards a little more autonomy in our food supply. "
This weekend's processions demand an immediate moratorium on the artificialization of agricultural land.
Complicated in a region plagued by a deep housing crisis?
“We could put more emphasis on the renovation of unsanitary homes or the conversion of empty offices, many in Ile-de-France, into housing.
Margot Holvoet also invites us to look at “the debatable reasons” for which we justify the artificialisation of soils today.
Opponents of Europacity pointed to the excessiveness of the shopping center project, with its indoor ski slope.
At the Jardins Ouvriers d'Aubervilliers, part of the plots destroyed - 19 for a total of 4,000 m² - "will be used to build the solarium of the Olympic swimming pool", she laments.
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* So especially in Thoiry, where the zoo had a project to create landscaped mounds from 400,000 m3 of inert waste which it has just given up, said AFP on Thursday.
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