Paris (AFP)

The city of Paris announced on Tuesday that it opposed the project to renovate the Gare du Nord, too "commercial" according to it, a decision that the SNCF considers a "turnaround", like some candidates for Paris city hall.

"We must review the project" of renovation of the North Station, claimed in a tribune Jean-Louis Missika, the urban planning assistant of the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, and the mayor of the Xth arrondissement of Paris, Alexandra Cordebard.

First station in Europe, the North Station must be renovated from top to bottom by the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024. A project to 600 million euros which aims to triple its surface to meet the increase in traffic.

"The City of Paris will not be with the SNCF to defend the commercial project," write in this text published by Le Monde the two elected socialists, saying that "the commercial dimension should not take over the services provided to the users ".

While recognizing that the transformation of this station is "essential" in view of the Olympic Games in 2024, they believe that the project retained by the SNCF, which gives pride of place to the shops, "is the opposite of what is necessary".

They assure that "the City of Paris is ready to assume its share alongside the State and the region Île-de-France" so that the renovation of the station is financed by public funds rather than a joint venture between SNCF Stations and connections and Auchan, as currently planned the project.

Guillaume Pepy, boss of the SNCF, regretted Tuesday a "turnaround" on the part of the City of Paris and pointed the risk of a postponement of several years.

"We decided on the future of the North Station on a whim," also lamented to the AFP LREM candidate for mayor of Paris Benjamin Griveaux, denouncing "a deal to please the greens and Communists ", a few months before the vote on the budget and the municipal elections.

"It has been 5 years since the Paris mayoralty supports the project" and "83 days" after having "voted favorably in Paris council" for this project, the City of Paris "scratched with a feather five years of work" , he lamented.

The ecologist candidate (EELV) at the Paris mayor, David Belliard, who voted against, also recalled that in July "the vote voted in the Paris Council was overall a wish to support" the project. "Three months later, we are told that this project is nil and we do not want it", annoyed the elected, quipping on a "turnaround" at a time when "everyone says ecologist".

In July, during the vote of a debate led by Jean-Louis Missika, only elected ecologists, Generations and macronistes of left (Democrats and progressives) had voted against the project, according to the note of the City Hall whose AFP obtained a copy.

Tuesday evening, the elected communists, questioned by AFP, have nevertheless assured to have voted against this deliberation. For Nicolas Bonnet Oulaldj, their leader, this project is synonymous with "dehumanization with fewer agents, fewer staff, replaced by trade and machinery".

There is "no change", told Tuesday the press Jean-Louis Missika, since the mayor "said for months that this project is unbalanced and it can not work".

On September 3, about twenty architects, including Jean Nouvel and Roland Castro, had already launched, in Le Monde, the controversy over this project that they considered "unacceptable" and "pharaonic", asking that it be "redesigned from the bottom up. in height ".

The project must now go before the national commission for commercial development which will give its opinion on October 10.

© 2019 AFP