Louise Sallé / Photo credits: JACQUES DEMARTHON / AFP 8:27 a.m., February 29, 2024

Seven private Parisian establishments could no longer expand.

With the new Local Urban Plan (PLU), the vote of which is scheduled for the end of 2024, the city wants to condition the extensions of certain private and public buildings on the construction of social housing.

In the Saint-Michel des Batignolles school group, parents and teachers say they are angry.

This Thursday marks the end of the suspense for seven private Catholic schools in Paris.

At 5 p.m., the Paris town hall's online consultation around its Local Urban Plan (PLU), the vote on which is scheduled for the end of 2024, will end.

This legal and administrative document plans in particular to increase the number of social housing units, targeting several buildings of large surface area, public or private.

Objective: make extension or sale projects of these buildings conditional on the construction of social housing.

But some of these addresses targeted by the town hall are private schools.

The town hall is targeting seven private Catholic schools, such as the Saint-Michel des Batignolles school group, in the 17th arrondissement of the capital, which accommodates nearly 2,300 students.

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Development work blocked by the new PLU

At the top of the stairs overlooking the college courtyard, Olivier Cellé, head of the establishment, points to each of the buildings in the building which dates from the 1880s. "We want to remove the laboratories to put them in building A, where would be put the elevator. We want to redistribute the walkways so that all the rooms are easily accessible for everyone,” he explains to Europe 1. 

But with the new Local Urban Plan (PLU), any building permit request must be accompanied by a project to install social housing.

“We would have to imagine a classroom transformed into apartments. It seems completely incoherent and completely surreal. So, we are stuck and we can’t do anything,” he regrets. 

“It makes me angry”

The town hall explains that not all work will be constrained, that they will examine projects on a case-by-case basis.

But that doesn't reassure Gwendoline Guezelle, who teaches mathematics.

She is also the mother of a student in this high school: "It makes me angry because I think that there are enough areas, let's say uninhabited and disused, in the neighborhood. It will block work that we needs it because we're a little cramped and it's not normal to hit young people like that," she confides.

Throughout the establishments concerned, many parents of students opposed this PLU, in the public inquiry.

A petition has collected more than 10,000 signatures.