A preliminary investigation for favoritism was opened in September 2021 by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) following a complaint filed by Anticor in April, which denounced financial arrangements linked to two real estate transactions carried out in L’Haÿ- les-Roses, in the Val-de-Marne, learned the World and the AFP. The first concerns the redevelopment of the Locarno market district, a few steps from the future Chevilly-Trois-Communes station on metro line 14. The second, the most disputed, transforms the heart of the city and the direct surroundings of the rose garden, which, listed in the inventory of historical monuments, houses one of the largest collections of old roses in the world.
No news until then of the follow-up that the PNF had given to this complaint against X for “favouritism, embezzlement of public property, illegal taking of interests and influence peddling”, the anti-corruption association filed a complaint with civil action at the end of January. The investigation file must therefore now be entrusted to an investigating judge.
At the heart of the battle, a real estate project – 136 housing units, a paved square, shops, car parks – which must rise against the rose garden, instead of lime trees and century-old chestnut trees which brought shade and freshness to the roses and allowed, by contrast – the founders had designed it that way – to appreciate the variety of colors of the flowers.
It is a retired couple, opponents of the mayor (Free!), Vincent Jeanbrun, close to Valérie Pécresse, who leads the fight alongside heritage activists. Colette Burnod, musicologist, who grew up in the town, has a passion for the rose garden and worries about the disappearance of the trees. Yves Burnod, her husband, former laboratory director at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research, and brain specialist, peels him, the reports of the municipal councils, the thousand pages of the building permit and the development concession agreement to track financial flows.
It is precisely the riders to the concession agreement that he scrutinizes. Both projects were entrusted to the private developer Citallios. The latter, born from the merger of four semi-public companies, including SEM 92 and SEM 78, is chaired by Vincent Franchi, first deputy and son of the mayor (LR) of Puteaux (Hauts-de-Seine), Joelle Ceccaldi-Raynaud.
All the trees have been felled
In both cases, believe the opponents, the city is parting with land for the benefit of the developer at prices below those of the market. And these plots are then resold to promoters, Bouygues and Emerige, at a price much higher than that indicated in the balance sheet. However, Jérôme Karsenti, Anticor’s lawyer, finds it curious that “the mayor gives up public space at such a low price without compensation”although the law forbids it.
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