Fontainebleau (Seine-et-Marne) is at the dawn of a new metamorphosis. Royal city built for the splendor of the kings of France, from François 1er to Louis XV, it changed for the first time in the 19e century, to become a garrison town. Today its barracks are empty. In order not to become encysted in an identity of “nice bourgeois and residential town”, as mayor Frédéric Valletoux (Horizons) explains, Fontainebleau has recently welcomed a new youth, without guns or rangers.
Several establishments are already well established in the Bellifontains, starting with the Insead management school, which has nearly a thousand students and whose premises have been located on the edge of the forest since 1957. mines has also opened a campus there, as has the University Institute of Technology (IUT) of the University of Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne (UPEC). The city also has a nursing training institute and some preparatory classes. “There is already a ground” welcomes the mayor. But this is only the beginning.
Digital, health and paramedical
In September 2021, UPEC set up its international school of political studies there, created in 2019, which offers various degrees. A first cohort of 400 students moved in at the start of the 2021 academic year in temporary premises. In 2023, the school must settle in a former barracks in the city center: the number of students will then rise to 800. Then, the IUT will increase in power, “develop in digital, health and paramedical”, promises Jean-Luc Dubois-Randé, president of UPEC. By 2025, the number of students must double to reach 5,500, in a city of 15,000 inhabitants. And the count is not over.
Indeed, while the UPEC settles a little more in the city each year, the Château de Fontainebleau (which depends on the Ministry of Culture) also has a project, disconnected from the first: an international arts campus, around former royal stables. According to its promoters, the site could accommodate 3,000 students. A tidal wave that is not unanimous.
The influx of a new population has whetted the appetite of real estate developers who are buying up individual houses to carve them up into studios for rent.
First pitfall: housing. The influx of a new population has whetted the appetite of real estate developers who are buying individual houses to cut them into studios for rent. The consequence is “the explosion in the cost of real estate and families who are finding it increasingly difficult to settle down”, observes Marie-Charlotte Nouhaud, mayor (LR) of Avon, a city landlocked in Fontainebleau. In 2022, students must pay around 600 euros per month for accommodation. ” It’s expensive “ testifies Lou Huart, student at UPEC. And the real estate situation should improve: “From 2023, supply will not be enough to meet demand”provides Arthur Noirot, responsible for transactions within the real estate agency Hacquin Dauvergne.
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