In front of the bicentennial oak tree some thirty meters high, Barbara Jakowska raises her eyes to the sky: “Why make a big fuss when a town hall installs a flower box on the sidewalk, if at the same time we kill the wood on the sly”, wonders the landscape gardener from Vincennes. This pedunculate oak as well as 500 other trees are threatened with being razed in the event of an extension of line 1 of the metro from the Château-de-Vincennes station to the towns of Fontenay-sous-Bois (Val-de-Marne) and of Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis).
For the creation of three future stations, 1.4 hectares of this natural site will be cleared, according to Ile-de-France Mobilités, and 6 hectares downgraded, the time of the works (without impact on the trees). Indeed, the terminus of the current line not being deep enough, the work in the woods will be carried out not with a tunnel boring machine but with an open trench, “as in 1900 during the construction of line 1”, notes Pierre Serne, EELV municipal councilor of Montreuil.
With the approach of the public inquiry which will open on January 31, while the online petition “Touche pas à mon bois” has already collected just over 60,000 signatures, the environmentalist party is faced with a dilemma supporting both the extension of the metro and the preservation of one of the great lungs of Paris. “This extension is essential for the energy transition, but it cannot be achieved under any condition, highlighted David Belliard, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of the transformation of public space. In a context of global warming, every tree counts in a mineral city like Paris. »
An old file
“Looks like they’re discovering the file,” we whisper among the elected officials of the cities affected by the arrival of the metro. With a first public inquiry, launched in 1936, this extension is nothing new. From 1995, three routes were studied to relieve both the A86 motorway and line A of the RER, the busiest in Europe. In 2013, for reasons of technical and financial feasibility, Ile-de-France Mobilités favored the current route, which passes through wood. The elected ecologist Pierre Serne, vice-president of Ile-de-France Mobilités from 2012 to 2015, co-piloted the file at the time. “I had warned that people would attach themselves to trees if we carried out this open-air construction site”, he assures.
“These opponents live in apartments that are worth 10,000 euros per square meter. Inevitably, they are worried about the impact of the construction site on the real estate rating of their property. » Jean-Philippe Gautrais, Mayor of Fontenay-sous-Bois
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