ReportingWithin reach of the RER, this protected area of 200 hectares is one of the centerpieces of the Natura 2000 site of Seine-Saint-Denis, the only one in Europe located in a dense urban area. These old fields are now the refuge of migratory birds and wildlife.
Is it a Scottish moor? A deep Jura wood? A Vexin country lane? This January morning, the thick fog barely hints at a few dark groves and frosty prairie tongues. It takes the roar of an invisible plane flying at low altitude to remind us that the RER B has just dropped off walkers at the Villepinte-Parc du Sausset stop, in Seine-Saint-Denis, a few hectometres from Paris airport – Charles de Gaulle. The Ile-de-France station is planted in the middle of a 200-hectare green space, a precious part of a network of fifteen parks and forests in the department, which together form the only Natura 2000 area in Europe in a very dense urban area. .
The rails cut the Sausset park in two, from North to south ; the departmental road that connects the municipalities of Aulnay-sous-Bois and Villepinte does the same, from west to east. At their intersection, the forecourt of the station will soon be redesigned to accentuate the change of scenery for those who disembark here, every day or for a trip. “In a while, 20 minutes from Paris, you will find yourself here facing the cows, that’s not bad! », says Vincent Gibaud, manager of the Sausset park, who hopes to soon install a herd of black piebald Bretons there.
A haven of biodiversity
A homecoming for these old fields, located at the southern tip of the Plaine de France, still planted with wheat, potatoes and corn in the 1970s. Bought from farmers in Brie, they were then dedicated to be transformed into an activity zone served by the RER station established for this purpose. But, at the time, under the impetus of newly elected Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, a “green crescent” project of more than 5,000 hectares was launched in this department, one of the most densely populated in France and the least well off. in green spaces in the region. This is the plan, ultimately unsuccessful, to repair what the President of the Republic then called the “ecological inequalities” the French.
Local public authorities are therefore changing gears. Landscapers Michel and Claire Corajoud won the competition organized by the department in 1979, proposing to recreate here, between the cities of Aulnay and the pavilions of Villepinte, the landscapes of Ile-de-France. Without undertaking excavation work, they invented a new urban park, the Sausset, divided into four distinct spaces: the “forest”, based on species from the Ile-de-France, the “square meadows”, a space reserved for leisure, the ” bocage”, image of ideal countryside, and the “pit of hell”, an area with agricultural vocation, legacy of these fertile lands.
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