Le Grand Paris. How would this project generate an economic growth?

B-b The demand of the President Sarkozy.

Nicolas Sarkozy announced the 17^th September 2007, ten prestigious agencies of architecture had to work on the project of Grand Paris⁵⁹ to start the symbolic construction of the Greater Paris. The 29^th of April 2009, the president Nicolas Sarkozy made a new elocution about the Great Paris, with the analyses of the ten agencies to figure out the issues of Paris.⁶⁰

According to the president, France is the first country in the world to think about the metropolis of the future. Paris has to give an impulsion to the world to ensure the post-kyoto time by changing the cities, to become more bearable to the populations «the city is made to fit to the populations; populations are not done to fit with the city»⁶¹.

The topic of Paris according to the president is to know how our big metropolis can have a new prosperity, by being eco-friendly, with more social fairness. On a political point of view, the reflexion on the Greater Paris has to be multi-political parties because the topic is not ideological but practical.

During its elocution, Nicolas Sarkozy insisted on the essentiality for a city/region to be architectural pleasant, as it gives an essential bliss to the inhabitants⁶² which is considered as an indispensable factor.

⁵⁸ Laurent Davezies, Croissance sans développement en Ile-de-France, OEil-Créteil-Université Paris 12, 2007, PP. 1

⁵⁹Nicolas Sarkozy, Allocution of « Le Grand Paris, 2007 http://discours.vie-publique.fr/notices/077002719.html

⁶⁰ Nicolas Sarkozy, « Discours du Grand Paris », Palais de l'architecture, 29th of April 2009 http://www.populaires.fr/jeunes-actifs/discours-sarkozy-grand-paris-7889

⁶¹ Nicolas Sarkozy, « Discours du Grand Paris », Palais de l'architecture, 29th of April 2009, 1st min 42.

⁶² Ibid, 6 min 42

As all the different studies we have previously seen, Paris is a global city. The president mentioned Paris as the rival of «London, New York, Tokyo and Shanghai», but Paris can lose its global position. This is why Nicolas Sarkozy insisted on the fact that the objectives of the Grand Paris project do not have only to consist to a simple enlargement of Paris within the regional borders; the city has to play an important role on a national, continental and global scale by becoming a model and an economic growth instrument.

The president claimed on the fact that the economic development of Paris as to be part of the European economic development axe (Milan-London), as the risk would be to see Paris felled behind the European Economic development, and the two main French harbours Marseille and Le Havre to be going downhill and collapse. To avoid this, the strategy for Paris is to re-establish a new territorial dynamic, and take the strategic decision to delineate Le Havre as the Grand Paris Harbour because of a new organisation of Paris alongside the Seine.

In order to achieve this, the president announced that Paris and Le Have will be connected with a highspeed line to link the two cities in one hour and the creation of a port of transformation in Paris (Achères). According to the president it would give the possibility to manage the transportations flow, in term of economic and sustainable development.

The sustainable development cannot be effective without any common policies of the different actors (Paris, suburban towns, Normandy region, etc), the different entities will have to work together on the Grand Paris. This condition is primordial in order to adapt the commercial connections to the sustainable needs, and finally create the new city environment which fits to the new century. Indeed, sustainable development is a major factor for Paris in term of business, respect of the environment, and also in term of image.

In order to answer to the social distortion existing in the region, President Sarkozy analysed that there is a real conflict between the offer and the demand on the housing market. Indeed, the problem of distance between work and place of living of the employees has to be reduced. The president first asked to create 70.000 habitations per year (which multiplies by 2 the rhythm of construction), as the region has a deficit of 1.5 million of habitations to answer the future demands (horizon 2030)⁶³. In order to achieve this goal, the president asked to deregulate the legislation, by increasing the coefficient of habitation, and ease the constructions. President Sarkozy wants also to abolish the zone policies (zone of activities, industrial zones, residential zones, etc) in order to create a diversity within the cities.

⁶³ Nicolas Sarkozy, « Discours du Grand Paris », Palais de l'architecture, 29th of April 2009, 25th min 15

Indeed, «a juridical decompartmentalize, will open the physical decompartmentalize»⁶⁴. As mentioned in this sentence, the legal system has a decisive role in the building of the greater Paris. Nevertheless, as we have seen previously, Nicolas Sarkozy assumed that transit investment will have the main role in the elaboration of the project; as it will necessary have an impact on the Parisians companies.

Indeed, Nicolas Sarkozy asked for the construction in the suburbs, of a new high-speed station. The president suggested to do it in Paris-La Defense (business district), or to Le Bourget (business airport) to create a new polycentric city⁶⁵.

The president established four points that the transport policies will have to respect. The first one, is the high speed on the regional level, the second point is the easiness for people to move from a place to another place, the third point is to have good transports going to towns, the last point is to prefer overhead transports rather than underground every times it is possible⁶⁶.

Nicolas Sarkozy wants to have a Greater Paris close to the Parisians needs. Indeed he assumed that according to researches 2/3 of the intensification of the public transports use, will affect the existing infrastructures. The president asked to prioritize the optimization of the existing infrastructures to have public transports in suburbs as efficient as the central public transports (Metropolitan Vs. RER). An idea of the president is to have public transports working all night long. Nicolas Sarkozy would be favorable to see more changes in the journeys of the Parisians but more effortless, reducing the total time of journeys spent a day as the Swiss government applied for its entire country⁶⁷. Nicolas Sarkozy asked for the merger of RATP and SNCF in order to regulate the movements within Paris, to have an efficient transit system, by completing the transport lines missing and improve the general management.

President Sarkozy also imagined the structures of the future transports «automatic, fast, important capacities to link the different economic centre of the future»⁶⁸. Indeed the president Nicolas Sarkozy and Christian Blanc (state secretary for the development of the capital region), had a scalable plan for the future transportation line of Paris Ile-de-France⁶⁹. The directive schema for the development of the transports will be changed according to the new needs or ideas identify. Nevertheless the project realized already represents the construction of 130 kilometers of railways within Paris Ile-de-France,

⁶⁴ Nicolas Sarkozy, « Discours du Grand Paris », Palais de l'architecture, 29th of April 2009, 28th min.

⁶⁵ Ibid, 29th min 15

⁶⁶ Ibid, 30th min

⁶⁷Ibid, 30th min 40

⁶⁸ Ibid, 34th min.

⁶⁹ Ibid, 34th min 20

with the ambition to create new connections and easiness to move for about 8 million of daily users of the public transports.

The budget announced by the president only for the automatic transport, will reach about about €35 billion⁷⁰. Sarkozy assumed that this investment will be an answer to the crisis, which will strengthen the entire country. Nicolas Sarkozy thinks to finance this project thanks to financial land-tax valorization which will provide important benefits (all the constructions of transports and stations will have a drastic impact on the house values by increasing them). The second income source will be the increase of the use of the public transports which will also generate higher profits and the breakeven point will be reached quickly (as it will be opened 24 hours a day all week long, with an automatic system to drive it).

Many projects of le grand Paris are profitable they will permit to have an investment public/private partnership (Gilles Carrez is in charge of this topic for the project).

The president concluded its elocution by insisting on the overall fact that the project of the Greater Paris will be generated by a «Green growth». The Greater Paris has to attract more Foreign Direct Investment to France. Nicolas Sarkozy assumed that the project will be done within ten years and the constructions of the infrastructures will start by 2012.

The demand of the president Sarkozy is clear: create a new system for Paris to promote a green environment in order to generate a growth of the attractiveness of the Parisian area. This growth will be articulated around major points such as investment in research, €800 million of public investment⁷¹ for the campus project concerning Le plateau de Saclay, which will gather different prestigious universities and schools such as Ecole Centrale Paris, Polythech Paris or university Paris XI.

Also public transports will permit a better circulation of people in the city/region, by creating new connections between Airports, business areas and housing areas, which will provide better revenues to government through taxes.

The companies will also mainly benefit from the new connection of Paris to Le Havre Harbour, which will fasten the imports and the exports, the intensification of the connection will certainly provide a reduce of the transportations costs. This total reduction of the delivery costs will impact the final good price, which will also provide more competitiveness to the Parisian companies, and will through this gain of competitiveness will lead to an increase of the corporate taxes perceived by the government and will permit to reimburse the public debt contracted to realize this project.

⁷⁰ Ibid, 35th min 40

⁷¹ Dominique Malecot, Les Echos, 27 Septembre 2010

The president has raised many problems which will have to be solved in order to realize this massive project (such as private/public investment partnership). Nicolas Sarkozy asked to have some answers due to a legal regulations (creation of laws to manage and delimitate the entire project), to support the different constructions which will be realized for the project.

We are now going to see the legal status of Le Grand Paris.