JANUARY 28, 1998.
On the occasion of the France – Spain football match, the President of the Republic Jacques Chirac inaugurates the brand new Stade de France in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), in the northern suburbs of Paris. With 81,338 seats, 320 m long and 280 wide, 10,900 m2 of glass roof, this immense concrete and steel liner, built for the FIFA World Cup in France the following summer, gives a new face to the neighborhood, damaged by deindustrialization. In its wake, the A1 motorway is covered at the level of the avenue du Président-Wilson. Two new RER stations, on lines B and D, are built while a string of offices are emerging from the ground.
Make you want to live there
“The problem is that a large part of the district is emptied from 6 pm, notes more than twenty years later Mathieu Hanotin, the new mayor PS. The objective today is therefore not only to make people want to come to Saint-Denis but also to stay there. The 2024 Olympic Games offer him a golden opportunity to win the bet. Two emblematic projects should see the light of day on its land: the Olympic village and the aquatic center, which the population will be able to enjoy after the games. The Olympic Games will also speed up the work on the Pleyel crossing, which will span the enormous rail line, and that of the Saint-Denis Pleyel station, the future hub of the Grand Paris Express where four new automatic metro lines will cross (the 14, 15, 16 and 17).
“The new station will give real continuity to the city, which is now cut in two by the railways,” explains its architect, the Japanese Kengo Kuma. Thanks to its cultural program of 5,000 m2 and its 850 m2 of shops, it will also provide a meeting place for residents. Kengo Kuma has planned a wooden facade and a green roof terrace. One way to bring nature into the city.
“All this is perlimpine powder!” retorts for his part Benjamin, member of the collective of residents Pleyel to come. A station as big as Châtelet – Les Halles is being built and at the same time a motorway interchange on the A86 is planned. We are told about a sustainable city and we are setting up an Olympic village which will increase pollution in the territory by 50%. To believe that the policy of the city is made only to satisfy the investors… ”
By 2024, Saint-Denis will once again be at the heart of issues and debates.
City projects, life projects.
Special file produced by Elodie Chermann in partnership with the Etablissement Public Foncier d’Île-de-France.
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