Ian Brossat
The far-right offensive is so powerful that lukewarm solutions won’t work anymore. I’m not saying that what we’ve been doing for the last decade was lukewarm. On the contrary — we transformed Paris. But we can’t slow down in the years to come. Rather, we need to go even further and harder. Just look at the temperatures outside: it’s 100 degrees, and we’re only in June! Any talk of reining in our green agenda is completely mad. Reducing the number of cars in Paris and greening the city is not a question of comfort; it’s a matter of survival. If we do nothing, our city will simply become unlivable. The coming years should be about accelerating the transformation of Paris. And that, of course, will mean lifting a certain number of taboos.
First of all, as far as the role of cars is concerned, we need to double down. For example, I’m proposing that along the entire right bank of the Seine — from the Garigliano Bridge in the 16th Arrondissement in the west to the Bercy Park in the east — we need to pedestrianize everything. Let’s get rid of cars and plant trees on the streets.
We also need to break a few taboos when it comes to the question of property rights. We need to rebalance the scales between the right to housing and the right to property. When homes are left empty for years, when buildings are left empty for years, it’s no longer private property. It’s ownership that aims to deprive. It deprives tens of thousands of people of the housing they need.
Auteur: Ian Brossat
