Towards a “City of Greater Paris” integrating the inner suburbs and the business district of La Défense? – Defense-92.fr

Towards a giant Paris city? Merging the capital and its inner suburbs into a single community of nearly seven million inhabitants, removing several administrative levels and redividing the territory into around forty “districts”: this is the scenario presented in a note carried by the High Commissioner for Planning, Clément Beaune, which relaunches the question of governance of the Grand Paris, reveals The Parisian.

Entitled “From the ring road to the metropolis, building the City of Greater Paris”, this ambitious project envisages a vast overhaul of the institutional organization of the Ile-de-France region. It is part of a political calendar considered favorable, between the municipal elections of 2026 and the presidential election of 2027, according to The Parisian.

For Clément Beaune, the Greater Paris Metropolis, created ten years ago, would not have made it possible to effectively simplify public action or reduce territorial inequalities. A report from the Court of Auditors published in 2023 is also cited to highlight structural dysfunctions and a stacking of administrative levels considered difficult to read. Today, local governance is based on a complex organization combining municipalities, Parisian districts, territorial public establishments, departments and regions, i.e. up to six decision-making levels.

The project defended by Clément Beaune proposes to replace this “millefeuille” with a simplified organization on three levels: the ÃŽle-de-France region, a new entity called “City of Greater Paris” and around forty local subdivisions called “districts”.

These districts would bring together municipalities from the inner suburbs and Parisian districts to form groups of around 170,000 inhabitants. Several examples are mentioned, such as a “Grands Boulevards” or “Quatre-Chemins” district, bringing together certain municipalities of Seine-Saint-Denis. Courbevoie, Puteaux and Neuilly-sur-Seine would thus disappear in favor of a district called “La Défense”.

Each district would have a mayor, while a mayor of Greater Paris would be elected at the level of the new community. The project calls for a “Paris-Lyon-Marseille” type ballot with a double simultaneous vote.

Skills would also be redistributed: the districts would manage local services (schools, cleanliness, civil status, green spaces or even municipal police), while the City of Greater Paris would take over the skills currently split between departments and the metropolis, particularly in social matters, town planning, water or waste management, always according to The Parisian.

Another option, considered more moderate, would consist of merging only Paris and the neighboring municipalities, or around 3.5 million inhabitants, according to Le Parisien. The other municipalities in the inner suburbs would then be attached to the departments of the outer suburbs.

The stated objective is to bring Paris closer to the standards of major European capitals. Today limited to 105 square kilometers and approximately 2.1 million inhabitants, the French capital appears significantly smaller than London or Berlin in both area and population.

With the City of Greater Paris project, the capital would become an expanded entity of nearly seven million inhabitants and would see its surface area significantly increase.

The High Commissioner for Planning, however, insists on the exploratory nature of the project, which aims above all to “open a debate”, according to The Parisian. No implementation deadline has been put forward at this stage. In an interview with the daily newspaper, Clément Beaune believes that “it’s the right time to open a debate”, just after the municipal elections and two years before the departmental elections and regional, with in the meantime the presidential election.

As for the cost of such a reform, Clément Beaune recognizes that it has not been quantified. “There are short-term costs and medium-term gains, but yes, this would allow savings, particularly administrative ones, and even on certain large pieces of equipment,” explains the High Commissioner for Planning.

This territorial big bang project is already causing reactions from many local elected officials from all sides. In the columns of ParisianGeorges Siffredi, president of Hauts-de-Seine and Paris La Défense, denounces “a great contempt for local elected officials and residents” as well as an “enarque” solution. Fatah Aggoune (DVG), mayor of Gentilly and president of the Association of Mayors of Val-de-Marne, believes that this project “removes residents from decision-making”. Emmanuel Grégoire, socialist mayor of Paris, on the other hand, seems interested in the idea, speaking to the daily about “interesting reflections”.