How beautiful is this summer afternoon, the terrace packed under the blooming albizzias, the “hello” Everywhere, from the waiters, there is a general good mood in a district that is suddenly left without cars. Once again, we will close later, at midnight instead of 9 p.m. It has been like this since the start of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The athletes incognito, their coaches, the saleswomen from the official store, all these little people who live together in the Olympic village, just a stone’s throw away, meet at Bons Vivants, an independent brewery installed at the foot of this white tower that borders the A86, north of Paris.
The owner of the place, in shiny grey trousers, is enjoying it. When the break is over, if the promoters return, he will discuss selling this time. The tobacco shop with red shutters has had its moment. “I want a new business, a new clientele. High-end decor, not those messy little tables. And so, this glass will be 10 euros and not 5 euros.”
The spectacular metamorphosis of the Pleyel Tower opposite gives it wings. Since June, the former headquarters of the Seine-Saint-Denis Family Allowance Fund has housed a luxury hotel, with a rooftop bar and swimming pool, a must-have business centre.
“After the Games, it will be our turn. From tobacco to Chinese, bakery, garage, couscous, they will wipe out everything”Hacen and Malika Madi say. The couple run the hair salon on the same sidewalk as Les Bons Vivants, at the northern end of Ornano Boulevard in Saint-Denis. For forty years, Hacen designed the entire “93” there, “From Livry-Gargan to Montfermeil”. Malika applies the colors. No bitterness in the voices: “They are pressuring us to leave, but we are old enough, we are the last ones.”
“They are expanding Paris, it is for young people”“Adds Abdallah, a friend and neighbour, father of two pupils and a high school student. The consequences are still unclear for the couple. They have to leave the apartment they rent near the Porte de La Chapelle interchange, but where to go? “Algeria is waiting for me”, says Hacen, 68, born in Saint-Denis. Malika dreams of the Atlantic.
Big winner of the Paris 2024 legacy
At the end of September, once the Games caravan has left, the municipality of Saint-Denis will have to present to its inhabitants its fifty-year vision of this district at the Pleyel intersection. The initial plan is being revised to create as many offices as possible. But to imagine that this piece of suburb frozen in the past will resist investors is an illusion. Here everything moves at lightning speed. This former heavy industry territory shared by Saint-Denis and Saint-Ouen has been changing for thirty years. The construction of the Stade de France for the 1998 World Cup marked a first turning point. With the reinforcement of the RER service, numerous central offices have been created.
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