The Paris Council reaffirms the ownership of the Park to the city
On Tuesday, February 6, the first Council of Paris meeting of the week was held. This Council consists of 163 advisers and was renewed during the 2020 municipal elections. It is chaired by Anne Hidalgo, re-elected at the head on July 3, 2020 with a majority of 96 votes out of 163, but is made up of all political colors. Three debates were on the agenda, including the future of the Parc des Princes, which PSG wants to buy, without success at the moment. Therefore, Anne Hidalgo’s team submitted a motion to the Paris Council this Tuesday aimed at “reaffirming the ownership of the Parc des Princes as part of the heritage of the City of Paris.”
This motion, which is non-decisive and does not have any legal effect, also aimed to support the idea that “the adaptation of the stadium to PSG’s needs be carried out within a framework satisfying all parties but not involving its transfer” and that “these extension works be carried out without funding from the City of Paris other than those of the owner.” On the other hand, PSG refuses to carry out extension and modernization works, which are very expensive, for a stadium of which it is only a tenant. Nasser Al-Khelaïfi repeats that his club wants to buy the Parc des Princes and that if he fails, he will build a new stadium elsewhere.
The opposition fears the PSG will leave the Park
After the speech of the different advisers of the Paris Council, the motion submitted by Anne Hidalgo was adopted with 64 votes for and 86 abstentions. While this motion has no legal value and is more symbolic than anything else, it nevertheless indicates that it is no longer just Anne Hidalgo and her team opposing the sale of the Parc des Princes, but the City of Paris. However, the fact that 86 advisers abstained from voting proves that the subject divides the Paris Council, not everyone being on the same line as the majority led by Anne Hidalgo.
“The main risk is to see PSG leave the Park” and that the municipality will be obliged to “assume all investment costs for an empty stadium,” for example, warned Jérémy Redler, the LR mayor of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, who abstained from voting and said he was particularly in favor of resuming dialogue with PSG: “PSG belongs just as much as Parc to the Parisian heritage. If the club leaves the Park, what will become of the Stadium? The common sense position is to continue the dialogue with PSG.” And even within Anne Hidalgo’s pluralist majority, some are not on the same wavelength. This is the case of the ecologists, who believe that the City remains too vague about who will have to pay for the renovation works of the stadium if PSG stays at Parc. The ecologists therefore proposed a much less ambiguous motion than the one proposed by Anne Hidalgo’s teams, which stated that the city “categorically refuses any proposal to purchase the Parc des Princes stadium and leaves the financing of the Parc des Princes works to PSG.” A motion that was rejected by a show of hands this morning.
