PROTESTS BEGIN TO PAY

These are examples that could well inspire other groups and residents in other areas of the city. On Rue de Strasbourg or at the MJC Mutualité, the mobilization of local residents, shopkeepers, employees, and users against municipal decisions is starting to pay off.

STRASBOURG STREET: REMOVAL OF SPACES CANCELLED

We revealed it to you exclusively a few days ago, and the Dauphiné Libéré confirmed the information on its website the night before last: the removal of parking spaces on Rue de Strasbourg is (for now) cancelled. A big victory for the shopkeepers and residents who have been mobilizing for over a year against a project that would kill this preserved neighborhood.

A BUDGETARY DECISION FROM THE METRO…

This decision is not made by chance. It comes from the Métropole, the main financier of the operation. Sylvain Laval, Vice-President in charge of development, made this decision, aided by the fact that the Métropole must find 100 million in savings urgently on its investments because it no longer has the means to achieve its ambitions! In this untenable budgetary context, projects that arouse strong opposition are the most likely to be shelved in order to save a little.

…WHICH ERIC PIOLLE IS TRYING TO APPROPRIATE

In the DL, Eric Piolle tries to claim the decision as his own: “Rue de Strasbourg, it will therefore be the status quo. We have heard your legitimate concerns and that this is one of the few streets to have a very strong commercial identity“. He pretends to finally hear the arguments to which he has been deaf for over a year while he simply accepts a financial decision. But the essential thing is there: the rue de Strasbourg and the shopkeepers who make up its identity are, for the moment, preserved.

THE PIOLLESQUE LUBIE IS NOT ABANDONED

“For now”, because the project is not definitively buried.We couldn’t be less ambitious than rue Voltaire, so we’ll give it time.” thus slipped Eric Piolle. Understand: the subject will come back on the table, and in a version that could turn out to be “more ambitious”… therefore worse. Nothing will change between now and the municipal elections, because the Greens/LFI will try to avoid any subject of dispute between now and then, but as soon as the next day, their whim would immediately come out of the boxes if the people of Grenoble elected them again.

THE FIGHT CONTINUES FOR THE PLACE OF METZ

In Place de Metz, the elimination of all parking is still on the agenda and, barring any delays, will be completed in early 2026. The municipality is currently turning a deaf ear, but the shopkeepers are planning to mobilize to keep at least twenty spaces out of the fifty that exist.We will not give up” warned a shopkeeper, Sophie Bourgarel, taken over by the DL. If all the parking were removed from Place de Metz, the Piolle team would have already completed a large part of the work before the elections: all they would have to do is press a button to finish the work on rue de Strasbourg the next day.

THE GREEN OFFICIALS ALREADY START SHOOTING RED BALLS…

In order to properly prepare the ground, the counter-offensive has already been launched by the pharmacy-lobbyists close to the Greens, whose role is to work on public opinion so that the Piollist elected officials can then more easily deploy their agenda. The ADTC (public transport development association) reacted very strongly to the pausing of the project through the voice of Mehdi Tadjine (also a member of the Ile Verte neighborhood union very close to the deputy Gilles Namur and … co-editor of the Piolle list program in 2020!): “the city capitulates in the open countryside” he explains to Le Dauphiné.

…SHOWING CONTEMPT FOR MERCHANTS AND RESIDENTS

He displays his contempt for the opponents of the project by continuing: “the rate of motorized customers is largely overestimated by retailers who are themselves over-motorized. So here we have a project abandoned for the benefit of a few motorized customers from the periphery.“. The shopkeepers have already largely developed the particularity of this street, its food shops and the numerous external flows which bring it to life. But Mehdi Tadjine, an environmental activist who has obviously never run a business, knows better than them how their shop and their clientele work! Arrogance, arrogance and contempt go well together among the Greens.

MJC MUTUALITÉ: MORE THAN 1000 SIGNATURES FOR THE PETITION

For MJC Mutualité too, the city seems to be moving backwards. “NOT“We risk filing for bankruptcy at the end of the year.” announced President Marie-Christine Simiand in February. A petition had been launched and it clearly pointed to municipal responsibility, which had tried to force the structure to move and cut 1/3 of its subsidies: “once upon a time there was a MJC that a destructive spirit wanted to make disappear. She suffered successive attacks. The impact of each attack made it possible to test his resistance capacities, before his planned and discreet death. After collecting more than 1,000 signatures, the petition was handed over to the deputy in charge of community life, Annabelle Bretton, this week.

MOBILIZATION FORCES THE DEPUTY TO PUT WATER IN HIS WINE

Nothing has yet been decided but the Dauphiné reports on a meeting between the deputy and the president of the MJC, and the latter expresses more optimism than previously because the municipality seems to have opened the door to additional subsidies . Of course, nothing has yet been formalized, the original subsidy will not be compensated, and the promises only bind those who believe them. But the mobilization of employees, parents, residents attached to the MJC forced the Greens/LFI to put a little water in their wine, they who had not wanted to hear anything for 2 years and were playing bulldozer politics as usual.

GOOD EXAMPLES FOR OTHER CITIZEN MOBILIZATIONS

These small municipal retreats are “weak signals” that should not be taken for granted because the green lobbies will be active, and the result of the municipal elections would call everything into question if Piolle’s team and his successors were reappointed. But for the other hotly contested projects (Berriat, Jeanne d’Arc, Abbaye, MJC/Prémol theater…), there is a little hope: the approach of the elections will for once encourage the outgoing team to try to avoid the subjects of protest (we have a foretaste of the demagogy to come with Piolle’s about-face on the rue de Strasbourg). Added to this are the constrained finances of the city and the metropolis which could lead to the abandonment of other whims of the Greens/LFI if citizen protest is strong enough.

The elections will then offer a choice between those who have initiated and intend to pursue these projects, and those ready to review the copy with the residents and those concerned. A word to the wise!