Anne Hidalgo wants to transform high schools in Paris into emergency accommodation, Valérie Pécresse wins

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The Council of State rejected the appeal of the city of Paris, which wanted to issue an “injunction” to the Île-de-France region to proceed with the “immediate disaffection” of the Armand-Carrel (19th), Georges-Brassens (19th) high schools. 14th) and Théophile-Gautier (15th) for the needs of emergency accommodation projects.

“An increasingly urgent need”

The mayor (PS) of Paris Anne Hidalgo in fact wanted justice to force the region chaired by Valérie Pécresse (Libres!) to “summon without delay” its elected officials so that they deliberate on the subject: the premises of these high schools are “ closed for several months already”, she reminded the summary judge of the Paris administrative court in April 2024. They therefore risk being the object of “multiple irregular occupations”, to cause “disruption to public order, security, tranquility and health” and to offend “human dignity”.

“The absence of disaffection deprives it of its rights over the buildings in dispute, of which it is nevertheless the owner,” explained the lawyer for the city of Paris at first instance. “They are intended to be used for the creation of emergency accommodation places, the need for which is becoming more and more urgent. »

The “refusal” of the Île-de-France region “to exercise its jurisdiction” therefore constituted an “excessive and unjustified attack” on the “property rights” of the city of Paris. The community could also not exercise its own “competencies” – “shared with the State” – in terms of emergency accommodation.

Implicit refusal of the Île-de-France region

But “if the city of Paris indicates (…) that it wishes to allocate the three high schools (…) to emergency accommodation, it does not follow from the investigation that the contested decision would obstruct this”, found the judge in summary proceedings. . She wanted as proof that a “precarious occupation agreement” had been concluded on January 19, 2024 for eighteen months between the region, the city and Emmaüs Solidarité to accommodate “families with their children” in the Suzanne vocational high school. -Valadon (18th) “in the absence of a decommissioning decision”.

“The State has an emergency accommodation project within the Théophile-Gautier vocational high school for a period of ten years, without the question of the decommissioning of the high school being raised,” noted the magistrate again in view of a “letter” from the regional prefect and the rector of the Paris academy dated December 8, 2023. “Only an agreement in principle from the city of Paris is required to allow the services of the prefecture to start working on this project”, underlined the summary judge of the Paris administrative court.

“If the city of Paris maintains (…) that the high schools in dispute risk being the subject of irregular occupations, it is up to it with the Île-de-France region to secure their access,” she concluded. The request had therefore been rejected at this stage for lack of urgency to suspend the “implicit refusal” of the region, born on June 13, 2023 from the silence kept by Valérie Pécresse at the request of Anne Hidalgo. The city of Paris therefore filed an appeal before the Council of State, the highest French administrative court.

The Council of State rejects the appeal

The judge's order was tainted by a “manifest error of law”: the allocation of the three high schools to “secondary education” prohibited “any other use” such as emergency accommodation. The magistrate of first instance had also “distorted the documents in the file” which had been submitted to her, found the city of Paris.

But “none of these means is likely to allow the appeal to be admitted”, rules the Council of State in a decision of November 8, 2024 which has just been made public.

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