2025year of renewal, year of geographical upheavals in the Ile-de-France region. Since Wednesday January 1st, a new name has been added to the list of municipalities of Île-de-France. His name? Saint-Denis. So yes, seen like that, you could tell us “ but it already exists in Saint-Denis”. Certainly, but the city officially comes from merge with its neighbor Pierrefitte-sur-Seineto become one. A measure announced by the two mayors in April 2023 and which now makes Saint-Denis, the second most populous city in Île-de-France.
Nearly 150,000 inhabitants for Saint-Denis
Thanks to this merger, Saint-Denis now has no less than 149 781 inhabitantsor around thirty thousand more people. A total, which allows him to be entitled to a subsidy reserved for municipalities with less than 150,000 inhabitants. For three years, the latter will therefore be entitled to an amount of 15€ per inhabitantor approximately 6.74 million euros in total. Wednesday January 1, 2025, a symbolic ribbon cutting took place at a crossroads where the names of the two municipalities were still visible.
A new arrangement of the municipal council
Two municipalities united into one… Which will now be one the mayor ? On the one hand, Mathieu Hanotinmayor of Saint-Denis, on the other, Michel Fourcademayor of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine. It is therefore Mathieu Hanotin who will remain at the head of this new configuration of Saint-Denis, while Michel Fourcade will be his first deputy. The “new” municipal council will bring together a total of 94 municipal councilorswhose first installation meeting will take place on January 4 at Saint-Denis town hall.
According to the majority, this merger would allow Saint-Denis to have a more significant impact at the national level, particularly on financial aspects, by becoming the second most populous city in Île-de-France, just behind Paris (2,133,111 inhabitants) and before Boulogne-Billancourt (119,808 inhabitants). It would also lead to a tax reduction for the inhabitants of Pierrefitte, who will now be able to benefit from the school canteen and of the policy of combating substandard housing in Saint-Denis.
Such an initiative was made possible by the territorial reform law of December 16, 2010allowing a simpler merger of municipalities to combat municipal fragmentation. However, she did not not only happy people on the side of the inhabitants since some of them had created the association “Stop Fusion Pierrefitte-Saint-Denis!” » at the beginning of March 2024. The latter had filed a request for cancellation of the merger between Pierrefitte and Saint-Denis with the Montreuil administrative court, which ultimately rejected his request in October.
