How to reconcile a planetary event and the work that takes place permanently in the capital? The construction sector has been discussing for months with the City of Paris to successfully maintain its activities. Faced with the concern of craftsmen, the Confederation of crafts and small building companies (Capeb) Grand Paris has also sent a letter to its members to detail the system announced by the City.
Thierry Gesset-Parment is president of Capeb Grand Paris. His roof renovation company, ATZ-l’Art du Toit, is based in La Garenne-Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine). He works mainly on Parisian zinc roofs.
Did you fear a stoppage of Parisian construction sites in 2024?
THIERRY GESSET-PARMENT. That was what we were told at the start. No building site during the period of the Games or the previous months, a very clean Paris without works. We were very worried, especially about the complexity of the device. We met elected officials, sometimes informally when we meet them on construction sites. We have repeated our difficulties for three years, with the Covid-19 pandemic, then rising material costs. It was not possible to force us to stop. The City has since settled down. There are still concerns but we are no longer in a disaster scenario. Even if there are the Olympic Games, we can’t stop everything.
Will you be able to deal with the measures announced by the City?
There will still be constraints in the summer of 2024. We understand, in any case, the areas defined by the City, which really correspond to the areas of the Olympic sites or to the Seine quay for the opening ceremony. It will certainly be complicated to circulate and there will be exemptions to request, but the conditions have improved. We will, for example, not need to remove the scaffolding from the construction sites in progress. It is the prefecture that will decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether they need to be dismantled for security reasons. As it will be at the discretion of the prefecture, we have no idea for the moment of the consequences that this will have…
Are some artisans still worried about financial loss?
Yes, but we have time to organize ourselves. For our members, it is necessary to have the information upstream. We will continue the meetings to be sure that there are no worries. Over time, and as events approach, additional questions will arise. In particular, it remains to be seen what will happen for emergency interventions. Let me give you an example: a leak on a roof during the summer of 2024 in the area concerned by the restrictions, near the banks of the Seine, an Olympic site or a train station. How will the procedure for intervening take place?