Château Ouvrier: home of solidarity, a place where links are forged
Paris 14e (75014)
The Pernety-Plaisance neighbourhood, the northern part of the 14th arrondissement of Paris, is a working-class and working neighbourhood that has become more residential in recent years, losing its great social mix in the process; but it is also a neighbourhood where there is much social action as a result of the fight against certain urban development plans that ran counter to the welfare of its inhabitants. This was a fight whose impact can now be measured, in particular through the great amount of militant and supportive action.
In 1977, in the framework of the land-use plan, 6,300m2 of the neighbourhood were designated to be laid out as parks by the City of Paris, which began to move large numbers of low-income families to the suburbs in order to acquire their homes at the price of building land.
In 1989, the land-use plan was revised: 5,150m2 were now building land and only 1,150m2 set aside for parks. With rising property prices, the mayor made a good financial deal!
When the inhabitants learned of another building plan for these last 1,150m2 (the new proposed land-use plan including this had not yet been approved), a large number of them took action to save at least a last little garden; in 1993 this movement resulted in the formation of the association Udé! (town-planning and democracy), which made a number of surveys in order to find out what the residents wanted for their neighbourhood.
In 1997, the plan to develop the ZAC Didot* (the Didot urban development zone) into a densely built area with no facilities also mobilised people, resulting in the amendment of the plan, including the preservation and restoration of the building called the "Château Ouvrier".
*A ZAC (urban development zone) is an area in which "a public authority or a public establishment with authority to do so decides to act to carry out or have carried out the development of land (...) with a view to selling it (...) at a later date to public or private users" (Art. L. 311.1 of the Town Planning Code).
In 1998, with the closure of the neighbourhood's social centre, Notre Maison, local associations, of which Udé is one of the pillars, found themselves without premises for activities or meetings. They grouped together into a joint body, FLORIMONT, for the primary purpose of finding new premises for associations.
After several years of examining the content, development and management of the future premises, in parallel with the development work on the ZAC Didot and the Château Ouvrier, the goal was at last achieved when the latter opened in October 2006.
The Château Ouvrier is therefore part of the ZAC Didot, a sector bound by Rue du Château to the north, Rue Didot to the east, Rue Pernety to the south and Rue Raymond-Losserand to the west that now includes a gymnasium, a crèche, parks that include a shared garden (Le Lapin Ouvrier), social housing, a student hostel, a community café (Le Moulin à Café) and artists' studios, as well as the association premises.
Le Château Ouvrier: a place for activities where links are forged
FLORIMONT gave itself the primary task of making premises available to the associations and people of the neighbourhood at very accessible prices (€1 to €10 per hour).
With the presence of different actors, FLORIMONT tries to foster the forging of links and knowledge exchange. Some 20 associations are members: Migrants Plaisance (French for adults and primary education support); Udé!; La Page du 14ème (community newspaper); Réseau Denfert (knowledge exchange); Les jardins numériques (IT culture); Attac Paris 14 (action-oriented people's education); Cie Catherine Hubeau (theatre); le Moulin à Café (community café); Secours Populaire; Royal Rouvier Chess Club (Chess); AMAP des Lapereaux des Thermopyles (Preservation of Peasant Agriculture); Solidarités Nouvelles pour le Logement (housing); Un temps pour soi, un lieu d'écoute (consultation and assistance association); les Écrivains Chanteurs (writing workshop); Kalédoïk (music classes); Collectif Logement Paris 14 (housing collective); Régie Sud (video production and training), etc.
The links and knowledge exchange first found expression in the formation of a management board on which most of the associations are represented; this provides the opportunity to inform each other of the various activities and possibilities for cooperation, particularly for the various events, both in terns of participation and organisation, as was the case of the inauguration of the premises in the presence of the mayor of the arrondissement in May 2007.
The FLORIMONT team would like to strengthen this cooperation and would like each association to make its capacities available to all.
"Day-to-day cooperation isn't yet altogether obvious," says Gilles Motel, a member, but some actions are already beginning appear. For example, the association Paris Réussite (a new member), which is expert in the education of middle school children, is making itself available to the pupils of Migrants Plaisance, which works with primary school children, in order to assess their level before they go to middle school and thus identify any gaps.
All the possibilities for exchange are still far from being exploited, such as the educational presentation of the work of the AMAP during the weekly distribution to families that are members of Migrants Plaisance, on the premises every afternoon.
Another association, Saveurs et Arômes, would like to use the Château Ouvrier kitchen: by collaborating with the AMAP it could organise initiation and tasting activities.
Mobilising the public
FLORIMONT recently launched a three-part project to strengthen the links between the inhabitants of the neighbourhood: Mémoires et Avenir du quartier Pernety (Memories and Future of the Pernety Neighbourhood).
- The first stage took place on 3 July 2007 in the form of a convivial evening at the Moulin à Café with the theme Neighbourhood Memories, presenting the history of people's movements over the years.
A reading was followed by the projection of four films: the first was on the fight against the Vercingétorix urban motorway (a motorway crossing the neighbourhood and ending at the foot of the Montparnasse Tower); the second was about the community newspaper La Page; the third was about a couple who were booksellers in Rue Didot; the fourth was a feature on an epidemic in which the sick devoured the parks of the city. In order to continue the work, FLORIMONT is looking for people who can talk about the history of the neighbourhood through their own lives and, in partnership with the historical society of the 14th arrondissement, prepare a work on the Resistance.
- A second stage will deal with the future of the neighbourhood.
On the occasion of an event organised by the Town Hall to welcome new arrivals (planned for 8 September 2007 in the form of a street party), FLORIMONT wants to interview people to ask them about their impressions of the neighbourhood and their needs and expectations.
This will be followed by another evening at the Moulin à Café where the report will be shown in the presence of new and longer-standing inhabitants, accompanied by films on the history of the neighbourhood so as to link past and future. It is also planned to form discussion groups in order to go into the subject more deeply. During this welcome day Secours Populaire will work with Migrants Plaisance to help newly arrived migrant families in order to facilitate their integration and avoid their becoming isolated.
- The third part will be aimed at the young people of the neighbourhood. FLORIMONT would like to involve all the local associations in a joint project in order to benefit from the capacities of all.
Various ideas have already been put forward, such as video training with the aim of producing filmed reports with the old people of the neighbourhood (formation of an intergenerational link), but the project is still in preparation. The former Head of the neighbourhood middle school, who is now retired, will act as educational adviser.
A management group composed of various members has been formed for this purpose. FLORIMONT would like to distribute specific tasks to each according to their capacities.
The project group is at present looking for a sociologist to study sociological change in the neighbourhood since 1930.
Continuing a strong tradition of community action, the Pernety-Plaisance neighbourhood has now been restored with, at its centre, the Château Ouvrier, a place that belongs to the inhabitants and lends itself perfectly to the carrying-out of projects of every kind and the forging of links. To be continued ...
