Paris Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire aims to finalize talks to sell Parc des Princes to PSG soon.
Officially appointed mayor of Paris this Sunday, March 29, Emmanuel Gregoire announced that the Parc des Princes issue would be on the agenda of a special Paris Council meeting in mid-April and that he had the ambition to wrap up negotiations with PSG by the end of the summer. A referendum is planned in Massy and Poissy, where PSG is considering building its future stadium.
Emmanuel Gregoire, who won the Paris municipal elections on Sunday, March 22, was officially elected mayor of Paris this Sunday, March 29, by the new Paris Council with 103 votes out of 163. Two days earlier, the mayor confirmed in Le Parisien his desire to reopen the Parc des Princes file with PSG.
"The PSG president called me on Monday morning, and I was very happy about that call. I would like to propose a team celebration for their Champions League victory and invite them before the summer. I want us to build the future of the Parc des Princes in Paris together, and this will be on the agenda of the special mid-April Paris Council meeting. I will probably go to the stadium for PSG vs. Toulouse or the clash against Liverpool," Gregoire said Friday.
The New Paris Mayor Wants to Move Quickly on the Parc des Princes File
Emmanuel Gregoire wants to first obtain a mandate from the Paris Council allowing him to negotiate more effectively and more quickly with PSG on the sale of the Parc des Princes. The new mayor of Paris will therefore first have to convince the Paris Council of the merits of selling the stadium, which belongs to the city, before convincing PSG.
The good news is that the issue will be raised very quickly at the Paris Council, within two weeks -- the exact date will be known soon. In another interview given on Monday morning to France Info, Emmanuel Gregoire also announced that he had agreed on an ambitious timeline with PSG: "We agreed with the PSG shareholder that we wanted to close discussions by the end of the summer at the latest, because you have to know how to set ambitious timelines."
In Massy and Poissy, a Referendum Is Planned
In the event that these discussions with the Paris city hall do not succeed, PSG still has the option of building a new stadium in Massy and Poissy, but has not yet finalized its choice between the two cities -- a decision expected by October -- as feasibility studies are still underway. In both cities, the mayors -- who were reelected -- had announced during their electoral campaigns that they would hold a referendum if reelected to gauge their populations on PSG's stadium project.
Nicolas Samsoen confirmed on Sunday, upon his official reelection as mayor of Massy, that the referendum would take place if PSG chose his city. In Poissy, where PSG has its eye on the Stellantis factory site, Mayor Sandrine Berno Dos Santos was reelected -- defeating, among others, Karl Olive -- and has also already announced that she would leave "the last word" to her residents regarding the PSG future stadium file.
"An idea that does not truly delight PSG, where there are fears that opponents will mobilize in large numbers and block the project. Despite all efforts to explain the file and convince the populations concerned, the risk of ending up empty-handed at the end of the year is real," Le Parisien recently wrote.
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