Grilled meats (and vegetables) in the heart of Paris, starting this summer. The Council of Paris adopted last Monday a wish of the environmental group, which aims to install electric barbecues in certain parks of the 18th arrondissement of Paris for the summer period, in order to make it a tool for animation and conviviality of the district. This experimental measure will concern “the Chapelle Charbon park, the Belliard mail, the Léon square, the Jane Viale square, the Carpeaux square”.
The wish filed among others by Émile Meunier, elected ecologist of the 18th arrondissement, intends to put an end to “unauthorized barbecues on public roads”, by the supervision of the device by associations. “Everyone has the right to moments of conviviality, not just those who can go to the countryside”, defends the elected representative at Le Figaro, as critics flock to the right of the political spectrum.
In line with the positions of his EELV party, he explains that he wants with this experiment to “raise awareness of food, in particular vegetarian”, with grilled vegetables, and question the place of women around the barbecue. “You also have to understand that it’s not just guys who can cook merguez.” A particular resonance with the remarks of the ecologist deputy Sandrine Rousseau, who had called last summer for a “change of mentality” vis-a-vis the barbecue, “symbol of virility”.
For the right-wing group “Changer Paris”, in addition to the fact that this initiative is “inconsistent” with the position of the Greens on the subject, it poses above all serious health and safety problems. “A public garden is a space of tranquility, it’s not nothing in a big city like Paris, there is an elementary security risk due to plants or children,” says Angélique Michel, elected from the group in the 18th arrondissement. . And to add: “If the problem was truly wild grilling, they would call the municipal police.”
The elected official rebels at seeing her neighborhood as “the theater of experimentation”. “The Greens no longer know how to exist, the neighborhoods are deteriorating everywhere day by day. They’ll be barbecuing amid crack and needles, especially near the Porte de La Chapelle. There is already no longer a child in the park. From 4 p.m., the inhabitants go home because of the drug trade,” she explains.
Vincent Baladi, elected from the group in the 8th arrondissement, recalls that we are not immune to a “health scandal”, especially with high heat. Monday at the Council of Paris, he defended the position of “Change Paris”, for an “ecology of common sense” in the face of the “imposition of a doctrine”, with an “electoralist” aim. Above all, he is worried about a “precedent” which would lead to a generalization of the system to other districts.
