This Wednesday, June 3, Clément Beaune, the High Commissioner for the Plan and the General Commissioner of France Stratégie, reignited the debate over Greater Paris with a reorganization proposal that could push the capital's boundaries beyond the ring road.
It wouldn’t be about simply expanding Paris by absorbing a few neighboring communes, as in the 19th century. The idea floated by Clément Beaune would instead aim to rethink the organization of the metropolitan core, moving beyond the current boundary between Paris, its arrondissements, nearby suburban communes, the departments, and the Metropolis of Greater Paris.
The idea of the 40 districts would be to establish a new territorial framework: larger than Paris’s arrondissements, but smaller than a single, sprawling metropolitan entity. These districts could bring together Parisian neighborhoods and nearby towns, or several neighboring municipalities into a single bloc. At this stage, no definitive map has been drawn up, and the reform remains only a proposal.
The first municipalities likely to be affected are those that directly border Paris. They sit at the immediate interface with the ring road, the gates of Paris, the city’s main traffic corridors, the metro and tram lines, and metropolitan development projects.
In the west, the following areas stand out, notably Neuilly-sur-Seine, Levallois-Perret, Clichy, Saint-Ouen, Boulogne-Billancourt, Issy-les-Moulineaux and Vanves.
To the south, the municipalities most directly affected could include Malakoff, Montrouge, Gentilly, Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, Ivry-sur-Seine, Charenton-le-Pont and Saint-Mandé.
To the east and northeast, it would include the municipalities of Vincennes, Montreuil, Bagnolet, Les Lilas, Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, Pantin, Aubervilliers and Saint-Denis.
A broader scenario would cover the entire inner ring, i.e., the three departments surrounding Paris—the Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, and Val-de-Marne.
In that case, the reform would no longer be limited to the municipalities bordering the ring road around Paris. It could extend to towns farther from the capital but already integrated into the metropolitan system: Nanterre, Courbevoie, Colombes, Rueil-Malmaison, Antony, Créteil, Champigny-sur-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine, Maisons-Alfort, Bobigny, Drancy, Aulnay-sous-Bois, Noisy-le-Grand, Bondy, Sevran or Rosny-sous-Bois, for example.
The broadest scenario could extend to the perimeter of the Grand Paris Metropolis. It currently brings together Paris, the municipalities of Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne, as well as seven municipalities located in Essonne and Val-d’Oise. The Metropolis states on its website that it encompasses the City of Paris, the municipalities in the three inner suburbs and seven in the outer suburbs.
These seven additional municipalities are:
In Essonne: Athis-Mons, Juvisy-sur-Orge, Morangis, Paray-Vieille-Poste, Savigny-sur-Orge and Viry-Châtillon.
In Val-d’Oise: Argenteuil.
No, and that’s a key point. Even if the reform kept the scope of the Greater Paris Metropolis, not every municipality would be affected to the same degree.
The municipalities directly bordering Paris would likely be at the center of any redrawing of the boundaries, as they share with the capital the same pressing concerns: the ring road, gateways to Paris, urban continuity, transport, offices, housing, road networks, and pollution.
More peripheral municipalities would face issues of governance, financial solidarity, urban planning, or major public works. Their day-to-day administrative life could evolve, but they would not necessarily be “integrated into Paris” in the strict sense.
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