In exchange, the brand with the three stripes will pay the city nearly 2.8 million euros per year, of which 180,000 will go to sports projects linked to this popular district in the north of Paris. “We must make the least bad choices every day”defended the elected socialist of the district Maya Akkari, for whom the “revenue garnered by this ‘naming’ will improve our public action in the service of Parisians in general, and the inhabitants of the district”. Emmanuel Koblenz, another elected PS, underlined the “amount without equivalent in France, or even in Europe” of this contract, according to comments reported by AFP.
An argument that did not convince the Communists, who had been demanding for years that the future equipment bear the name of Alice Milliat, a pioneer of women’s sport to whom the city will award the name of the Arena forecourt in compensation. “Today, no piece of land should escape the seal of a brand”lamented Nicolas Bonnet-Oulaldj (PCF), for whom the City passes “next to history” with this “naming” “straight out of the practices of liberalism”.
