Il Nuovo Postiglione - A village divided: Spat over secret garden splits Montmartre

For 50 years, the walled garden on the ultra-chic Rue Lepic has resonated with the metal clacks of petanque, the French national bowling pastime, defying the gentrification that drew envious eyes.

Montmartre in the north of Paris is one of the few elevated areas in the relatively flat French capital and "the butte", as it is known, had for many years a rural feel that captivated artists.

Even now, with the area absorbed into the urban sprawl of central Paris, most residents still call it a village.

The garden is maintained by the non-profit organisation Lepic-Abbesses Petanque Club (CLAP) and its 257 members, who say nothing less than the neighbourhood's soul is at stake as City Hall considers rival commercial projects for the site.

"You have job-seekers, pensioner and CEOs, a chef, a teacher. A 16-year-old can play with someone who's 80. Here you find all types, and it's this incredible social fabric that makes us what we are," said Maxime Liogier, the club's communications manager.

The players took over the 765 square metres (8,200 square feet) of playing grounds, a rare remnant of the vegetation that once covered the butte, after the city bought the land from a daughter of a resident painter in 1972.

No formal contracts were signed but the city gave its tacit approval, connecting water and electricity for the clubhouse and letting the club reserve entry to members only.

The status quo prevailed until a few months ago, when the luxury boutique hotel next door filed a plan to turn the site into a for-profit affair. What better setting for lush wedding receptions or cocktail parties?

Under a 2017 law, the city had to publish the proposal for use of public land and invite competing offers that are due by November 28.

The move caught the CLAP off guard, especially since it had been trying to regularise its situation with local officials.

"Two months isn't a lot of time for us to come up with a project!" Liogier said.

- 'Magical site' -

An online petition to save the club has garnered around 4,300 signatures, though members seem to accept that their days of exclusive access are numbered.

"We want to keep the site in its current state, while opening it up as much as possible to the neighbourhood," Liogier said.

To that end, the club held an open house on Saturday, with members suggesting that schools would soon be invited so children could learn an activity more often associated with pensioners enjoying a game between glasses of beer or pastis.

"When a unique place like this is in danger, it breaks your heart," French tennis great and neighbour Yannick Noah told AFP.

"It's good to have commercial projects but maybe there's something more important -- this bond between people."

But not everyone will be sad to see the club go. Alain Coquard, the influential president of the "Republic of Montmartre" preservation society, calls the CLAP an unaccountable clique that claims dominion over a "magical site" that should be open to everyone.

The stakes are high for the butte as it seeks to join UNESCO's ranks of protected World Heritage Sites.

"Can we leave a city's heritage, which belongs to all Parisian taxpayers, abandoned like this? Just give it to people who have turned it into the most exclusive club in Paris?" he said.

According to Coquard -- who says he was refused entry the one time he was invited to play -- private event operators are also preparing lucrative proposals for the city, which could be temping as the municipal debt load soars.

But his Republic is backing the bid by the Hotel Particulier next door, whose director Oscar Comtet declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

"We sided with him to ensure this corner of Montmartre is opened up," Coquard said, conjuring up a range of open-door events, maybe even an ice-skating rink, on the petanque grounds in winter.

But the CLAP is digging in. Older members recall a years-long battle in the 1980s to prevent the construction of a multi-storey carpark on the site.

Prominent neighbours including Jean-Pierre Cassel, father of star actor Vincent Cassel, chained themselves to the trees to scupper the project, and in 1991 the site was designated a protected landscape.

"If we have to, we'll do the same," Liogier said, though he remains confident that 50 years of taking care of the garden have not been in vain.

"We trust that the planning commission will pick the best project, which is us."

M.Dodaro--INP