Hello and bonjour!
It is March 2021
and we are back for another episode of
“Tim travels as little as possible for obvious reasons”
so today we’re just going on a mini adventure
half an hour outside Paris.
And because we’re also trying to avoid crowds at the moment, I thought,
where better to go than somewhere I’ve heard rumours about,
that has apparently been deserted since the 1970s.
Which is why today we’re exploring a ghost town.
Welcome to Goussainville!
This is the old village of Goussainville,
and in many ways it’s a typical quaint French countryside village.
There’s a lovely old church,
there’s the local bar,
and there’s even a small chateau,
but you may have spotted
there is something not quite right here.
Something's missing.
As recently as the 1960s this was a lively community home to over 1000 people,
but since then the population has dropped dramatically
and nowadays only a few hundred inhabitants remain,
leaving streets like this one almost completely deserted.
I say "almost"...
It’s obviously not totally a ghost town; there’s still a few people who live here.
You’ve got these cars here,
there’s someone doing some work over there by the sounds of it,
and I’m about to get run over.
So there’s still traffic going through here,
but erm…
most of the residents have left.
This terrace is a typical example,
one house is still occupied while the rest of the row is empty.
Clearly the people at number 7 are made of stronger stuff.
Either that or they’re worse neighbours than Kim Jong Un.
But hang on.
We’re half an hour outside Paris with a direct railway connection.
Why did a place like this end up getting deserted?
And if so many people left, then why did some people stay?
Well to try and answer the first question about why people left,
let’s have a quick look at Google Earth.
So here’s where we are in the old village of Goussainville,
a once-vibrant community which mysteriously began to disappear in the early 1970s;
now keep your eyes focussed on the right hand side of the screen
and if you look closely as we gradually zoom out
you might just be able to make out
Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport
which opened in 1974.
The villagers found themselves directly in line with the new runway.
Great news for the local plane spotting community,
but pretty terrible for everyone else.
So let’s go back to 1973, a year before the airport opens.
In order to make things slightly less terrible for the residents,
the French government passes a law
that forces the airport's developers, Aéroports de Paris,
to make a generous offer on every house in the village,
in order to purchase them and then demolish them.
And whatever else you think about it, financially it is a good offer;
home-owners could sell their property at up to twice the market value,
and move to somewhere that isn’t about to have aircraft flying over it.
If any of them were hesitating, well,
that summer tragically there’s a major crash at the Paris Air Show
with the plane coming down on houses less than 2km away.
It’s not hard to see why a lot of residents just sold up and got out.
By the end of the year
Aéroports de Paris had bought something like 100-150 houses in the village
and all they needed to do now was demolish them.
So um... why are they still here?
Well, there was a problem.
A large, historic, church-shaped problem.
The church dates back to the 12th Century,
or at least parts of it do,
and it’s a classified historic monument,
which means it cannot be demolished.
But it turns out that also means
you can’t demolish anything within 500m of it.
And so the houses were saved!
Sort of.
After going round in circles between the heritage authorities, who refused to allow demolition,
NON
and the local authorities, who refused to allow redevelopment,
NON
the new owners had little choice but to board up the windows
and then do absolutely nothing.
For 35 years.
From that point Goussainville was effectively frozen in time.
Among all the empty and deserted buildings
the few hundred remaining residents carried on as best they could,
but the life of the village had gone.
The church was locked up,
the bar took final orders for a final time,
and the chateau was still occupied for a few years
but in 1983 that went too.
Today the only place that’s still open is one heroic but rather lonely bookshop.
So is there any hope for Goussainville?
Well yes, actually, there is.
With advances in aircraft technology, planes these days are quieter,
or at least less noisy, than they were in the 70s.
And in 2009, the local authorities finally softened their stance on redevelopment,
and the town bought back the empty buildings for the price of one symbolic euro.
There’s a bit of tidying up to do still,
but people are gradually coming back to live here.
The church has been restored and reopened,
and look what I found on the high street.
WHAT
Luckily it’s closed at the moment or I’d probably still be there now.
So perhaps one day this will become a nice typical quaint French countryside village once again.
But if you like the abandoned apocalyptic vibe
- and let’s face it if you clicked on this video there’s a strong chance that’s you -
don’t worry, I think it is going to take a while.
If you’d like to see Goussainville before it becomes nice again,
or if you really like fixer upper projects,
it’s a half hour ride on Line D from Paris Gare du Nord.
The train will drop you in the modern part of town,
it’s only a 1km walk to the old village,
but you may want to get a taxi because these pavements are useless to anyone in a wheelchair.
Having said that once you’re in the village you can get about on the streets
- they’re pretty flat and not too busy.
If you want to explore inside the buildings
obviously you can do that at your own risk
but do make sure it’s not one of the inhabited ones.
As always, thanks for watching
and I will see you soon.