Enraged local residents’ groups fear worsening traffic, crowds and noise. They deplore the prospect of “yet more concrete” on an historic site that squats on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne, one of the capital’s green lungs. They say the botanical gardens, with their 1898 greenhouses, will be “vandalised” by a “new temple to sport-business”. Although Bertrand Delanoë, the Socialist mayor of Paris, backs the project, the capital’s influential Greens rejoiced when the court blocked the plans.