The Minister of Territorial Cohesion, Jacqueline Gourault, signed this Friday, February 5 in Besançon two agreements for State and Regional co-financing covering the period 2021-2027. In the delegation, the mayor of Besançon and the mayor of Dijon showed their institutional proximity.
The partnership agreement on the recovery plan was signed on September 28 by the Prime Minister and the President of Regions of France, Renaud Muselier. It remains to be applied in all regions. This Friday, February 5, 2021, the Minister of Territorial Cohesion and Relations with Local Authorities, Jacqueline Gourault, went to Besançon (Doubs) for a double signature concerning the orientations of the State-Region planning contract 2021-2027 (CPER) reinforced by the 2021-2022 relaunch agreement.
This is a first in France since the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region was the swiftest to deliberate and vote for both the relaunch agreement and the orientations of the CPER. The president will even evoke an institutional “short circuit”, the vote having taken place in the morning and the signature in the afternoon of the same day.
For “student income”
The word of welcome is given to Anne Vignot (EELV), elected mayor of Besançon in June 2020 at the head of an environmentalist and socialist majority, who displays her institutional proximity to the mayor of Dijon, François Rebsamen (PS). Recalling that, on February 3, the Paris administrative court condemned the State to a symbolic euro for “faulty deficiencies in the fight against global warming”, the elected ecologist underlines the funding directed towards the ecological transition within the stimulus agreement.
After welcoming the choice of the regional majority to vote an emergency fund for students endowed with four million euros (read our article), Anne Vignot tells the Minister of her “great concern with regard to this precariousness of students and youth”. The mayor of Besançon adds that “the President of the Republic has promised the ‘whatever it costs’ and I want to believe that his words are incurred today”. Marie-Guite Dufay will abound in pleading with the Minister for the establishment of “a student income” because “studies are of very great social utility for our future”.
“Implementation of projects essential to the daily life of citizens”
“I have never seen such a cenacle in these places”, marries Marie-Guite Dufay while speaking. The delegation being welcomed in the former meeting room of the regional council of Franche-Comté. “The crisis has accelerated awareness of the limits of our current models,” she said.
As other local elected officials have been able to do, Marie-Guite Dufay expresses to the minister her regret for setting up files “within very tight deadlines”. To which Jacqueline Gourault replied that the imperative is set by the European Commission to use the credits within two years, the European Union providing 40% of the 100 billion of France Relance.
Marie-Guite Dufay assures us that these two signatures will allow “the implementation of projects essential to the general interest and to the daily life of citizens”. And to cite examples: the energy renovation of campuses, the development of the hydrogen sector, support for the waste sorting and collection center, the modernization of the Watchmakers’ railway line in the Jura, the extension of CREPS in Dijon. in view of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the digital data center of the University of Burgundy and the maintenance of the heritage of the Royal Saltworks of Arc-et-Senans.
The “key role” of the Region in regional planning
Questioned in the morning in session, the President of the Region takes care to recall that the revival agreement concerns short-term projects while the State-Region plan contract is part of “longer time” as it is. subject of this type of contract initiated by Michel Rocard in 1982, then Minister of Regional Planning during François Mitterrand’s first term. The two contracts finance “projects that we need to consider the unavoidable ecological, energy and digital transformations for the benefit of all”, insists the President of the Region.
With regard to land use planning, after several generations of contracts and some changes in decentralization laws, “the Region plays a key role, both in terms of design and funding”, explains Marie-Guite Dufay. Three objectives are set: “the reindustrialization of our territory, the fight against rural desertification and against territorial inequalities and carbon neutrality”.
To guide project leaders, a joint website between the prefecture and the region has been set up. A one-stop shop in a way. The decentralized services of the State and the services of the community look at the files in a coordinated way to identify the projects capable of being carried out within two years.
“Amplify all possible synergies between the State and the communities”
Speaking, Jacqueline Gourault explains that with these agreements, it is a question of “giving oneself the means to collectively build the future to give all its strength, in particular of mobilization, at the present moment”. According to the Minister, “the Regions are essential partners in the recovery” following the health crisis.
From France Relance, the State is contributing 8 billion euros to the recovery agreements, to which are added 12 billion euros for the CPER envelope. All the Regions are mobilizing another 20 billion euros to constitute funding for 2021-2027. The new generation of CPER is endowed with 10 billion euros more than the previous one. “We must amplify all possible synergies between the State and the communities,” enthuses the Minister.
In Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, this “unprecedented public investment” associating the State and the Region will total 2.74 billion euros for 2021-2027. The 2021-2022 revival agreement alone mobilizes 1.25 billion euros, divided almost half between the State and the Region. The documents signed in Besançon establish the destination of these financial resources for the relaunch agreement and the guidelines for the CPER itself.
“There are concerns of the State which are shared with the Regions”
“We are living in an economic and social crisis due to the health crisis and the recovery plan is the result of the will of the State and of Europe to respond to this crisis. Second, it turned out that the State-Region planning contracts expired at the end of 2020 and that we had to renegotiate with the Regions the next generation of planning contracts. This crisis requires us to have a vision that is both resilient and a vision of preparing for the future, so we sign this stimulus contract and this CPER on the same day. We sign it with the idea that there is no pre-established model, there are concerns of the State which are shared with the Regions: the ecological transition, the development of digital technology, the development of economy … The answers are adapted to each of the Regions, this is what I call the principle of differentiation, ”explains the Minister of Territorial Cohesion in addition to the signatures.
“The global envelope is 50/50 which allows us to see the effort made by local authorities and the effort made by the State, plus European funds which are responding to the crisis. Cohesion funds (ERDF, EAFRD, FSE, etc.) are also the year of renewal. We are negotiating with the European authorities. There is a lot of money available from Europe, it is up to us to know how to use it to meet the needs of our territories, ”emphasizes Jacqueline Gourault.
The orientations being fixed, the individualization of the operations, thematic by thematic, territory by territory, will have to wait for the renewal of the regional assembly if the elections take place next June. In this case, the final CPER will be signed next fall.
An important cenacle
Sign of the historic moment, many parliamentarians from Burgundy and Franche-Comté met in Besançon in a transpartisan approach. Were present in particular: the deputy of Doubs Éric Alauzet (LREM), the deputy of Haute-Saône Barbara Bessot-Ballot (LREM), the deputy of Saône-et-Loire Benjamin Dirx (LREM), the senator of Doubs Jacques Grosperrin (LR), the deputy of the Côte-d’Or Didier Martin (LREM), the deputy of the Côte-d’Or Didier Paris (LREM), the senator of the Côte-d’Or François Patriat (LREM), the deputy for Saône-et-Loire Rémy Rebeyrotte, deputy for Jura Jean-Marie Sermier (LR), senator for Jura Sylvie Vermeillet (Radical movement) as well as the president of the departmental council of Jura Clément Pernot (LR).
Renovation of a multipurpose room
After the signing of the two agreements, the Minister of Territorial Cohesion left the Hôtel de Région in Besançon to go a few kilometers away, to Dannemarie-sur-Crête, to visit the renovation of a room. multi-purpose coupled with a leisure center without accommodation (ALSH).
The cost of this renovation amounts to 1.4 million euros with co-financing from the State (330,000 euros under the DETR), departmental council of Doubs (84,000 euros), Grand Besançon Métropole (80,000 euros) and Region (30,000 euros) supplemented by a loan of 200,000 euros from the CAF du Doubs.
Jean-Christophe Tardivon
More Franc-Comtois than me you die … or the very funny one-upmanship between Marie-Guite Dufay, Gilles Platret and Julien Odoul
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