The support plan for municipal projects was unveiled this Thursday, May 19 during Mayors’ Day taking place at the headquarters of the departmental council in Dijon. “As soon as neither the State nor the Region will participate, we will be there”, specified the president of the Department.
The traditional “Days of the mayors of Côte-d’Or” took place this Thursday, May 19, 2022 at the headquarters of the departmental council of Côte-d’Or, in Dijon. Nearly 250 elected officials were present for the afternoon debate.
Mayors of course as well as representatives of intercommunalities and departmental councils. Among them in particular Ludovic Rochette (Horizons), president of the Association of Mayors of Côte-d’Or, and Bruno Bethenod (without label), president of the Association of Rural Mayors of Côte-d’Or.
A “solidarity plan for Côte-d’Or municipalities”
During this meeting, François Sauvadet (LCOP), president of the Department, announced that a “Marshall Côte-d’Or plan” of 150 million euros will be put to the vote next June intended to support the projects of the municipalities from 2023 to 2027.
If the departmental assembly votes it next June, it will be cumulative with existing aid, such as “Village Côte-d’Or”, with a view to “rebalancing city-countryside”.
A difficult economic context for local authorities
The economic context linked to a global recovery following the health crisis coupled with a surge in energy costs due to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia constitutes the backdrop of François Sauvadet’s speech by welcoming elected officials .
“The Department and my colleagues who are here do not intend to stand idly by in the face of this situation”, assures the president of the community who nevertheless anticipates a “call to participate” in the national financing of “whatever it costs” and a “sharp reduction” in transfer duties on the sale of real estate while the property tax on built properties has been transferred to the Métropole de Dijon.
The preservation of heritage, “essential issue”
“I am announcing today that I will present to the departmental assembly at the next session in June, for application from October, a real Marshall plan for municipalities, rural areas and outlying towns”, solemnly declares François Savet.
“I am announcing that I intend to offer to provide it with 150 million euros for the next five years,” he said to the applause of the audience.
“It is a plan of unprecedented scale and, I dare say, historic, on the scale of a Department”, insists the centrist who also intends to “simplify the devices” and “allow [aux communes] to make the investments that are necessary” with “an essential issue: the preservation of our heritage”.
The name “Marshall Plan” refers to the European Recovery Program launched by the United States in 1948 to support the reconstruction of cities bombed during the Second World War.
“Major Côte-d’Or projects” contracts
Dijon and Beaune will be “the subject of a special contract” if the executives wish. “The door is wide open,” says François Sauvadet.
Outside of these urban areas, “each municipality will be able to claim a specific contract on one of these projects and contract on one project per year as part of a ‘Grand Côte-d’Or project’ contract”. After the “Cap 100% Côte-d’Or” contracts, here come the “Grands projets Côte-d’Or” to support “projects over 200,000 euros” such as, for example, grouped school catering, with a ceiling of one million euros of eligible expenditure, the subsidy rate may vary.
A special device concerns municipalities with less than 200 inhabitants to support projects ranging between 50,000 and 100,000 euros such as the repair of the roof of a church. Departmental aid may reach 60% of the cost of the works. Without forgetting the “exceptional situations”.
“You are the face of the Côte-d’Or, you are the face of France with your villages and your communes. As soon as we let a public good that we have inherited, which is part of this history to be passed on to our young people, be damaged, it obviously damages the face of the Côte-d’Or”, analyzes François Sauvadet.
“As soon as neither the State nor the Region will participate, we will be there”, specifies the president of the Department.
Cumulative devices
The “communes Côte-d’Or solidarity plan” will be cumulative with the “Village Côte-d’Or” system. Support for accessibility improvements for people with reduced mobility and municipal road improvements will continue.
“Whatever happens, we want to remain the first partner of municipalities and intermunicipalities”, insists the president of the Department who indicates to finance this counter-cyclical plan by a debt reduction of the community of 90 million euros in recent years.
“Special devices” concerning water policy will be the subject of future announcements while François Sauvadet is already anticipating a “combat budget” in 2023.
“I am not in favor of the phenomenon of metropolisation”
“When I heard some talk about the misery of the departments with regard to rural territories when we are alongside the most fragile”, comments François Sauvadet on a more political level, referring to remarks by François Rebsamen (read our article), “I tell myself that those who make this type of statement only accelerate the despair of all those who are counting on us to change their lives”.
“In the extension, I want to say that I like Dijon”, he continues, which provokes some smiles in the assembly, “but I like Dijon in Côte-d’Or not next to Côte-d’ However, I am not in favor of the phenomenon of metropolitanization which continues”.
This time, François Sauvadet refers to the temptation that the State may have had to separate a Metropolis from the Department as during the experiment of the Metropolis of Lyon, constituting almost a community and a territory apart from the department of the Rhône, the Department taking care of the rest.
“I have often been called old-fashioned because I said ‘every municipality counts and each inhabitant counts’”, confides François Sauvadet. “We want our seniors to live well where they are and our children to see a future where they want it. (…) I have the intimate conviction that the continuation of the phenomenon of metropolisation and densification will lead us straight into the wall because in the underlying trend that we have, there is a deep aspiration to breathe in our life. , an aspiration to quality of life.”
Videoconference with the Prime Minister
Still on a political level, a few weeks before the legislative elections, the meeting was attended in particular by three particular departmental councilors because they were also candidates for deputy: Benoît Bordat (Progressive Federation, presidential majority) on the second constituency, Charlotte Fougère (LR) on the fifth constituency and François-Xavier Dugourd (LR) on the first constituency.
The latter took a place at the podium to lead the meeting as deputy vice-president of the departmental council. Indeed, François Sauvadet was temporarily absent to participate as President of the Assembly of the Departments of France in a videoconference with Élisabeth Borne, the brand new Prime Minister, in order to “defend the territories”.
Jean-Christophe Tardivon
Presentation of the devices of this “Marshall plan” in the file of the departmental council of the Côte-d’Or
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