Grenoble, Marseille, Saint-Denis… 43 elected officials are calling “not to forget the popular districts”

Forty-one mayors and presidents of agglomerations, including those of Angers, Marseille, Montpellier, Reims, Toulouse, Saint-Denis, Grenoble, are launching an appeal in favor of working-class neighborhoods, where “much of the future of our social and territorial cohesion “. Here is their platform. “In the difficult sanitary period that our country is going through, the fate of our working-class neighborhoods must unite all political leaders. Many first and second line workers live there, confinement was difficult to live with and crisis has started to hit their populations hard.

However, much of the future of our social and territorial cohesion is played out in these working-class neighborhoods. Their difficulties are those of society as a whole. In his recent speech at Les Mureaux, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron underlined the extent to which the Republic has unwittingly and for decades built its own ghettoization. It is not admissible to add poverty to poverty, to concentrate the most fragile populations, not to achieve equal opportunities for those who need it most.

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Our efforts must focus heavily on housing, the foundation of a peaceful living environment

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Our working-class neighborhoods need the organized combination of all public policies, from health education, from the economy to the social, from security to support for cultural, associative and sporting life. Above all, our efforts must focus heavily on housing, the foundation of a peaceful living environment. This is the ambition that Jean-Louis Borloo had carried by launching a major urban renewal program, endowed with 12 billion euros, which is ending and producing results appreciated by all. This is the ambition that we are carrying with all our partners, first and foremost the National Agency for Urban Renovation (ANRU), for a new program which was usefully increased to 10 billion in 2018.

Read also – Urban renewal: neighborhoods and suburbs under construction again

We now have quality projects for our neighborhoods, likely to change the daily lives of residents and help rebalance our territories. But we must go further. The crisis forces us to do so. We therefore welcome the intention announced by the President of the Republic of an “additional investment in the ANRU” and we hope its rapid realization, while the districts will benefit little from a recovery plan driven by the principle of ” first come, first served”.

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Why further weaken the resources of social landlords, who are the rare local actors to carry out social innovations for the inhabitants?

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However, we can only regret that this announcement comes at the same time when strong uncertainties are hanging over Action Logement, the main funder and pillar of the ANRU. How to display a strong ambition for neighborhoods and housing while threatening one of its main players and its resources, at the risk of calling our projects into question? Why further weaken the resources of social landlords, who are the rare local actors to carry out social innovations for the inhabitants? To achieve social diversity, neighborhoods must be transformed, but also housing accessible to all and of quality outside the neighborhoods.

We are therefore expecting a significant and rapid expansion of the ANRU’s resources to serve the neighborhoods. We will be the conductors in the field committed to this action, one of the most effective and visible marks of the attention the Republic pays to all its territories. “