Patrick Weiten, what will be the three priorities of your new mandate?
There is our € 162 million investment to renovate or rebuild ten colleges, in poor condition or of inadequate capacity. The most advanced today are Saint-Avold and Stiring. We will launch the others (Audun-le-Tiche, Behren, Cattenom, Forbach, Hayange, Metz, Moyeuvre, Rémilly) as soon as the last choices are made. The other priority is the organization of emergency services. We have to respond to corps mergers and barracks that are no longer suitable. We have big files in Metz and Thionville, Boulay, Hagondange-Maizières-Amnéville-Moyeuvre, Metzervisse, Guénange-Bertrange-Illange, Florange-Terville, Meisenthal-Soucht. I also want to position the Moselle on Paris-2024. These Olympic Games are an important global event for our attractiveness. The Moselle is 80 minutes from Paris and has around thirty sites that can accommodate delegations. Finally, I will add a 4e priority: social with child protection, old age, for which my ambition is to obtain 300 additional beds, and disability.
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The environment is very rarely discussed in the Department. Why not make it a priority?
But it is a constant priority in all of our policies. The Fontoy college which will be delivered in January is a passive college. The next one will be positive energy. We are subsidizing a sheep wool recycling project and I will demand that the next college be insulated with this material. We are 30% local products in the canteens. Food waste has been reduced by 30%. We do not have the transport competence but we are in the process of adopting a soft mobility scheme. The inter-municipal authorities will benefit from € 12 million in investment aid for cycle paths. We have tripled our number of electric vehicles.
Where is your fight with the Grand Est region to make Moselle its 6th tourist destination?
The file is progressing well. But, until it succeeds, we will continue to practice the empty chair policy. We are stubborn and stubborn because, for us, it is very important.
Lorraine Airport, which belongs to the Region, is dying. Is the Department ready to come to his aid?
I am ready to participate in governance and, if necessary, in financing. We must save him. This is an issue that worries us. Discussions are planned.
Your mode of governance was heavily attacked during the elections. Did it touch and surprise you?
Yes. It shouldn’t have happened like this. Two months before the 1is In turn, Jean François was to remain vice-president by my side to lead the Paris-2024 file. I learned of his candidacy through hearsay and in the press. And I was hurt because a lot of things have been said, even to mention the mistreatment of women in the departmental council. I came out bruised. If I had known this before, I’m not sure I would go back. No one attacked my record. In any human community, it takes a leader to set a course.
Have you questioned yourself?
Yes of course. I continue to bring together the groups and the vice-presidents, but they are the ones who feed the agenda so that it is no longer top-down but rising. I entrusted the preparation of the 2022 budget to the vice-president in charge of finance, Julien Freyburger, and to the committee chairs in conjunction with the vice-presidencies. The vice-presidents are no longer committee presidents. Of the 9 subsidiaries that I chaired, I only kept Sdis (Departmental fire and rescue service) and Moselle Attractiveness.
Is this your last term at the head of the Department?
Yes, yes and yes.
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