Mayor of Chenôve and president of the association of mayors Ville & Banlieue de France, Thierry Falconnet speaks of the first victory in obtaining the 1% of the recovery plan for the most vulnerable territories, while reaffirming the place and role that the municipalities must have in the deployment of this plan.
We told you about it following the metropolitan council of last week (find our article by clicking here), Thierry Falconnet, mayor of Chenôve and president of the association of mayors Ville & Banlieue de France had to go and make proposals to the Prime Minister and at the same time alerting people to the aggravated situation in working-class neighborhoods due to the health crisis.
Recalling that the transpartisan call of November 14 “is today joined by 185 mayors of all political sensitivities, from the entire hexagonal and overseas territory”, Thierry Falconnet was received by videoconference Monday, November 23 with 8 other elected colleagues.
In Matignon, Prime Minister Jean Castex was indeed accompanied by four other ministers as well as Gabriel Attal, government spokesperson … An hour and a half of discussions during which Jean Castex responded favorably to the request of the association: 1% of the recovery plan, or 1 billion euros, will be dedicated to the most troubled neighborhoods on the national territory.
Attention now focused on the method
It is “a first victory” according to Thierry Falconnet, who adds all the same: “What concerns us is the way in which the government will break down and distribute this billion. This is where the shoe pinches, because in terms of method, the government has been very evasive about how we are going to work now. We, we wish to work with the government, in a process of co-construction on this emergency plan for the suburbs and working-class districts. We are not in opposition to this government because we want our neighborhoods to emerge from this crisis ”.
The mayor of Chenôve underlines: “We have proposed the establishment of a National Council of Solutions which could replace other bodies which in our opinion are ineffective, such as the National Council of Towns, and which are as close as possible to the field. could make proposals to be disseminated throughout the territory. Let us not forget that we are all laboratories of social innovation.
But the Prime Minister referred us to the National Council of Cities. Now, if the latter fulfills this role, we are not opposed to it in principle, but we have to be operational because the social emergency is there. It is a reality that we all live in our territories. We have more and more working poor who no longer have enough to eat… Without falling into miserability, we have to be realistic ”.
Education, employment, integration, public security and tranquility, urban renewal, support for associations, sport, local taxation… The elected officials received on Monday made several proposals: immediate passage from 80 to 200 educational estates; creation of an endowment for school overload in the districts to compensate for the arrangements linked to the duplication of classes in particular; taking into account “up to the euro” of municipal expenses linked to Covid-19; creation of 7,000 additional posts of social mediators in the neighborhoods with new missions revolving around support for employment, 200 million euros for associations instead of 20 million euros currently …
Qualified as “positive” by Thierry Falconnet, the interview will have enabled the municipalities and elected officials concerned to highlight the priority neighborhoods and alert to a republican stall, to which “it is necessary to respond together, the State with the communities “.
Alix berthier
Photo: Alix Berthier
The press release:
Thierry FALCONNET, mayor of Chenôve, President of the Association of Mayors Ville & Banlieue de France, reacts after the announcement of obtaining the 1% of the Recovery Plan for the most vulnerable territories.
On November 14, nearly two hundred local elected officials from all political stripes, mayors and presidents of agglomerations from areas where nearly ten million of our
fellow citizens, wrote to the President of the Republic to alert him, once again, to the more than worrying situation experienced by their citizens in large areas of vulnerable life, urban and suburban, throughout the country. Unfortunately, the severity of this situation has increased in light of the health crisis we have been going through since the start of this year.
The consequences of the COVID 19 pandemic in these neighborhoods have been added to all the ingredients already gathered on the ground to constitute the beginnings of a “Republican stall” which also worries them.
This is why the elected signatories of this open letter asked Emmanuel MACRON that 1% of the 100 billion euros dedicated by the State to the recovery plan be devoted to the most difficult neighborhoods on the national territory. This proposal was supported by the Association of City and Suburbs of France Mayors chaired by Thierry FALCONNET, Mayor of Chenôve in Côte-d’Or. “I am pleased that the appeal we have made and addressed to the authorities in the face of the social emergency has been heard,” said Thierry FALCONNET. “This commitment is necessary for the inhabitants of our neighborhoods and working-class towns who are the first to be affected by the social and economic consequences of the crisis. We are therefore satisfied to have obtained for them a first victory. “
The local elected official, who is very committed to these issues, specifies that this billion euros obtained, for which the allocation and distribution methods are still awaited, will be more than useful for carrying out the public policies essential in territories where all social indicators are red: increase in unemployment, explosion of requests for food aid and rental debts, sharp increase in the number of RSA beneficiaries.
“It will make it possible to respond to the emergency, but this must be a first step towards a stronger mobilization of all the means necessary to face an unprecedented crisis”,
he warns, “because the challenges are going to be important for those who need them in the coming weeks and months”.
Thierry FALCONNET, who was received with eight other of his colleagues yesterday by Prime Minister Jean CASTEX, will participate in the first meeting of the National Council of Solutions, on December 14 in Roubaix, organized by the signatories of the Appeal for Equality republican in our working-class neighborhoods.
–
