Eleven candidates are running for senatorial elections in Tarn-et-Garonne. Eight of them agreed to answer La Dépêche’s questions.
The ink bottle. It would be risky to make any predictions about the senatorial elections. They are 11 to seek the two mandates at stake in Tarn-et-Garonne. Who will succeed Yvon Collin and François Bonhomme? The first, entangled in his court case, threw in the towel. The second has hardly shone for six years but he wants to keep the place. What will be the choice of the 749 electors called to vote tomorrow in the prefecture?
Among the applicants, strong, experienced elected officials who have proven themselves for years. We think of the mayor (PRG) of Donzac, Jean-Paul Terrenne, discreet but efficient who has plowed the ground since this summer, proximity slung over his shoulder.
candidates for the question.
There is also Monique Ferrero, opinionated departmental councilor, supported by the Republicans and Brigitte Barèges, mayor of Montauban. She dreams of being the first Tarn-et-Garonnaise woman to sit in the Upper House. The experienced mayor of Villebrumier Etienne Astoul will defend the colors of the PS. Thierry Viallon, those of the RN, but he is weakened by his poor performance in the first round of the municipal elections in Montauban. We will also analyze the performance of “various centers”, Mathieu Albert and especially Pierre-Antoine Lévi, the former first deputy of Montauban, as well as that of Alain Iches (president of the FDSEA). Guy Daimé (PC) Cécile Roblin (EELV) and Jean-François Grilhault des Fontaines (various) complete the list.
Note that we have asked all candidates to express themselves in our columns. Only three did not answer our questions. François Bonhomme, (various right), Cécile Roblin (Europe Ecologie les Verts) and Jean-François Grilhaut des Fontaines (various).
1 / Why did you decide to be a candidate? 2 / What are the urgent reforms to be carried out? Here are their responses.
Jean-Paul Terrenne (PRG)
1. “I am a candidate to be both a facilitator at the local level of elected officials to support them in proximity in their projects and a spokesperson for communities at the national level. I also wish to be a committed legislator on all the subjects that will have an impact for Tarn-et-Garonne and its inhabitants, taking into account the realities on the ground. “
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2. “In the economic and social context that we are experiencing, linked to the health crisis, there is an urgent need to support very small and medium-sized enterprises, craftsmen, traders, farmers, etc., to save our jobs and to support our most modest citizens. As far as local communities are concerned, it is essential to have regional planning measures in favor of rurality and peri-urban municipalities in order to move towards more decentralization and more differentiation. “
Monique Ferrero (LR)
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1. I have taken important steps in local mandates and at the same time pursued a professional career close to the regions. With a knowledge of rurality, and aware of a deep democratic malaise, I wish to help and support all elected officials to make the Strength of Territories heard in the Senate. Determined, demanding, I am committed to this work of proximity to better legislate.
2. A parliamentarian must take an interest in all the policies for in-depth reform of our country, in particular when voting the state budget, a crucial moment in the choice of public policies. I will also be attentive in the role of monitoring government action. But if I am elected, I will set myself two priorities on which I will work more particularly: the fiscal autonomy of the municipalities, and a new act of decentralization to involve the territories more in the major challenges of tomorrow.
Etienne Astoul (PS)
1. I want to be a senator to be the spokesperson for the elected representatives of Tarn et Garonne. Everyone knows my entire and inflexible commitment to the defense of the municipality, the first level of democracy, the level of proximity.
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2. I will ensure that each citizen has equal access to care, to a better distribution of doctors
in our rural areas. I will actively participate in the reorganization of the health system, around
local hospitals with a revaluation of the professions of nurses and nursing assistants. I will remove the obligation to transfer water and sanitation competence to inter-municipal authorities after 2026. The procedures for building up water reserves must be simplified with the more frequent heat wave periods that are expected in the years to come.
Pierre-Antoine Lévi (DVC)
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1. I am a candidate because I have Tarn-et-Garonne in my heart. My various mandates and commitments have allowed me to get to know our department particularly well, its strengths and weaknesses, in particular the persistent territorial divisions that we must try to resolve. The meaning of my candidacy is also a strong desire to do politics differently. It’s time to all work together for our department.
2. There is so much to tell you. The protection of rural areas and our agriculture, in particular irrigation, the revitalization of our town centers and local shops, and the upgrading of the status of elected officials are essential reforms to be carried out. In addition, the future “3D law” project must adapt decentralization to constraints and local realities. Ultimately, the
municipal and inter-municipal levels must once again become the heart of decentralization. I will be particularly vigilant. But beyond the reforms, I want above all to be a local senator, on whom the elected representatives of our department can rely, whatever their political sensitivities.
Mathieu Albert (DVC)
1. In my eyes, the mandate of Senator fully corresponds to my way of functioning as an elected official: to be at the service of others, to encourage the emergence of ideas to allow progress both on micro projects but also on issues of national or international scope. I wish to be in support of the communities of our department to support them in their local projects, while not forgetting the national level with international stakes in a tense world context. My wish is therefore to be, as a Senator, the link between Tarn-et-Garonne (its elected representatives, inhabitants and companies) and the national level.
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2. My priority is to reform the practice of this mandate: I wish to give it back a territorial anchorage. My campaign allowed me to consolidate my ideas on topical issues: ensuring the country’s economic rebound through innovative solutions; be pragmatic in the face of medical desertification (both in rural and urban areas); support and develop agricultural activity, the first economic sector in our department; understand the challenges linked to mobility, restore respect and authority for our institutions and law enforcement agencies, etc.
Guy Daimé (PC)
1 / We bring with Catherine clear proposals aimed at guaranteeing the equality of citizens everywhere in the territory. It is necessary to revitalize the action of municipalities and departments. There cannot be a rural France left behind and a France of metropolises on the other.
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2 / We are told a new decentralization law, but local elected officials aspire to more stability and want the state to stop cutting back on grants. Our law has done very badly. We must stop this infernal spiral which is creating increasingly important entities. We will have to work on strengthening public services which have shown their effectiveness in times of health crisis and on a real ecological transition.
Alain Iches (DVC)
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1. The specificity of the Senate is to represent the territories, and in particular the rural territories. For 20 years, as a local elected representative, mayor of a municipality of 600 inhabitants or as a representative of the agricultural profession, I have been fully mobilized to defend, preserve and enhance the strengths of our department. With my experience in the field and my political independence, I want to make the voice of rurality heard, a chance for France!
2. The reform of local taxation, in its entirety, but for the moment the urgency will be to respond to the justified fears of the mayors on the mechanism of compensation of the receipts of housing tax. The “3D” bill will also have to meet the challenge: reinforce the freedom of action of communities and finally repair the devastating effects of the NOTRe law. The reform of dependency care, including a better recognition of the role of carers, and the reform of agricultural land are just as priorities.
Thierry Viallon (RN)
1. I have been the representative of the Rassemblement National en Tarn-et-Garonne for 11 years. This territorial anchoring, my investment and my experience in politics through the various elective mandates that I have – or have been able to have – give me a global vision of politics in our territory. I want to put these experiences at the service of the department and its elected officials and thus defend our rurality in Paris where peripheral France is not heard.
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2. In the first place, it is urgent to restore the authority of the State over all the territories Now, this concept implies in particular the strengthening of security. The French are tired of seeing increasingly violent aggressions everywhere developing across the country. If it is also unbearable to see the representatives of the public authority (I am thinking particularly of the mayors) being insulted, even beaten for having quite simply wanted to exercise their prerogatives. I will work to maintain economic activities in all the territories of the territories by promoting localism.
Elections: instructions for use
It is a special ballot which will take place tomorrow in the precincts of the prefecture, in Montauban.
In each department, the senators are elected by an electoral college of grand electors made up of elected representatives from that constituency: deputies and senators, regional councilors, departmental councilors, municipal councilors, elected to their posts by universal suffrage. In our department, the two senators are elected by majority vote in two rounds. It takes absolute majority to be elected in the first round. Anyone can hold on to the second round. And the first two to arrive are the winners. In the current context, four polling stations, instead of three, will be installed. The president of the Tribunal de grande instance Sylvaine Reis, will lead the electoral operations.
749 electors are therefore called to the polls tomorrow morning. First round at 8:30 a.m., counting and announcement of the results from 11:25 a.m. Second round at 3.30 p.m., announcement of the results at 5.45 p.m. A senator is elected for a six-year term.
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