We no longer count the number of arrests, forums, appeals and counter-appeals. Each time, the social and economic crisis in the working-class neighborhoods is auscultated there by the mayors and various actors in the field. Each time, the soufflé falls. Why ? Because the city politics is, at the choice, a blind spot of our Republic or an “unthought” that we treat only in urgency, when the cities are set ablaze and scare.
The mayors are not greedy, they claim that 1% of the recovery plan
Measures are then adopted, more or less relevant. Then oblivion does its work, covering the areas of anonymity in which they have vegetated for so many years, while awaiting the next conflagration.
Recovery plan
The last forum dates back to November 2020. One hundred and ten mayors from all political stripes question Emmanuel Macron on the effects of the health and economic crisis in the working-class neighborhoods. The words used have an aftertaste of déjà vu. “Despite the alerts, the towns and working-class neighborhoods remain a blind spot in the recovery plan: no ambitious measures have been taken to respond to the social and economic distress which is hitting our municipalities”, we can read. Mayors are not greedy; They are demanding that 1% of the recovery plan, ie 1 billion euros, be allocated “to territories in stalling”, including 620 M € released as quickly as possible in the face of the contagiousness of the poverty virus.
Everyone had started and, six months later, the Borloo plan gave new perspective to working-class neighborhoods
They are tenacious, these city officials, not resentful. Forgotten the tartuferie of the speech of Tourcoing delivered on November 14, 2017 by the President of the Republic, calling for a “national mobilization for cities and districts”, inviting the former Minister of the City of Jacques Chirac, Jean-Louis Borloo, respected by all, to return to the ring. The presidential intervention had been made necessary by the growing discontent of the mayors and associations of suburbs, crystallized by “the call of Grigny”, born in the wake of the freeze of subsidized jobs, budget cuts and the drop in APL.
The solutions are there!
Mobilized, almost optimistic, everyone got into it and, six months later, the Borloo plan gave new perspective to the working-class neighborhoods. A roadmap left in the dark by Emmanuel Macron, leaving the mayors “groggys”. In Le Monde of November 2020, Frédérique Leturque, centrist mayor of Arras, remembers this “public slap” but assures us that he is not in a spirit of revenge. “We have solutions”.
The answer to this forum? A form of indifference, worse still, a denial of reality
They seem so simple on paper that the actors in the field do not understand that a State convinced of the need to stand up economically “whatever the cost” in the face of the crisis did not consider it necessary to extend this way of doing business. see to the territories concerned: creation of an emergency fund for associations, the establishment of local solidarity committees, a support fund for the creation of medical homes and health centers, and the provision of a budget of 120 million euros to mobilize the actors of employment. A common sense proposition emerges: the creation of a National Solutions Council, made up of volunteers (elected officials, associations, entrepreneurs, etc.), responsible for piloting and monitoring the implementation of projects which have shown their efficiency in the field. .
TESTIMONY
“Seine-Saint-Denis is the magnifying mirror of public powerlessness”
“With my colleague deputy Rodrigue Kokouendo, I submitted a report in 2018 (“ The Republic in check ”), in which we denounced an unequal and unsuitable state in Seine-Saint-Denis. We wanted to know if the State was doing more in this department than elsewhere, in view of the social difficulties that persist there. However, we concluded that this was not the case, quite the contrary. This report is therefore still relevant, the Prime Minister at the time seized on it to provide concrete answers. We are waiting to learn more. I have just released a book “To know to be able, to get out of democratic impotence” (1). I am trying to demonstrate that the exercise of power has become almost impossible. For me, the legitimacy of presidents is so eroded that they are reduced to impotence. This department of Seine-Saint-Denis is the magnifying mirror of this public powerlessness. In my eyes, it is the State’s modes of action that are failing, even more than the human and financial resources granted to the republican school, the judiciary or the police. We must take more time for the diagnosis at a time of legislative and media inflation. I advocate reforming the institutions and creating a third independent assembly, the Council of the Republic to indicate what is wrong and express concerns. A way of presenting the debates in all their complexity, so that elected officials have a more detailed understanding of them and feel better able to answer them ”.
François Cornut-Gentille, Member of Parliament for Haute-Marne
Read also: François Cornut-Gentille: “The means of the city policy cannot fill this deficit of public services”
Macron inspired by Ubu
The answer to this forum? A form of indifference. Worse still, a denial of reality, supported by a presidential statement made at Les Mureaux, during the speech against separatism, of which Ubu could have been the author: “When I look at the report (Editor’s note, Borloo) which had been given to us , more than three quarters have been implemented ”. The minister delegate in charge of the city, Nadia Hai, had added some to Public Senate, assuring that “85% of the Borloo plan is either already engaged or completely finished”.
Between the patient (working-class neighborhoods) and the doctor (the State), there is a breakdown in credibility
“A lie so huge that we cannot let pass”, had cracked André Laignel, scathing socialist mayor of the working-class town of Issoudun (Indre) and first vice-president of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF ). In short, to follow the medical metaphor, between the patient (working-class neighborhoods) and the doctor (the state), there is a breach of credibility. As if the latter had the wrong medical file.
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