They were waiting ” at least “ to a state secretariat. In the absence of a portfolio dedicated to urban policy within Michel Barnier’s government, the mayors of the suburbs say that “rebel”, testifies Gilles Leproust, mayor (French Communist Party) of Allonnes (Sarthe) and president of the Association of mayors of cities and suburbs of France“This dismissal marks a new turning point in the disdain shown by successive governments of Emmanuel Macron towards working-class neighbourhoods”judges. A rare decision since the first appointment, in 1990, of a minister of state responsible for the city. In 1997, Lionel Jospin’s government stalled for a year before appointing Claude Bartolone as minister delegate.
In 1995, Alain Juppé simply changed the name of the function to “State Secretariat for Neighborhoods in Difficulty.” While in 2005, when Jean-Louis Borloo took over the super-ministry of employment, social cohesion and housing, “Everyone knows then, even if it doesn’t appear in the title, that the town is Borloo…”“Recalls Michel Didier, president of the city’s political history committee. The award decrees confirmed this a few days later. A slight change also occurred when Richard Ferrand was appointed Minister for Territorial Cohesion in 2017, before Julien Denormandie officially took office in 2018.
On Friday, September 20, the day before the announcement of the new government and while the list presented by Michel Barnier was circulating, the elected officials of the City and the Periphery regretted in a press release that the neighborhoods “They remain to this day the blind spots of public policies” and advocated that the city’s policy be “attached to the Prime Minister for inter-ministerial mobilization of all aspects of customary law”. Evidently, Matignon’s new tenant did not listen to them.
“Highly symbolic meaning”
The issue of working-class neighborhoods, “due to its transversal nature, it therefore no longer has a coordinator, nor a dedicated contact person,” regrets Driss Ettazaoui, president of the association of elected officials of France, who sees it as a wish “to render the 6 million inhabitants of these territories invisible when it is an important question of national cohesion.” “This decision, of great symbolic importance, is incredibly violent.” he laments.
The placement of the former Secretary of State of the City under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior had already been experienced as a “a very negative signal that does not contribute anything positive to the image of the periphery”says Aziz Senni, founder of the association Quartiers d’Affaires, which works for the economic development of working-class neighbourhoods. On 17 and 18 September he organised the first Suburban Economic Forum in Paris, an event which brought together 2,000 participants and representatives from each of the parliamentary groups, “from La France insoumise to the National Rally, passing through the Renaissance, Europe Ecology-The Greens, the Socialist Party”, congratulates himself. Only the Republicans did not respond to the invitation.
You have 33.32% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
