After weeks of tensions with Gabriel Attal’s government and seven years of misunderstandings with Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Michel Barnier proposed to local elected officials to make peace. The new Minister of Association with the Territories and decentralization, Catherine Vautrin, was on Thursday with the regional presidents meeting on September 25 and 26 in Strasbourg on the occasion of the congress of their association, Regions of France. And everyone was very friendly. “A seduction operation”smiles the socialist president of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Alain Rousset.
Being in Strasbourg is “a presence of heartconfided M.me Vautrin to elected officials, because, like you, I share the passion for the territories”. but without “exclude reason”however, he warned. As a long-time local elected official, she said: “I am one of you and that is why I can listen and understand your needs”proposing a method “listen and follow, never one without the other”.
Five days before Michel Barnier’s general policy speech, scheduled for Tuesday 1Ahem In October, in the National Assembly, the minister did not make any announcements. It’s premature. He simply promised that the report on decentralization presented in May by the right-wing mayor of Charleville-Mézières, Boris Ravignon, would not be used. “to maintain the balance of our shelves”, but it would be implemented. Ravignon calculates the tangle of responsibilities and powers (between the State and the communities and between them) at 7.5 billion euros per year. Local elected officials speak of a “millefeuille” or a “pudding” administrative and threatens indigestion.
Another ad: Mme Vautrin indicated privately that his priority was not to pass a major decentralization law. After having promised it for seven years, the Head of State had entrusted, in the autumn of 2023, a mission to the Oise deputy (Renaissance) Eric Woerth to prepare a reform. But the parliamentary blockade is such that its report, presented in May, should serve to shore up the minister’s position.
great anger
In Strasbourg, Catherine Vautrin’s priority was to convince local elected officials that“a new chapter” opens in its relations with the State. On September 6, Michel Barnier considered it necessary “I respect” local elected officials, because they have “most of the solutions, if we want to trust them”. Catherine Vautrin is the government’s number three. “The creation of this great ministry entrusted to Catherine Vautrin, who knows territorial action well, is a quite positive sign”estimated Carole Delga, socialist president of Occitania and head of the Regions of France. What however supports, in Alsacethe vote on a motion of censure against Mr. Barnier’s team.
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