The appointment of Jacqueline Gourault as head of a large ministry of territories in the new government marks Emmanuel Macron's desire to reconnect with local elected officials after a year of crises and disruptions.
Jacqueline Gourault, appointed Minister of the Territories on the occasion of the reshuffle, has some work to do. Since the 2014 municipal elections, some 750 mayors have resigned. As much as on the whole of the previous term. This record number of resignations of mayors since 2014 has revealed the extent of unease in the territories and the feeling of abandonment of local elected officials.
"We will not redress the country without or against the territories, without or tell elected officials," warned the Senate Speaker Gérard Larcher, October 8 in Lyon, where he participated in the assizes of local elected officials.
Breaking
In the past year, there has been a lot of tension between the government and the communities. The break occurred this summer when the association of mayors of France, the assembly of departments of France and Regions of France decided to boycott the national conference territories. To make their common anger heard, the three associations of elected representatives met in the same association, the "United Territories", supported by Gérard Larcher.
Grievances have accumulated. The regions denounce a recentralisation of apprenticeship and vocational training and the management of the European agricultural fund. Departments, which pay solidarity allowances, regret the inadequacy of compensation. As for the mayors, they pester against the closure of local public services, the disappearance of subsidized jobs or the abolition of the housing tax.
"Simulacrum of dialogue"
Emmanuel Macron promised a "Girondin pact " with the territories. Promise not held by an executive accused of organizing a " simulacrum of dialogue " and pushing an unprecedented recentralization. What to accredit the accusation of ignorance, even contempt of the territories, regularly brought against the head of state by Laurent Wauquiez, the head of the Republicans.
The tension is still mounted a notch, September 26, in Marseille, where some 1,200 elected believe it worth recalling some truths to the executive power: "We are not state operators, but elected representatives of the suffrage universal. All the levers of transformation of France rest on shared competences State-collectivities. We ask for a shared agenda of reforms, " they wrote in a solemn appeal signed by representatives of municipalities, departments and regions.
The latest incident is the government's publication of a list of mayors who have increased the rate of their housing tax (TH) was perceived this weekend as an "insult" by elected officials who denounced "a scandalous method ".
"A more visible place"
This situation of blockage could not last, without compromising the projects programmed by the government that call for the support of local communities: poverty plan, health plan, apprenticeship, local taxation.
In early October, Richard Ferrand, Speaker of the National Assembly, publicly expressed the wish that "a more visible place" be given to the territories in the next government. "There is the feeling that there will be a drop-out between certain territories that feel mistreated, downgraded. It must be corrected, fix it, " he said on October 10 on France Inter.
It was urgent to restore confidence with elected officials. First by reinforcing the political weight of this ministry that Jacques Mézard never managed to embody. Jacqueline Gourault, a community specialist, renowned for her listening and dialogue skills, was chosen to extinguish firefights and pacify relations with territorial representatives.
Emmanuel Macron will also have to send a gesture to local elected officials. There will be many opportunities in the coming weeks, starting with department and mayor congresses in November. First urgency: to convince the elected officials to return to the table of the national conference of the territories which must meet at the end of the year.