- Ally of the PS in the outgoing majority, Jean-Michel Bérégovoy is the Europe-Ecology Les-Verts candidate for mayor of Rouen.
- Environmentalists hope to drop this socialist stronghold in the municipal elections next March.
- Six months after the fire at the Lubrizol factory, the environmental question stirred the countryside in the Norman capital.
From our journalist in Rouen,
“We are a few kilometers from the hyper-center, but we're not bad there! In the middle of the ponds and the greenery, Jean-Michel Bérégovoy is in his element. The candidate Europe Ecologie-Les Verts for the town hall of Rouen tells in a hoarse voice, this Wednesday, the citizen fight won more than twenty years ago to preserve this wetland of Repainville, threatened at the time by the construction of 'a large distribution company.
This 10 hectare ecosystem, to the east of the town, is a symbol of what the elected representative, supported by the Communists and Generation-s, is proposing for the municipal elections next March. "Nature is non-existent in Rouen! We have to make it a garden city, a city of new senses, improve the living environment, ”he says. Vegetation, bicycle paths, free transport, stop of the eastern motorway bypass project, thermal insulation… In the rain, red scarf around the neck, the 53-year-old school teacher details, talkative, his project for one of the most common most polluted in France. "It is important to propose a resuscitation project, to give another image of the city after the Lubrizol disaster ..."
"There was a Lubrizol effect: people made the connection with the environmentalists"
On September 26, a fire ravaged the petrochemical plant in the west of the town and swept away in a monstrous smoke thousands of drums of chemical products stored on the site. Since December, despite criticism, the Seveso classified company has resumed its activity. The thick black cloud of the fire gave way this Wednesday to a most common gray sky. But a strange odor still annoys the nostrils and, almost six months after the tragedy, the residents' concern has not dissipated.
"The crisis management was catastrophic and we are still waiting for answers on what really happened and the consequences of the fire," denounces Simon de Carvalho, co-president of the association Les sinistrés de Lubrizol. "But I think there has been an awareness among the population of the ecological issue and the health risks."
The industrial accident and its risky management by the public authorities deeply marked the inhabitants of the Norman capital. "We are systematically challenged on this issue," confirms the local elected Stéphane Martot, EELV secretary in Rouen, alongside the candidate on the Repainville site. "There was a Lubrizol effect: people made the connection with environmentalists because we have legitimacy, the security of Seveso sites [there are 14 in Rouen] has been one of our struggles for 15 years". By the admission of their opponents, the fire could benefit the ecological list next March.
Jean-Michel Bérégovoy is more careful. "We don't want to talk about Lubrizol all the time, but our program is in line with what happened," he sweeps, indicating that it will be necessary to close the factory if security is not not guaranteed. With, in the background, the fear of being accused of recovery.
"We don't want to sprinkle green, but to transform the city in depth"
In the Bérégovoy team, we recall that the interest of the Rouennais in the environment predates the fire. In the May European elections, EELV came in second position in the municipality at 18.33%, behind LREM, against 13.48% at the national level. An Ifop poll carried out just before the accident even placed Jean-Michel Bérégovoy in first position. “The awareness dates back to before, but Lubrizol had a multiplier effect. The ecological message has transcended social classes ”, believes Laura Slimani, of Generation-s, in fourth position on the list.
EELV thus hopes to bring the industrial city of 115,000 inhabitants, a mixture of bourgeois and popular population, into its purse. “In Rouen and in the mainland, we are reaching the end of the cycle. The socialist period of the 1990s, around the personality of Laurent Fabius, ends. The themes have evolved, the industrial decor is less important than in the past, and everyone understands that the city must evolve with the challenges of the 21st century, "remarks the green MEP David Cormand, ex-boss of EELV and elected representative of the Rouen metropolitan area. "In this story, to make the link between jobs and ecology, we are the most credible".
Taking advantage of the weakening of the Socialist Party, in Rouen as elsewhere, environmentalists now want to embody the alternation on the left. "In the past, we have managed to convince the socialists on certain projects," says Bérégovoy, deputy mayor since 2014. "Today, we don't want to sprinkle green, but to transform the city in depth. Rouen must be a laboratory of municipal ecology ”.
“In 12 years, what have they done to make the city greener?
This time, the outgoing socialist mayor, Yvon Robert, does not stand for re-election. But the party with the rose does not intend to let escape a city which it manages since 1995, except for a centrist parenthesis from 2001 to 2008. "If ecology is the major stake of the century, why would it be the prerogative from one party? ", Questions Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, PS city councilor. The ex-president of the Haute-Normandie region, 42, defends the ecological balance sheet of the last two mandates and wishes to make Rouen "a depollution champion" by also standing as a candidate for the metropolis. "We need levers and it is only on this scale [500,000 inhabitants] that we can act, otherwise it is only a question of demagogic campaign promises." But environmentalists have only five candidates in the 71 cities of the metropolis ”.
A little earlier, place du Vieux-Marché, another candidate mentioned the ecological question. “I did not wait for the Europeans to speak about it. I have been in the wood industry for thirty years, where we have been talking about sustainable development, a solidarity economy ”, says Jean-Louis Louvel, president of the pallet company PGS. “In 12 years, what have they done to make the city greener? ", Questions the 53-year-old entrepreneur, supported by La République en Marche, Les Républicains et les centristes. He talks about the September fire. "Lubrizol is not a question of ecology but of industrial security," he said, before being stopped by a passerby. "Ecology is good, but it only spoke to me about one thing, security," he continues, recalling that other themes will be at the heart of the polls next March.
In the last municipal elections, Jean-Michel Bérégovoy had won only 11.09% of the vote. But the nephew of the former Prime Minister of François Mitterrand thinks that the time for green people has come. “We are experienced, we have learned. We are now able to pilot the city. We hope that big chimneys from Lubrizol will emit green smoke. ”
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Here is the list of the nine candidates declared to the town hall of Rouen:
- Jean-Michel Bérégovoy, supported by EELV and Génération-s;
- Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, supported by the Socialist Party;
- Jean-Louis Louvel, supported by LREM, LR and the centrists;
- Jean-François Bures, various right candidate;
- Lionel Descamps, supported by La France insoumise;
- Marine Caron, various center candidate;
- Marc Fouilloux, supported by the Nouvau anti-capitalist party;
- Guillaume Pennelle, supported by the National Rally;
- Pierre-Alexandre Guesdon, supported by the Animalist Party.
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- Rouen
- EELV
- ecology
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