Paris (AFP)

Failing to be fully in the deconfinement maneuver, entrusted primarily to mayors, the ambitious regional presidents are busy to offer themselves a little political staging, pending the ramp-up on their pre-square : the economy.

Too large, not close enough to field emergencies ... The regions will not be the level of unlocking the country, despite a lobbying campaign carried out in this direction.

And every evening, the French now watch for the color of their department (green, red or orange), when mayors and prefects have been mandated by the executive to pilot operations as closely as possible. "Proximity is the watchword at the moment," summed up AFP, Minister of Territorial Cohesion Jacqueline Gourault.

What to say to a region president, disappointed after a meeting around Edouard Philippe, that "everything is done to (them) bypass". Seeing also in the background a political design to counter the most media executive bosses and some of whom, essentially on the right, would imagine themselves presidential in 2022: Xavier Bertrand in Hauts-de-France, Valérie Pécresse in Ile-de- France or Laurent Wauquiez in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.

The latter, however, have spared no effort in the past two months, seizing in particular the subject of protective masks, where the State has skated or even failed in its orders. In total, the regions imported 65 million, also transformed into a communication tool to display themselves at the forefront of the fight, like public threats this weekend from Renaud Muselier (PACA region) towards large-scale distribution that 'he suspects of having built up "secret stocks during the crisis".

Enough to taunt a LREM deputy, mocking these region presidents who spend their "time being photographed distributing masks".

- Stickers -

"I know another president of the region, who goes around the Ehpad, in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, to give himself the masks and who pretended to transform the hotel of the region into a logistics center", lips of a minister, without naming Laurent Wauquiez.

The same describes, sarcastic, these boxes of masks arrived from China and which "miraculously", "when they arrive in nursing homes or distribution centers, are covered with stickers from the Île-de-France region". "But in a crisis situation, we take all good wills," he also tempers.

In the immediate future, in anticipation of May 11, the regions have a role to play in some of their prerogatives, starting with transportation. Ms. Pécresse, who exposed her plan to deconfinement the front page of the Sunday newspaper after having distributed 600,000 masks last week in stations, compared the task to "an obstacle course", in terms of regulation, hygiene. ..

The question of high schools, also in the hands of the regions, gave Hervé Morin (Normandy) the opportunity to make his difference heard by speaking out against their reopening in June, while the government had not decided the point.

However, the regions will also be fully on the move when the economic crisis supplants the health crisis. "The State knows that it will be able to count on them in the recovery", notes Jacqueline Gourault, stressing that the regions have already contributed 500 million euros to the 7 billion solidarity fund for businesses set up place by the state.

In the inexhaustible tension between the communities over their skills, the regions are currently undergoing an offensive from the departments which see the crisis as a boon to demonstrate their economic usefulness, they who are confined to the difficult social field.

"The departments are looking to interfere but I remind them that with what happens on the social level, they will taste. That they take care of their stuff", sweeps AFP Mr. Muselier, moreover President of the Association of Regions of France. Supported in this sense by Matignon who believes that "the departments have enough to do with their skills".

© 2020 AFP