A year in office later …
The announcement lifts the veil on the status, missions and qualities expected of this future ethics officer. This is not an agent or an external service provider, but a temporary employee who will therefore be paid “on the job”. As for the profile, the ad draws that of a lawyer, with an “ethical” dimension. According to the text, the candidates must thus justify “solid legal skills combined with knowledge in philosophy, ethics, psychology, deontology and in particular in public law”. They must also know how to lead a team and have knowledge of the world of local authorities.
Ethics vacation offer
After June 15, date of the end of the submission of applications, “a first pre-selection in full transparency will be carried out by our services” explains to Mediacités Olivier Parcot, the director general of the services of the City and the Metropolis. “It will then be up to the ethics and transparency commission of Nantes Métropole to study the candidatures and to propose three names to Johanna Rolland”. Clearly, the City’s ethics and transparency commission will not have a say in the appointment of the ethics officer. As we mentioned in a previous article, the selection of the ethics officer by two different commissions (that of the City and that of the Metropolis) could have led to quite a headache.
An ethics commission still half empty
But it is still necessary that this commission “ethics and transparency” is complete. Currently, only ten of its members have been appointed: elected officials sitting on the metropolitan council. Ten volunteer citizens remain to be recruited. A call for applications should be launched in the coming weeks. A drawing of lots among the residents’ candidacies will select the Nantes members of the commission. In September, the entire ethics and transparency committee of Nantes Métropole will have to give Johanna Rolland the names of the three shortlisted for the post of ethics officer. The mayor and president of Nantes Métropole will then have a month to choose who will be supposed to guarantee ethics in politics in Nantes.
Concretely, the missions of this ethics officer are still rather imprecise, just like the means at his disposal. Only certainty, it will not be an investigator, tracking down possible problems in metropolitan political life, but rather an adviser. According to the announcement published today, like the code of ethics adopted by the Metropolitan Council at the start of its mandate, it will thus be able “to be seized by citizens and elected officials of any question relating to the ethics of the latter”. He will also have to advise elected officials (at their request), to prevent conflicts of interest. Finally, each year it will present a report of its activity to the municipal and metropolitan councils. A first assessment which will therefore not take place before the end of the second year of the mandate.
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