The Minister of the City was traveling in the Gard with Prime Minister Jean Castex yesterday Saturday. Before leaving for Paris, Nadia Hai gave an interview to our editorial staff and recalls the purpose of this visit and the support of specialized educators and social mediators in Nîmes.
Objectif Gard: What was the purpose of your trip to the Gard?
Nadia Hai: Two months after the Interministerial City Committee (CIV), which was held on January 29 in Grigny, the Prime Minister decided to meet every six weeks a monitoring committee to report on the progress of the measures decided. . While the crisis is hitting the neighborhoods and their inhabitants hard, the CIV has made it possible to mobilize an additional 3.3 billion euros and made several strong commitments in the fields of security, housing, education, integration and social cohesion. Our priority today is to ensure the proper implementation of these measures! And this in each of the 1,514 priority districts of city policy, and therefore also here in the Gard.
Nîmes in particular has experienced an upsurge in violence in its working-class neighborhoods for several months. How do you analyze it?
The upsurge in violence is not limited to working-class neighborhoods, but the fragility of the neighborhoods, amplified by the crisis, has made them fertile ground. I believe that we must remember that this violence is not new, but I spoke with those who are in contact with the field (street educators, social mediators, leaders of grassroots associations. building, elected officials, in particular) and I note with them that violence reaches new audiences, with a rejuvenation but also a feminization of profiles. The crisis and the health restrictions have a profound psychological impact on the youth of our neighborhoods, with the cessation of many activities which leads to isolation. We recalled with the Prime Minister our commitment to renew the summer quarters and learning holidays in the summer of 2021, to fight against the idleness of these young people.
You announced the reinforcement of 600 educators and mediators in France. The Gard will be able to rely on what reinforcement and when?
Yes, it is a strong announcement of the CIV carried by the Ministry of the City. A measure all the more necessary in this period of upsurge in violence between young people, which is worrying. With this measure, we will deploy 600 street educators and social mediators in the 45 neighborhoods that we have pre-identified: these will be very concretely those where the security context is fragile, those who experience high poverty, those where youth unemployment. is important, those where the number of single-parent families is high. Those where the needs are greatest and which no longer have enough teams of educators. Here, in the Gard, and more precisely in Nîmes, we are going to deploy 12 specialized educators and social mediators.
Your travels are often the occasion for the installation of a territorial committee of the policy of the city. What does the Gard one consist of?
Our objective is simple: to apply the measures of the Interministerial Committee for Cities and the France relaunch plan to all of the departments. These committees are intended to bring together all the actors in city policy and mayors with QPV, around the Prefect. In the Gard, these measures concretely change the daily lives of residents of priority neighborhoods. We are going to strengthen our action in terms of urban renewal by increasing the State’s investment in the cities of Alès and Nîmes, opening 100 places in boarding schools of excellence in Nîmes, financing the rehabilitation and extension of the School. in Beaucaire or even the development of allotment gardens in Uzès with funds from the France relaunch plan.
“30 years ago, I would have dreamed of having an educational city!”
You also mention experiments, new measures within the framework of this committee … Can you give us some of these solutions for our department?
I am thinking of two new measures of the CIV which could be tested in these territories which are bubbling with youth and potential. Productive quarters, a program that aims to support entrepreneurship, the development of trade and crafts and the establishment of productive activities. For too long, social support has been the rule and economic development the exception. However, my conviction is that it is an essential lever for the attractiveness of our territories, jobs, quality of life. With this program, we are supporting communities that are mobilizing for the vitality of their neighborhoods. And the Cités de la jeunesse: a unique place bringing together all the existing systems intended for them and where young people can simultaneously obtain information, be guided, assert their rights, discuss, carry out projects, in a word s ’emancipate.
What struck you the most during this visit to our department?
I believe that it is the meeting with the accompanied pupils within the framework of the educational city of Nîmes. These young people have all made the choice to become involved as “ambassadors of citizenship”: they are determined to succeed, to change the image of their neighborhood, to participate in the republican pact. A particularly moving moment when a young person asked us how we became Prime Minister or Minister. I answered him that his question resonated particularly in me, because I too the districts of Trappes saw me born, grow and become the woman that I am. Everyone should have the right to be successful. We will give them the means to achieve their ambitions. 30 years ago, I would have dreamed of having an educational city!
A little more personal word. Have you been to the Gard before?
Absolutely not ! And I was delighted to discover this beautiful department through the prism of its neighborhoods, in Nîmes and Alès. Above all, what I remember is the meetings we had throughout this day, with the Prime Minister, and the warm welcome we received: exemplary State services, committed elected officials , associative actors who innovate and act, young people who believe in their future, involved professionals, inhabitants who love their neighborhoods and ambitious projects which place people at the heart of the urban area. This is what I take away from this region and above all from its inhabitants! I have only one desire: to come back! And I will come back to install there the Territorial Committee of the policy of the city which will take place before the summer.
Interview by Abdel Samari
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