At the head of nine communities of more than 80,000 inhabitants and many small town halls, green elected officials must now prove their worth.
“When you are elected, this is where the trouble starts”, warned them Jean-François Caron, mayor for nineteen years of Loos-en-Gohelle, in Pas-de-Calais. Less than two months after their installation, they already understood it. “We are facing very high expectations,” says Anne Vignot, the mayor of Besançon. Do not disappoint their electorate and prove that, according to Grégory Doucet, the city councilor of Lyon, “reasonable people, responsible people are no longer those who devote their lives to the growth of the GDP, but those who respect the living”, it is ie them. All the more, recalls this same Doucet, “that we are expected on the quality of life right away. However, calming a city, refreshing it, it takes time. But how can we promise that things will get better in ten years? ” Reconciling the long term of public policies and the short term of aspirations is the equation they must resolve. Even though they are expected at the turn, and they need results before the 2022 presidential election.
For many, they did not know each other until they were elected. At EELV, the candidates are chosen locally and few were leaders of the movement. But these followers of the collective, collegiality and codecision have decided to think together about the solutions to be put in place. They plan to meet in thematic working groups – mobility, town planning, food, housing… – from the start of the school year. “It is an informal network, explains Léonore Moncond’huy, mayor of Poitiers, with the aim of sharing our know-how and our practices on concrete subjects.”
To read :The eventful summer of environmentalists
Develop policies together, identify what works, “but also challenge and exert pressure at national and European level,” explains Jeanne Barseghian in Strasbourg. “The more we will be helped, the faster we will be able to move forward in our transition project,” adds Bruno Bernard, the boss of the Lyon metropolitan area, who is impatiently awaiting the recovery plan. From the start of the school year, they intend to get involved in the representative bodies of mayors – urban France, the Association of Mayors of France… So many lobbies in which they are currently very little present.
“None of us won alone”
Beyond their results, the way in which they manage to hold their majorities will also be scrutinized. The cities were at the heart of the negotiations with the partners of the environmentalists, in particular with the PS. However, in the battle for the 2022 presidential election, this ability to bring people together is an important asset. “None of us won alone,” insists Eric Piolle, the mayor of Grenoble, the only one in the group to start a second term. In 2014, he had obtained 29% of the votes in the first round, against more than 46% six years later. With these good results – “it gives me a voice and a responsibility,” he says – he would see himself as a candidate from a broad left front for the presidential election. The war of mayors has started.
Dupond-Moretti defends the hunt
Invited at the last minute for an express debate – thirty minutes top time – by environmentalists during their summer days, Eric Dupond-Moretti defended himself from having attacked them in the preface to the book by Willy Schraen, the president of the National Federation of Hunters, which he signed. Using the terms “enlightened”, “fundamentalists” or “ecological ayatollahs”, he was targeting “extremists. And they are everywhere ”, including“ among hunters ”, he maintained. This opponent of the “glue hunt”, but passionate about the falcon hunt, tried to calm the debate. In front of this hostile audience, the Keeper of the Seals tried to defend his hobby: “Hunting is also a story and a democratic conquest.” An argument that did not convince.
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