On December 5, when a migrant camp set up in the city center had to be evacuated, the EELV mayor of Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin), Jeanne Barseghian, announces that she intends to attack the State for failing to shelter people on the street. “Our (municipal) resources are not enough to respond to this great distress and this humanitarian crisis. Shelter is a matter for the State, there is a deficiency, so I decided that the city of Strasbourg would bring an action for damages against the State, because of this failure “, she said. His approach, which has not yet succeeded, is followed by a dozen communities including Rennes, Nantes, Paris, Lyon and Grenoble, tired of the lack of dialogue and prospects for solutions.
This is not the first time that elected officials consider it necessary to make the State face up to its responsibilities. In November 2018, scientific studies assessed the risks of submersion in the town of Grande-Synthe (North) at 30 years. A deadline impossible to accept for the environmentalist mayor at the time, Damien Carême, which is already implementing a policy to combat climate change on its own scale. He then decides to strike hard by initiating proceedings against the State for its climate inaction. After more than two and a half years of legal proceedings, the Council of State finally rendered a judgment on 1is July 2021 in which he sanctions the government for climate inaction and asks it to take, within nine months, “all useful measures to bend the curve of greenhouse gas emissions produced on national territory in order to ensure its compatibility with the country’s objectives”.
Bottom movement
These two examples highlight a strong parallel between major global issues and the position taken by local authorities. “This is particularly true for the issues of climate change and the reception of refugees because, of course, they arise on an international scale, but they have direct effects at the local level”, underlines Nicolas Maisetti, associate researcher at the Lab Territory and Society Technician from Gustave Eiffel University.
“These initiatives resonate with a fundamental movement carried by large networks of local elected officials who claim loud and clear that it is the mayors and the cities who are best placed to take charge of issues as important as migration and climate change, notes for his part Guillaume Gourgues, lecturer in political science at the University of Lyon II. It is a way of connecting the local and the global and it was moreover the objective of municipal socialism which consisted in taking power locally to act on major issues. »
Raising public awareness
In line of sight, we also find a strategy aimed at attracting the attention of public opinion. Thus, on January 14, 2019, mayors of Seine-Saint-Denis (Saint-Denis, L’Ile-Saint-Denis, Aubervilliers, Bondy and Stains), filed an action against the State for breach of equality. “On the pediment of town halls, I see three words inscribed, Liberty-Equality-Fraternity, but these values are not respected on a daily basis in our department, explained Mohamed Gnabaly, mayor (SE) of L’Ile-Saint-Denis. . This legal action aims to raise public awareness of the situation in our cities. Do you know that the State no longer fully ensures its sovereign powers on our territory? The elected officials ask the court for the payment of a symbolic euro for each community in compensation for the damage suffered as a result of the faults committed by the State in the calculation of the allocations. A judgment is expected in the coming weeks.
“All of this reflects the state of relations between the central administration and the local authorities,” continues Guillaume Gourgues. There are obviously quite strong breaks in dialogue that make elected officials feel legitimate to go to court. »
