Its red carpets, its posh evenings, on yachts or by the gigantic swimming pools of opulent villas… In a few days, immersed in its festival, Cannes will appear to the whole world as the capital of cinema, but also of splendor and luxury. The latest conclusions of the Regional Chamber of Accounts (CRC) Paca nevertheless recall a “historically different reality”, rectifies the mayor LR David Lisnard. In 2018, the poverty rate measured in the second city of the Alpes-Maritimes, at 20%, was higher than those recorded at the scale of the urban community (16.5%) and on average in the region ( 17.3%), notes the administration. It was even much higher than that recorded by INSEE for the whole of France: 14.8% that year.
In 2020, according to INSEE data, the Cannes poverty rate even rose to 21%, on a par with Nice, the highest in the department. The one we call the city of festivals is not limited to its Croisette, where the price per square meter can sometimes flirt with 90,000 euros. It also includes “two priority neighborhoods”, including that of La Frayère-Ranguin, which had only 23.5% to 27.2% of households taxed in 2016, recalls the CRC in its 68-page report.
Far, therefore, from the image conveyed by “some” who, “in the laziness of clichés, continue to present Cannes as ”city of the rich”, ”easy””, grumbled the city councilor, at the start of week, on Twitter.
“Extremely complicated situations”
David Lisnard was then perhaps targeting, among others, Renaud Muselier who doubted, in 2021, just before his election as head of the Association of Mayors of France, the legitimacy of the mayor of Cannes to access this post. “From the top of its red carpet, nestled in its Palais des festivals, [il] will never be able to understand what you and your fellow citizens experience on a daily basis in your territories, in the real world, ”wrote the president of the Paca region in a letter to local elected officials.
The mayor even stepped up to the plate after statements by Emmanuel Macron himself. The President of the Republic had estimated that it “is easier to decentralize when you are in Cannes than in Marseille, because the people are not the same”. David Lisnard had concluded that the Head of State “obviously only knows the wealthy neighborhoods of our city and only sees the beautiful event exhibition”.
“It’s obvious, a lot of people don’t see the back room, confirms Dominique Henrot, PC-PS candidate in the last municipal elections, in 2020. There are extremely complicated situations, in particular for single-parent families, with mothers who are forced to manage very difficult situations. And with very few resources. According to other data recalled by the CRC, “the median disposable income per consumption unit” was in 2018 “lower” in Cannes [20.230 euros] that “in the rest of the agglomeration [21.590 euros] and in the region”.
Actions and the question of the job offer(s)
“But once we have noticed this contrast, what do we do? That’s the real question,” asks Dominique Henrot. Requested by 20 minutes, the city of Cannes explains that 24 million euros are devoted each year to actions “in social policy, solidarity policy and the fight against poverty”. Either “the second largest municipal budget after that of culture”, at 30 million euros.
“Even if social policy is a competence of the department and the State, the town hall intervenes in a proactive way”, she still assures, referring to the opening of a social grocery store in March 2022 or even the “numerous subsidies to associations and structures that work in favor of the most fragile and in difficulty”. It also highlights “the provision, for twenty years, of a day and night reception structure for homeless people” or the opening, by the end of 2024, of a new independent residence “for the elderly with very low incomes”.
For Dominique Henrot, it would above all be necessary to go further, on the job offer (s). According to him, “the choices made by the current town hall and the previous one, to always favor tourism” would be the source of a high rate of poverty. “There are still new projects for 4 and 5 star hotels. A 5-hectare site was ceded to the west of the city to create film studios, he takes as an example. But that’s not how you can create diversified and above all sustainable jobs. “And to propose to” launch own industrial activities rather than devote everything to luxury and events. »