Why, three years after storm Alex, has reconstruction work not progressed as much as it should have in the Alpes-Maritimes? With works still temporary and certain construction sites stopped. Or, at least, in slow motion. The question (and annoyance) returned to everyone’s lips last week in the Vésubie valley, once again affected by bad weather. The Nice Côte d’Azur metropolis mentions the ongoing investigation into suspicions of “embezzlement” and certain regulatory blockages that a new order from the prefect should make it possible to lift.
But, deprived of certain credits promised by the State, the community, which is already “close to” the debt ceiling, as Christian Estrosi had recognized, would it itself have decided to slow down the pace to put pressure as much as possible high level ? In any case, this is what an internal document, revealed Thursday by Mediapart.
A piece of pressure towards the State?
The pureplayer reproduces a note dated September 22, 2022 and attributed to the “general management committee of the metropolis”. She would report on a “mayor/prefect meeting” organized three days earlier. A paragraph entitled “Alex storm credits” clearly reports a “blockage” on the sums allocated by the State. Of the 152 million euros “expected” for reconstruction work in the valleys, only 42 million would have been “paid” and “we will not have the money”, it is written.
“CE arbitration”, to understand Christian Estrosi, would then have decided to “maintain very strong pressure” with the “stopping of all work” which will not “resume [que lorsqu’on] will have received state funding.
In the meantime, according to the document, it was also recommended to adopt “positive communication […] vis-à-vis the elected officials” of the villages, in the valleys concerned, and to “highlight” to them “what has been done”.
“No decision to stop work has been considered or taken”
Requested by 20 minutes this Friday, Christian Estrosi’s entourage “does not deny” the existence of this a priori note from the general management of metropolitan services but assures that they were “not aware of it at all”. For the rest, the office of the mayor of Nice, president of the metropolis, refers to the statements of the community’s lawyer, cited in Mediapart. If the pace of work has indeed been “slowed down” (less than 29 million euros budgeted this year, compared to more than 57 million in 2022), this would only be due to “the absurdity of the applicable law” and of “the existence of a legal procedure”, supports Me Olivier Baratelli.
“I am being formal in indicating that the amounts committed in 2023 alone demonstrate, and clearly, that no decision to stop the work has been considered or taken,” continues the council. A “coup of pressure” in the direction of the State would nevertheless have been the strategy adopted, according to a source close to the matter at Mediapart.
In a post published on October 3, three years to the day after storm Alex, Emmanuel Macron himself reminded that “615 million euros have been committed for a resilient and sustainable reconstruction” of the valleys.