He should spend a good part of the day there. Emmanuel Macron is expected Monday in the Alpes-Maritimes, first in Nice to talk about police and security, then in the Roya valley, fifteen months after the deadly floods which devastated several villages, we learned from the ‘Elysée and the town hall of Nice.
In the capital of the Riviera, the President of the Republic will meet the security forces and lay the first stone of the future “police hotel”. This project will take place in the former Saint-Roch hospital, in the city center, and should bring together several security forces (national and municipal police, border police, judicial police, etc.) in a high-tech police station. A first in France where 2,000 agents will eventually work.
Worn by the mayor Christian Estrosi, ex-LR now an ally of Emmanuel Macron, this equipment should enter service at the end of 2025, according to the town hall of Nice. In July 2020, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced that he would benefit from funds from the recovery plan with the further deployment of 60 police officers.
Taking stock of reconstruction after the storm
President Macron will then spend the afternoon in the Roya valley, where he had already visited on October 8, 2020, a few days after the catastrophic floods that had left ten dead and eight missing in several valleys near Nice and Chin.
He intends to take stock of the reconstruction sites and meet the inhabitants and elected officials mobilized on the work, specifies the Elysee. During his first visit, he had promised the inhabitants to release large means to rebuild “very quickly” and then pledged to come back on site by the end of the year 2021. Since then, out of an estimated total at at least one billion euros, insured damage to individuals represented 217 million euros in September.
A hamlet still largely cut off from the world
The overall budget for public aid has reached 572 million euros, according to the special prefect appointed by the head of state to supervise the reconstruction work, Xavier Pelletier. With in particular 143 million under the solidarity endowment, 59.3 million in credits from the European Union Solidarity Fund and 50 million reserved for supporting development and attractiveness projects for the valleys.
Many structures and roads remain to be rebuilt. In Roya, the hamlet of Casterino is still largely cut off from the world due to a road that will not be restored before the end of summer 2022, endangering the survival of several hotels.