“We are forced to work together,” acknowledged Prime Minister Jean Castex at the 90th congress of the Assembly of French Departments (AdF) in Bourg-en-Bresse. The head of government took a step on Friday in the direction of the departments by taking up some of the 102 proposals they had presented the day before to “act with the French”.
During its congress, the AdF unveiled on Thursday 102 proposals to “restore confidence in the French”, by granting the departments more fiscal and economic powers, but also in the field of transport and citizen democracy.
No big shift in the midst of a health crisis
Faced with the criticisms suffered by the regional health agencies (ARS), Jean Castex planned to “strengthen the place of local elected officials in their governance (…) and the granting of a vice-presidency of the agencies”. He aroused strong applause by reaffirming that “the common law jurisdiction for roads is the department”, at a time when the State is proposing to the regions to take over certain sections of national roads.
Congress attendees also welcomed the government’s decision to propose that college managers report to departments, a long-standing demand.
The Minister of Territorial Cohesion Jacqueline Gourault tabled an amendment in the draft law on 3Ds decentralization, which the National Assembly will study from next week, “giving the departments functional authority over college managers” , he explained. “I sincerely hope that the National Assembly will vote it”, he added, acknowledging however that this bill on decentralization “was not a revolution”. “It would not have been reasonable, as long as the health crisis is not over, to upset the rules of the game”, explained the Prime Minister who pledged to “make improvements” to the text. The head of government also recalled that he had taken measures to “stop the bleeding (…) of the staff around the department prefects which have fallen by 35% in ten years”.