On the strength of their renewed attractiveness during the health crisis, medium-sized cities asked, this Thursday, for additional resources from the government to “transform the trial” in the coming years, already obtaining the extension of a program. to revitalize town centers.
“Our attractiveness, that of medium-sized towns, continues to strengthen”, welcomed the president of Villes de France, Caroline Cayeux, DVD mayor of Beauvais, welcoming Prime Minister Jean Castex at the opening of the congress of his association. which is held until Friday in Blois.
The French are fans of medium-sized cities rather than metropolises
It was based on the results of the “barometer of the territories”, carried out by the Ifop institute and made public during the congress, which shows that 87% of the French “prefer to live in an average city rather than in a large metropolis”, that is to say three more points than last year. “The covid crisis did not necessarily lead to the emergence of a world after, but rather amplified a series of trends which were previously at work with a clear prevalence of the desire to live in medium-sized cities”, explained Jérôme Fourquet, director of the opinion department of Ifop.
According to this barometer, carried out for Villes de France and the Banque des Territoires, 8% of workers in large cities, or nearly 350,000 inhabitants, are “completely” ready to move, even if only a quarter of them are willing to move. to settle in another region. For Jérôme Fourquet, however, these figures announce “population movements to be expected in the years or months to come” which would benefit localities between 20,000 and 100,000 inhabitants who have long suffered from the attractiveness of metropolises.
“It is a question of taking advantage of the new aspirations of the French to rebalance our territorial organization”, pleaded Carolin Cayeux in front of Jean Castex, recalling the role of the communities during the health crisis, in particular in the distribution of masks or the organization of the vaccination . A presence in the field with “significant consequences” for their finances. “We are always taking on more missions with ever less resources”, she underlined, before launching an appeal to the head of government to consolidate the renewed attractiveness of medium-sized towns. “We must now give ourselves the means to transform the test”, she demanded in conclusion.
Program extended until 2026
Jean Castex responded favorably to one of his requests: the extension until 2026 of the “Action coeur de ville” program launched at the end of 2017 and which was due to expire next year. “I am announcing today that it will continue as you wished after this date to allow the teams elected last year to carry their projects with the help of the State until the end of their term of office. », Said Jean Castex, to the applause of elected officials.
He specified that the commitments under this program would exceed by the end of 2022 the 5 billion euros planned when it was launched at the end of 2017 for 222 cities, “more than 2.8 billion euros having already been committed “. Without giving a new amount for this program, he specified that he had asked the Minister of Territorial Cohesion Jacqueline Gourault “to open dialogue with the financial partners now and of course with you to precisely define the orientations of this program. after 2022 ”.
A meeting on September 7
The head of government referred to a meeting of Cities of France scheduled for September 7 “to specify the modalities of this extension”. For the LREM mayor of Nevers, Denis Thuriot, this extension “will allow us to strengthen the attractiveness of our city centers”, this program being in his eyes “a project accelerator”. In his speech, however, the Prime Minister did not respond to other requests made by Villes de France.
Its deputy chairman, Jean-François Débat, PS mayor of Bourg-en-Bresse, had previously expressed his concerns about “future developments in the compensation of the housing tax”, asking that it be “updated ” From one year to another. He also pleaded for compensation for part “of the charges suffered by a number of our public services” during the crisis.