He certainly didn’t do it on purpose, but Michel Barnier gave him a nice gift. Françoise Gatel, Minister Delegate in charge of rurality, commerce and crafts, arrived this Thursday, October 10 in the Hautes-Alpes for a two-day government visit, after an announcement which relaxed the atmosphere among elected officials local… and which arrived at the right time: the minister was traveling to attend the 40th annual congress of the National Association of Mountain Elected Officials (Anem) organized in the Superdévoluy resort.
In the Senate on Tuesday for questions to the government, the Prime Minister had in fact announced that there will be no more compulsory transfers of powers in 2026 for local authorities… A hot topic in the Southern Alps, where many municipalities were reluctant to pass the management of water and sanitation to intermunicipalities.
A stated desire to territorialize decisions
“Giving control back to the territories is a good thing. The State must trust us more. We know how to organize“, underlines Chantal Eymeoud, vice-president of the Region in charge of the Mountain plan, but especially in this specific case, mayor of Embrun and president of the community of communes of Serre-Ponçon.
Same story for Minister Françoise Gatel visibly in line with the announcement made by the tenant of Matignon: “I think we can now de-stress. The Prime Minister announced something extremely important, not only on the subject but on the way in which he intends to take realities into account. The water problem is not the same in Lille as in the mountains. We will now do hand-stitched and made-to-measure products. I think that in the territories, elected officials invent solutions and the State must support them. It works much better than when someone in Paris comes to explain to them how to do it.”
