Laurent Suau (Renaissance), until then mayor of Mende, was elected president of the Department of Lozère on August 9, 2024. A look back at the first hundred days of his mandate, and the outlook.
You have been president of the departmental council for a hundred days. No regrets?
It’s a great political adventure that continues, which benefits the entire territory. For the moment, I have been to the four corners of the department. I haven't been everywhere, but I've still done quite a bit. We feel that there is a rather positive feedback. There was an election on August 9. There is a new president of the departmental council, a new team.
And people, now, what they expect from us is that we are at work, that we try to answer problems and questions, and that the Department tries to support through engineering , therefore through its personnel, through its financial means, through its satellites, that it tries to help the entire territory as best as possible.
Your opponents were worried that you were doing more for Mende than for the entire territory.
I have always said, since I was mayor of Mende, that in fact, the city-prefecture only exists because there is the rest of the department. We must be vigilant in treating everyone well. And all my detractors constantly say that I'm only going to do it for Mende. But that would be a mistake! Because the more the territory weakens, the more the city-prefecture will also weaken. And conversely, the more the department strengthens, the more it will also benefit the city-prefecture. I want to be the guardian of this balance so that everyone is respected, that they can make projects everywhere.
During these first hundred days, what was your priority?
The first file was that of nursing homes. And the medico-social sector too. Nursing homes concern everyone.
Nursing homes concern everyone
These are parents, grandparents, great-grandparents who are concerned. So we carried out this operation, to offer aid of one million euros, but I think that in the years to come, everyone will have to put a little hand in their pocket, the State, the Department and also families. Establishments which are in deficit, this could imply, in the future, the deterioration of daily care, it will perhaps be a little less good on the plate, perhaps also a little less good on the entertainment, perhaps a little less good on the housekeeping side. And our elders don't deserve that!
Among the subjects that you consider important, you cite water and energy.
On water, what seems important to me, and I have been saying this for a long time, is to take up the departmental plan for drinking water supply, which dates from 2007. There are investments that have been made, but we has so far not wanted to update this plan. Depending on the evolution of the last fifteen years, the water situation in the Lozère department, it is still worth stopping again. We have the drought episode of 2022 which serves as a reference, and it is perhaps not the most serious that we will have had to go through, perhaps there will be others which will be worse in the years to come. How do we keep populations safe?
And about energy?
The production of renewable energy is an environmental and energy issue, but it is also an economic issue. If we invest in renewable energies, we can generate income for the benefit of Lozériens. Everyone went their own way with their own idea, which was good, but it didn't create coherence. Prefect Philippe Castanet brought everyone around the table, which already made it possible to identify directions. Before I arrived at the presidency, the Department and the SDEE had started to think together, to try to move towards a single orientation. I like it. Now we have to find the right balance for both.
Renewable energies can generate income for the benefit of Lozériens
The idea is not to put all the wind turbines on the Margeride or to degrade beautiful agricultural land to install solar panels for example. We must try to maintain the maximum financial return on these investments in the territory. So we are discussing this with the SDEE. We should succeed with the creation of an SEM (mixed economy company).
Are you worried about the budget of communities, and in particular the Department?
No, not for 2025. Since I was elected, since 2015, I have always heard fears for the future. I want to remain resolutely optimistic. I know it will be more complicated, that we will have to be more careful, but I think we owe it to our taxpayers, to our residents. We must be vigilant about public finances. I'm not saying that the others weren't vigilant, that's not my point at all. We have budgets with surpluses every year which allow us to invest well in the territory; Until now, we have had good budgets and a low debt rate.
But we will have to be careful, then?
Since I arrived at the presidency, I have discovered that many commitments have been made, for aid to local communities for example. Which is very good, but we have to manage, afterwards, to assume financial responsibility, with projects which have nevertheless increased significantly, with inflation. Today, people come to see us and tell us “We had such a project, with the commitment of the Department to such an extent, but we are missing 200, 300, 400,000 €, can you add?“It’s getting complicated.
Are there any projects under threat?
We are not going to stop projects that are already well advanced. But we can try to agree to find the right mesh. We can take the example of Mont-Lozère and the public service delegation. This year, there will be more than €300,000 in subsidies that we must pay. We will surely review the overall copy a little. The big envelope, with the different options or variants that were planned, up to 13 or 14 million euros, we will not invest all that money up there.
We will not invest all this money in Mont-Lozère
We can also talk about the megalith interpretation center project in Bondons. The building that we are building, we will have to exploit it. It will cost the Department. I am convinced that something had to be done. Did it have to be that size? Maybe not. It’s an investment of 4 million euros. It's huge. The building will be done. Now we have to think about how it works, so as not to dip into the fund every year.
We are also being asked for the bison park; we have the project for the castle of Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole… There are lots of beautiful things that we need to be able to release. You definitely have to take time. I am also told that there are technical centers for the roads to be redone. Each time, it's around 2.5 million.
Our investment capacity is interesting, but it is still limited. Especially since there is the financial investment capacity of the Department, but there is also the technical capacity of our teams to be able to take on the projects, and of the companies to be able to carry them out.
For the roads precisely, a point on the RN88?
We have a very big project around the RN88, between the studies on the eastern bypass of Mende, the studies for the section up to the A75, the developments around the SNCF track crossings, certain safety developments such as the crossroads of Balsièges, the Saint-Flour-de-Mercoire crossroads, the L'Habitarelle sector… All of this provides roughly 100 million euros, with a section of the Langogne bypass. And there are 25 million payable by the Department. We don't know where to find them, clearly.
For the RN88, we have 25 million to pay, we don't know where we're going to find them
I will soon propose a meeting with all fellow mayors and presidents of communities of municipalities to see how the envelopes can be distributed. On Mende, for example, when we made the western ring road, Mende paid 12% of the bill. At the same time, I will try to return to the State and the Region to tell them that we are here in a very particular context with low taxation which does not allow us to mobilize such large sums, and that it The State and the Region would have to deviate from this 25% rule that we are being asked to do. You can always ask…
The birth rate is falling in Lozère as elsewhere. Is this a concern?
We must face the problem of demographics, with the birth rate falling, like everywhere else. This has consequences for schools, it raises questions about our colleges. There is a real topic about colleges in the years to come. To maintain this departmental network which is imperative, there must be kids in the establishments. We saw this this year with the closure of the Sainte-Énimie local educational unit. We are working with the academic inspectorate to try to find a direction to allow it to reopen next year. Boarding schools can be a way to save colleges. We see this for example at Bleymard with the training of young firefighters.
The question of the attractiveness of the department therefore remains crucial?
When we look at the prefecture next door, they cannot fill all the positions they have opened. In the police stations, it's the same. And we, at the Department or in the communities, when we look to hire, we sometimes have difficulty finding. So, there are real issues. We must continue to develop all policies that are related to sovereign policies. Anything that will attract people, convince them to come to this department. Fiber is done. Everything that will revolve around education, health, sport, culture, the environment, these are more than important subjects to attract new populations. Before coming to settle in, you will look at the entire range of services that can be offered by the area.
