“We need local partnership and freed public action of administrative square meadows”

By fashionlifeshopping 09/10/2022 1214 Views

Why did it take “50 cards to see before going to vote” in the perspective of the next presidential election? The starting point of the work is weariness, if not concern and anger, felt vis-à-visof the state of public debate in the country.The start of the presidential campaign was literally saturated by the received ideas, caricature analyzes and simplistic reading grids (“peripheral France”, “French archipelago”, “cultural insecurity”, “great replacement”, etc..)))).However, the situation has never been so complicated!Benchmarks that seemed immutable are crumbling;Innovations and circulations accelerate;crises, social and ecological, take on an unprecedented intensity.Contrary to what our leaders seem to think, the French aspire to serious debates to discuss the major strategic options likely to redefine a common future in an uncertain world.Their aspirations to live well and their expectations of concrete improvements do not mean that they are impermeable to complexity and only capable of taking an interest in everyday problems - evidenced by the favorable reception reserved for the great national debate or the conferenceCitizen on the climate in 2019. Dans ce contexte, quelques mois avant une élection décisive, il nous a semblé important de documenter aussi rigoureusement que possible l’état de la France, d’analyser les dynamiques à l’œuvre et d’identifier les enjeux de demain… avec l’objectif de différencier les “faux débats” qui parasitent le débat public des “vraies questions” (théoriques comme très concrètes)))) dont il faut que le pays s’occupe collectivement.And to do everything so that the contradictory discussion and the argument replace the clash and the controversy.The book brings together 50 cards and 100 graphics from reliable statistical data, but also texts written with four hands mobilizing the most recent work in the social sciences.It is structured around 5 subjects that have been going through the presidential campaign for several months: is France in decline?"It was better before" ?Has French society transformed into an archipelago of communities?Can politics anymore?“No future”?It obviously does not come up with the researchers to say what are the right or bad answers to these questions - it is an eminently political responsibility!But the seriousness that is given to the way of selecting the data and putting it in perspective has consequences on the construction of controversies and, ultimately, on the quality of exchanges, their wealth, their usefulness.

The health crisis has nonetheless reinforced the aspirations to a new act of decentralization, against the backdrop of criticism addressed to a state deemed rigid and ineffective.However, local communities have also largely contributed to generalized mess.

Your cards, graphics and statistics support your remarks, for example on the dead ends of decentralization.Why should we not "more" but "better" decentralize, in your opinion? Our fourth chapter educated, dependent and at discharge, the trial of political impotence.The dead ends of decentralization are both one of the causes and consequences.In the 1970s, decentralization embodied the political promise of a society organized on a local basis.The situation has radically changed from the 1990s, when it turned into a technical question, into a case of distribution of skills and budgetary rationalization.The legislator organized a specialization of skills according to the administrative levels.This "millefeuille", according to the expression consecrated, has become incomprehensible for the French.In one of the double pages of the book, we represent in the form of a goose game the typical day of a family: the multiplication of their practices and their places of life makes them dealLess than 8 public institutions from morning to night!The field of education pushes this logic to the absurd: schools are managed by municipalities, colleges by departments, high schools by regions and universities by the State (whose ministry manages all teachers)))))).It is therefore no coincidence that the democratic crisis now affects up to local elected officials: during the last municipal elections, the mayors were elected by barely 20 % of registrants!This disaffection is not a sign of a disinterest of citizens for politics.The feeling that dominates is rather than their leaders have lost all power (facing markets, large firms, high administration, etc..)))).On this subject too, the way in which decentralization has been carried out is not free from reproaches: to allow elected officials to intervene on the "good scale", it paradoxically distant the political decision of citizens.The health crisis has nonetheless reinforced the aspirations to a new act of decentralization, against the backdrop of criticism addressed to a state deemed rigid and ineffective.However, local communities have also largely contributed to generalized mess.For example, regions, departments, intercommunalities and communes were delivered, most often without the slightest consultation, to a "mask war" which quickly turned to bidding, against the backdrop of territorial competition or communication operations.At the same time, almost all elected officials, like Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, asked for a “strong command on the scale of the State” and without reserve the taxation of a uniform containment, transfers of patients from one region to another, but also the opening of budgetary valves to prevent an economic and social collapse - as much innunvisable practices in federal countries or in the process of federalization, such as Germany, the'Spain or Italy.In reality, the pandemic has mainly shown that the effectiveness of the public authorities was conditioned on the coordination of the State and its services with all the strata of local authorities, but also with public and private enterprises, associations and collectives fromof civil society.These variable geometry cooperation are called upon to strengthen because of environmental preservation issues, by systemic nature.They open the way to a more horizontal and more partnership territorial action, freed from administrative square meadows.

The supposedly irreducible cleavage between two France, that "from above" and that "from below", that of "winners" and that of "losers", that of the inhabitants "on somewhere" and those of "nowhereIs a fad.

“Il faut une action publique locale partenariale et affranchie des prés carrés administratifs”

Regarding the territories, you observe that opposing "winners" and "losers" does not solve any problem ... It is not a question of ignoring the effects of globalization, which is in essence selective and source of social inequality as spatial. Il ne s’agit pas de nier que la contraction des dépenses de l’État et des collectivités, ainsi que les injonctions récurrentes à la “rationalisation” de leurs activités, ont conduit à de nombreuses fermetures de services publics de proximité́ (tribunaux, hôpitaux, casernes, bureaux de poste)))), notamment dans les espaces peu denses – nos cartes en témoignent.It is a question of recalling that the disparities are now part of microgeographic scales.As geographer Roger Brunet said twenty-five years ago already, "French territory has more than one slope": socioeconomic fragility crosses the territories much more than it cuts the country into large blocks.Resumed in one way or another by almost all candidates, the supposedly irreducible cleavage between two France, that "from above" and that "from below", that of "winners" and that of "losers”, That of the inhabitants“ of somewhere ”and those of“ nowhere ”is an editorial fad that all serious studies have invalidated and in which the French themselves do not recognize themselves!He forgets that French society, although shaped by sustainable and deep inequalities, is a mobile society, which everyone has occupied several social positions in different spaces throughout life.In the same way, in matters of public policy, the State has never "abandoned" the countryside and small cities for the benefit of metropolises and their suburbs. Depuis 1979, il verse des dotations aux collectivités pour financer leur fonctionnement ; en la matière, nos cartes et graphiques montrent que le Rhône ou l’Île-de-France sont proportionnellement nettement moins bien lotis que la Haute-Loire ou la Lozère, alors que les difficultés sociales y sont autrement plus intenses ! Par ailleurs, il y a toujours plus de fonctionnaires (enseignants, juges)))) et d’élus par habitant dans les zones rurales que dans les périphéries urbaines, tandis que les déserts médicaux se trouvent aussi bien dans certaines campagnes (sud du Centre, nord de la Bourgogne)))) qu’en Seine-Saint-Denis ou en outre-mer.No officials can now claim to build solidarity policies likely to reconcile innovation, ecological transition and social and spatial justice on the basis of binary and purely victimal representations.

You emphasize that Made in France is more know-how than an organized productive system.Is reindustrialisation, however, at work?Where is France in terms of innovation and attractiveness? First of all, our cards and graphics have illustrated the formidable enrichment of the country for forty years-and the fact that this trend will continue in the coming decades!Even if France will be overwhelmed by demographic giants such as India, Brazil, Indonesia and undoubtedly Nigeria, the creation of wealth per capita will continue to increase.The dynamism of Switzerland or Israel show that in matters of economic power, the size of a country does not do everything.However, this evolution comes up against two pitfalls.On the one hand, the growth of national income does not also benefit all.Admittedly, the mechanisms of redistribution and social protection allow, in France more than elsewhere, to limit the deleterious effects of a globalization which benefited almost everyone except the popular categories of Western countries.However, they are not enough to compensate for the increase in household constrained expenses, which obeys their "power to live" to a large extent. Dans le même temps, la hausse vertigineuse des grandes fortunes (+ 439 % de milliardaires français entre 2000 et 2020 !)))) aggrave les inégalités intergénérationnelles et alimente un fort sentiment d’injustice.Ultimately, these effects could be combined to promote the development of a more renting society than entrepreneurial.On the other hand, if France remains a great economic power in Europe and in the world, it suffers from structural weaknesses. Les exportations augmentent régulièrement (520 milliards d’euros en 2020, soit un doublement en vingt-cinq ans)))), mais elles sont tirées par quelques multinationales qui occupent des positions dominantes dans des secteurs historiques (aéronautique, armes, luxe, énergie)))), alors que les exportations progressent dans tous les domaines et creusent un déficit durable dans le solde commercial.Despite remarkable adaptation capacities and a now globalized deployment, French SMEs are more modest and more fragile than their German or Italian neighbors.In addition, if the French economy is historically very connected to the world, in connection with a colonial past which has registered in the duration of privileged commercial relations, it remains insufficiently linked to the markets of emerging countries, the most promising.Worldwide, Made in France is more about consumers, apart from a few very specific products.Finally, while the French workforce is distinguished by its productivity and its high level of training, the pronounced fall of investments in higher education and research begins to be felt: the number of publications and patents isLooking down, the national labor market is less and less attractive for young foreign graduates, etc..The French economy is therefore not in decline, but confronted with deep transformations which jostle both the activity sectors, the generations, the territories.

Interview by Sylvain Henry

* 50 cards to see before going to vote, an atlas to shed light on the challenges of the elections, Aurélien Delpirou, Frédéric Gilli, Éditions Autrement, 128 pages, 12.90 euros.

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