Urban policy: Valérie Létard wants to "break house arrest"

The absence of a ministerial portfolio dedicated to the City, an exception since the beginning of the 1990s, has created controversy less than 18 months after the wave of riots which inflamed in particular the districts classified as priorities of the city policy (QPV).

In a press release entitled "Valérie Létard, a minister in charge of urban policy convinced that an ambitious policy is needed for neighborhoods", the latter assures that she wants "an ambitious national policy" which "breaks the house arrest of residents and reduces inequalities between territories".

According to the decree published in the Official Journal, the new minister prepares and implements, under the urban policy, "the policy conducted in favor of disadvantaged neighborhoods in urban areas and urban renewal, and the policy of rehabilitation and improvement of housing in these neighborhoods."

She is also associated with the government's policy "on integration and the fight against discrimination, equality between women and men, health, employment, vocational training and education as well as security".

The minister said she "deeply believes in the relevance of this territorialized policy" and recalled that a new generation of "city contracts" has been signed for the period 2024-2030.

Led by inter-municipal authorities, these contracts determine the actions to be carried out locally for the benefit of disadvantaged neighborhoods with the priorities of "employment, education, health and ecological transition" but also security and equality between women and men.

Valérie Létard also confirmed that the geography of QPVs will be updated overseas at the start of 2025.

The 2025 finance bill presented on Thursday, however, provides for a reduction of 90 million euros in the city's political budget, which plummets to 549 million euros.

A "significant increase" of 15% in intervention credits took place "between 2022 and 2024", the minister stressed, while in terms of urban renovation, the "New National Urban Renewal Program" (NPNRU) was allocated 12 billion euros in 2021.

Valérie Létard believes, however, that the situation in the neighborhoods "will only change fundamentally if we manage to mobilize even more and very concretely the systems of all public actors", citing educational success, school guidance, access to care or support towards employment.