Rural mayors are also making their ecological transition

Modeled on the citizens' climate convention, the Association of Rural Mayors of France (AMRF), which brings together 12.000 municipalities with fewer than 3.500 inhabitants, organized a "major ecological transition workshop" for six months.

“We took 100 volunteer mayors on board a training and reflection exercise in collective intelligence,” Fanny Lacroix (MoDem), vice-president of the AMRF, explains to AFP. So far discreet on the subject, local elected officials are nevertheless the ones who, according to her, “are taking climate change head on, with the drastic reduction in water resources”.

To form an opinion, rural mayors, gathered in a conference this weekend in L'Alpe-d'Huez (Isère), met a good number of energy and climate experts, including paleoclimatologist Valérie Masson -Delmotte.

The “national strategy” presented is based on three themes: energy transition, natural common goods and levers for action.

"For us it's a new way of working. We're moving from a rather family-based association, where a few people think and decide, to participatory and bottom-up thinking," says Michel Fournier, president of the association.

With 88% of the territory, rural municipalities seem to be in fact "the political space for ecological transition", as claimed by rural mayors.

“We have the water which supplies our municipalities and large cities, the forest which stores the carbon which we do not emit, and the agricultural land which feeds the population”, recalls Michel Gros, mayor of La Roquebrussanne (Var), for whom the government “cannot ignore our work”.

In addition to an urgent call to “slow down”, the mayors are demanding one thing above all: to be involved in ecological planning decisions which “will have an impact” on their territory.

"Acceptability"

This positioning comes at a time when they must define in their municipality the “acceleration zones” which will host wind or photovoltaic farms, in accordance with the law for the acceleration of renewable energies.

“We are going to have an + energy wall + by 2030 and onshore wind or solar power will necessarily be here. We do not want to endure the projects but work upstream with our population on the conditions of their acceptability,” explains Fanny Lacroix.

In addition to "human-sized" projects, the AMRF requests that small municipalities be able to benefit more from the expected economic benefits, particularly fiscal ones.

She also asks the State to respect the "Republican pact" and not to install "only wind turbines", but also "bakeries, schools and doctors".

“Residents need to know that when we put two wind turbines in a town, this will perhaps make it possible to build a medical center,” argues Ms. Lacroix.

Questioned by AFP, environmentalist senator Ronan Dantec, who participated in workshops, welcomes a “fairly proactive” commitment.

According to him, certain proposals even go "quite far", such as the idea of ​​subjecting to authorization any intervention on private plots which will potentially have an impact on biodiversity.

Mayors also fear that the preservation of common goods, such as forests, will ultimately represent an excessive financial burden. The financing of municipalities must therefore no longer, according to them, be dictated only "by the number of inhabitants".

On the management of natural resources, the AMRF also calls for "more local democracy", which does not go without echoing the debates on "mega-basins".

“The result of our work is 90 pages in which we offer a toolbox to mayors without imposing anything on them,” assures Jean-Claude Pons, mayor of Luc-sur-Aude.

During the presentation, however, a mayor threatened to "leave the association", criticizing an approach of "neo-rural bobos".

“I'm not worried,” assures Philippe Heitz, mayor of Burdignes (Loire), before spinning the metaphor of the farmer cultivating his field: “We did broadcast sowing, there will be areas where it won't work. not push, others yes.”

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.