State and regions engage in a "new partnership"

"Meeting today at the Hotel Matignon, the Prime Minister and the presidents of the regions of France and overseas have decided to start work aimed at laying the foundations for a new partnership with the ambition to give their work a more marked operational dimension", write in a joint declaration Ms. Borne and the association of the Regions of France.

State and regions are committed to four priority projects: full employment, in particular to "improve together the management of the vocational training offer and the public employment service", ecological transition, so that "ecological planning" be "territorialized".

They thus agree to work with the mayors, the intermunicipalities, the departments on "land sobriety, the preservation of biodiversity, support for new lifestyles, decarbonization and adaptation to the consequences of climate change".

Mobility will be "the subject of a multi-year joint investment program", particularly in the "railway, backbone of clean mobility", while for the economic and industrial reconstruction and the "reindustrialisation" of the country, it will be a "territorialized" implementation of the "France 2030" investment plan.

For the Overseas Territories, the State "will soon engage in dialogue", while discussions are to begin on Thursday on Corsica.

It is a question of providing "concrete answers to the needs of the French people" by drawing inspiration from "what is done well on the ground" and "experiments" which could lead to "forms of differentiation" according to the territories. , following "a principle of pragmatism and flexibility" aiming for "efficiency".

But to "co-construct (these) solutions", "the dialogue must be permanent", underline the two parties, who had experienced tense relations when Edouard Philippe was at Matignon, from 2017 to 2020.

The progress of the work "will be reviewed at a further plenary meeting by the end of the year", according to the statement.

"Today, we have laid the foundations for joint work. This is a first act to give a new place to communities and elected officials", underlined in a separate press release the Prime Minister, who will participate in the congress of regions on September 16 in Vichy (Allier).

“We want to be the regions of solutions” and “we felt a real listening”, declared the president of Regions of France, Carole Delga (Occitanie, PS) to AFP at the end of the meeting, which lasted more than two hours.

"The regional presidents (...) want the country's success in the face" in particular "of a democratic message which was sent to us in a very strong way" in the legislative elections, where the government lost its absolute majority, he said. -she adds.

Renaud Muselier (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, ex-LR) praised him for "very close listening, very close attention, clear and precise proposals".