The Senate voted unanimously on Tuesday, July 18, the bill to respond to the urgency of the work after the destruction during the riots which followed the death of Nahel M., 17, killed by a police officer during a traffic check on June 27 in Nanterre. The vote was folded in two hours for this text promised by Emmanuel Macron on July 4 in order to accelerate reconstruction in the approximately 500 municipalities affected by urban violence.
Town halls, schools, police stations: from Mons-en-Barœul, in the North, to Lormont, near Bordeaux, via Brie-Comte-Robert or Garges-lès-Gonesse, in the Paris region, more than 750 public buildings have been damaged according to the government, to a greater or lesser extent. “The figures are three times higher than that of the three weeks” of violence that followed the death of Zyed and Bouna in 2005, said the Minister of Territorial Cohesion, Christophe Béchu.
The text submitted to Parliament urgently includes three articles authorizing the government to act by ordinance on three levers.
The first provides for adaptations of the town planning code to speed up the reconstruction of public or private buildings. Preparatory work can be undertaken without waiting for planning permission to be obtained.
Article 2 deals with public procurement, which usually goes through calls for tenders, with the dual objective of accelerating and simplifying procedures.
The last article adapts the framework applicable to subsidies paid to local authorities. It opens up the possibility of a zero charge for the communities concerned and will allow them to recover VAT in the current year, without waiting for the current two-year deadline.
“Learn all the lessons”
Barely retouched by the senators, the bill is now expected Thursday in the hemicycle of the National Assembly. If the Lower House modifies it even a little bit, deputies and senators will have to meet in a joint joint committee to agree on a compromise version which will still have to be validated by each of the two chambers. A scenario that would postpone a final adoption to Friday.
This text is not “a global response to the situation we have experienced”, Mr. Béchu told parliamentarians from the outset. “We are now in the time of dealing with the consequences and will come, of course, at the start of the school year, the time for resolute action on the causes, on the policies to be implemented”, he added.
But the senators insisted that the substantive questions be asked. “We would have liked this text to be put into perspective by an analysis and the presidential speech so that we can be given a diagnosis, so that we can define the causes,” said the boss of LR senators, Bruno Retailleau. “What will have to be rebuilt, in the months, in the years to come, is not only what was burned for five days and five nights, it is what was deconstructed for decades, the authority of course (…), and it will no doubt also be necessary to ensure that all these young people from the neighborhoods can love France”, he added.
The socialist Marie-Pierre de La Gontrie has already announced that her group would ask for a debate again at the start of the school year. “Everyone is debating everywhere what happened in France, except in Parliament, it’s not normal,” she said. “We need a date for debate”, supported the communist Pascal Savoldelli, insisting: “We must learn all the lessons to recognize and respect all the French population. »
