The president of the rural mayors, Michel Fournier, declared himself “angry” on Saturday and promised to bypass Elisabeth Borne to speak directly with Emmanuel Macron, after the prime minister’s support the day before to strengthen ties between the prefects and the intermunicipalities.
“It’s intolerable,” Michel Fournier said in a video posted online by the 10,000-member Association of Rural Mayors (AMRF), which often maintains a peaceful dialogue with the executive, unlike other government-controlled associations of elected officials. the opposition.
“The binomial that must exist is the prefect-mayor binomial, because the intercommunality is not a community,” recalled the president of the AMRF, whose members fear that the rapprochement between the prefectures and the intermunicipalities “does not lead to the abolition of the municipalities “, a source from the association told AFP.
“Our reaction will be very harsh”
“Our reaction is going to be very harsh,” promised Michel Fournier, who was addressing the rural mayors of Saône-et-Loire. “That means that Elisabeth Borne, who I met last week, I will ignore her and speak directly to the president to clarify this situation,” he said.
In a speech before the Convention of intermunicipalities of France that was held in Bordeaux, Elisabeth Borne was “delighted” this Friday with the reinforcement of the “tandem between the prefect and the president of the intermunicipality”, considering that it is a ” driving force for public action”.
Michel Fournier’s bloodshed comes at a time when the prime minister advocates dialogue and gives a new tone to relations between the executive and the associations of elected officials, marked by strong tensions during the first five years of Emmanuel Macron.
During their convention, the intermunicipalities, currently “Public Intermunicipal Cooperation Establishments” (EPCI), wanted to become full-fledged local authorities like the regions, departments and municipalities, “taking into account the increase in their capacities and their budget”.
Source: BFM TV
