The president of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Laurent Wauquiez (LR) announced this Saturday, September 30, the exit of his region from "zero net artificialization" (ZAN), a device led by the regions and which aims to stop the concretization of the soil in 2050, castigating a law "ruralicide".
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Putting under a bell the decisions of building permits on rurality, it means that we prohibit any form of future (...) I decided that the region was withdrawing from the process. We do it in connection with the departments with which we have exchanged on it, "said Laurent Wauquiez, in Alpe d'Huez (Isère), to the applause of members of the Association of Rural Mayors of France (AMRF) gathered in congress.
Law passed in July
The ZAN law, adopted in July, entrusts the regions with the task of setting a target of reducing the concretization of land through their planning document (Sraddet), to reach "zero net artificialization" by 2050.
To do this, they will have to distribute the reduction effort between the different areas of their regional perimeter, from territorial coherence schemes (Scot) at the departmental level, to local urban plans (PLU) and municipal maps.
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With us if people come it is precisely because there is a little space, otherwise what is our chance?" asked Laurent Wauquiez, blaming Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne for "not having kept her promises".
So far discreet on the national political scene, Laurent Wauquiez, who has presidential ambitions for 2027, must make his national political return Sunday in Valence (Drôme) on the occasion of the campus of the Young Republicans.
In front of rural mayors, the boss of the region recalled his rural roots before denouncing a "two-speed" France between rich metropolises and impoverished countryside.
Accused of sweeping cuts in cultural subsidies in his region, he invoked the cultural rebalancing necessary according to him "to put more culture in rural areas". "The Ministry of Culture (...) allocates 800 euros per capita to the inhabitants of Paris in its cultural policy budget. In our rural areas (...) it is 20 euros per inhabitant that are spent," he said. "Don't the people of our country have the right to libraries, festivals?" he asked.
Laurent Wauquiez also challenged "the madness of standards" and pleaded for the return of "public services, an asset and not a cost, in rural areas".
