Has the Covid 19 crisis significantly changed the role of mayors? In the crisis we have just experienced, they were more than ever on the front line. An unprecedented situation which has changed the essential relations between local elected representatives and the prefect, the representative of the State.
Last October, a poll revealed that mayors were the most popular elected officials in the eyes of the French. 67% of our fellow citizens considered them honest, competent and dynamic. Are they even closer today to their constituents.
Three elected officials, Philippe Saurel, President of the metropolis and mayor of Montpellier, city with 290,000 inhabitants, Jean-Patrick Courtois, mayor of Mâcon, medium-sized city on the banks of the Saône with 35,000 inhabitants, finally Stessy Speissmann mayor of Gérardmer, small town by the lake that bears his name, rich with 8000 souls recognize the recent upheaval of their function. They were all taken aback by the magnitude of the problems to be resolved with the Coronavirus crisis.
" We had to work in the immediate and in the moment ", explains Philippe Saurel, " a temporality to which the public service is not accustomed ". But it was for the President of the metropolis of 290,000 inhabitants that the changes were most notorious: " this crisis has brought us closer to the voters ".
Completed long-term strategic meetings, the daily life of the mayor of Montpellier is now focused on solving practical problems.
In Mâcon, the mayor, who is in his eighth term, has reactivated the cells he had put in place during the heat wave. Its services took, for example, news of all the pensioners who had registered in town hall. " We were already a lot on the ground, but today, we have an even more direct and closer relationship with our constituents " insists Stessy Speissmann, who admits having solicited a lot of the 200 agents of his town hall during the crisis. The use of new means of communication such as videoconferencing was not necessary for Mâcon or Gérardmer, on the other hand, it proved to be essential in Montpellier.
Thus, the mayor has scheduled videoconferences with the 126 school directors, which lasted more than four hours to get the “local mammoth” back on the road. " I had never had such direct contact with them before, " admits the mayor, who insists: "The various officials were able to meet and dialogue, and to observe de facto that no one was privileged, and that we were always looking for the most adequate solutions possible ”.
If the three mayors turned into distributors of masks which they had to order themselves, and sometimes even have manufactured because of a state deficiency endemic on the subject, all were forced to take economic measures in favor of traders and businesses. Daily there again, they were arrested.
“ As revenues decline, we need to spend more to help the local economy. It is not easy ”, specifies the mayor of Mâcon.
As for the relations with the prefects, if the first magistrate of Montpellier recognizes a regular and fruitful work with the representative of the State " which did not exist in this form before the crisis ", that was not the case in Gérardmer where the mayor was forced to go fishing for information from a prefecture which helped them very little, - probably more inclined to take care of the neighboring town of Épinal which is the prefecture of the Vosges.
The three elected officials admit today that they were on the warpath from morning to night. " Non-stop crisis management ", they say in substance. It remains to be seen whether their constituents have become fully aware of this role as "everyday nanny". Mayors are convinced that they have played this role well.
" Protector, we are in essence " explains the mayor of Mâcon. While the mayor of Gérardmer says: " I am a former volunteer firefighter, it served me well, it is in my nature to listen to people ".
" By dealing with this point of daily life, we had almost a role of caregiver, " adds Philippe Saurel who is himself a dentist. It remains to be seen whether its citizens appreciated being thus taken care of. Verdict in the ballot box on June 28.