Food aid, tax exemption: on Monday, November 23, the Marseille city council adopted emergency measures for the most vulnerable affected by the health crisis in an electric atmosphere despite the call for moderation launched by the mayor Michèle Rubirola.
Initially scheduled for November 9, this council had been postponed and its agenda changed to integrate these social support measures, in a city where the poverty rate exceeded 25% in 2017 according to INSEE.
Read also: Covid-19: the European Union reserves nearly two billion doses of vaccines
The main provisions adopted, for a budget of just over one million euros, relate in particular to a doubling of food aid for the homeless with 1,000 meals per day and a subsidy to the municipal social action center. (CCAS) increased to 200,000 euros, to help families do their shopping.
Other measures include a subsidy to the CROUS to help distribute meals to students and an exemption from the November public land tenure fee for sedentary traders.
This action plan is in addition to the Covid-19 budget for the city of Marseille, costed by the financial assistant, Joël Canicave, at 35 million euros since the first confinement.
At the Town Hall, the ecologist mayor Michèle Rubirola, elected at the head of a union list of the left, had called at the beginning of the meeting the 101 Marseille elected officials, masked and separated by windows, to show the example of a common mobilization against the Covid-19 by debating with "
moderation and courtesy
".
To avoid "
political games that are not circumstantial
", the majority had told the press to have removed from the agenda certain controversial issues, such as a deliberation initially planned on the reception of migrants, which will however be examined during of a next tip.
Alas, if the opposition voted well for emergency measures, it regretted “
common law responses
” to “
an exceptional crisis
”, arguing for much larger sums invested in this area by the department and the region headed from the right.
She also denounced insufficient tax exemptions for businesses and the suspension of the Christmas market.
To read also: In Marseille, Rubirola puts an end to the rumors of withdrawal: "I am here and I stay there"
The Paca region, chaired by Renaud Muselier (LR), for example announced on Friday support for the tourism sector with assistance for the payment of rents with an initial envelope of 3 million euros, support for emerging from the crisis and supply 150,000 washable masks and 20,000 antigenic tests.
"
You sold the dream to voters, five months after your election what hope do you have?
», Lambasted the elected LR Catherine Pila after the assistant for social affairs, Audrey Garino, questioned the legacy of Jean-Claude Gaudin in the explosion of poverty in Marseille.