Five short weeks later, he is back in his "city of heart".
As a professor notes the copies, Emmanuel Macron came to Marseille this Friday to monitor the progress of the projects initiated in early September during a first trip that looks like an electoral campaign.
The president announced the plan for “Marseille en grand” and promised substantial funding.
Objective: to revitalize the city, ruined and shattered by decades of disastrous management and latent conflicts between local politicians.
A helping hand from the state which remains conditioned at the end of "local chicayas", as Emmanuel Macron had lamented.
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On the side of the town hall, we remain hanging on the announcement of specific amounts.
"Now we are waiting for a go", did not hide the socialist councilor Benoît Payan on Friday morning, in a hurry to implement one of the campaign promises of his majority: the renovation of schools.
Roughly speaking, the state should provide 1.5 billion euros, excluding school works, estimated by the mayor of Marseille at 1.2 billion.
Transport, security, environment… The plan must catch up and make up for the major difficulties facing the city.
"Words of love are good, deeds are better," insists those around Payan.
Thorny questions remain
For some sectors, discussions have progressed well. But the blockages crystallize around governance issues, recently made explicit by a strike by garbage collectors. Friday evening, for his "progress report", the president preferred to highlight the advances, as in the field of integration. Emmanuel Macron came to close an afternoon of discussions at the Cloister of the makers of the future, a “symbolic” place managed by the apprentices of Auteuil. For now, the Elysee wants to "show that the work continues", before a new visit from the Head of State next February.
The thorny questions of funding and the distribution of powers between the city and the metropolis, led by LR Martine Vassal, had to be further explored during a dinner which promised to be spicy, this Friday evening, at the prefecture.
The agape brings together the Head of State, Benoît Payan, Martine Vassal, ministers Jacqueline Gourault (Territorial cohesion) and Gérald Darmanin (Interior), the first president of the Court of Auditors, Pierre Moscovici, and Laurent Carrié, ex - territory advisor to Jean Castex just appointed prefect in charge of the plan.