“Come on, I'll leave you, I'll move on to another meeting!
“ Difficult to have many details on the express visit of Mathieu Hanotin, in Brussels (Belgium).
The mayor of Saint-Denis obviously does not have a minute to lose.
These Monday and Tuesday, the elected socialist and his deputy Leyla Temel are on an official trip to the capital of the European Union to defend the candidacy of Saint-Denis as European capital of culture in 2028.
“We only stay 36 hours on site.
The purpose of this trip is to present our project to different actors of the European Union.
We met MEPs, the European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira, and many advisers.
Our program is quite busy but it is an opportunity to explain the principle of our candidacy, even if it is not they who will decide the winner, but an independent commission appointed by the European Commission, ”recalled, Monday evening , the first city councilor contacted by telephone.
A "peripheral" application
Saint-Denis, which officially submitted its application last year, is in competition with other French cities (Clermont-Ferrand, Amiens, Rouen, Bastia, Roubaix, Bourges, Nice, Reims and Montpellier).
“We have an atypical candidacy, believes the one who is also president of the Plaine commune territory.
All the other towns are provincial center towns.
Our candidacy has two roles: it aims to re-examine the place of the peripheries within the metropolises.
And when we see what is happening in France and today in Italy
(the rise of the extreme right)
, we also want to promote a model of living together and cultural diversity.
»
Most of the people met during this trip had already heard of his project called “Périféeries 2028”.
“This trip should also help us to better understand the orientations of the European Union, of the commission, to discuss together”, specifies Mathieu Hanotin, who will submit a new application file on December 1st.
"A first short list of selected cities will be known in spring (
next
) and the final choice at the end of 2023."
