Floods: Bruno Le Maire goes to the bedside of affected businesses in Pas-de-Calais

There is no question of leaving the affected companies in the lurch. Aware of the difficulties that a certain number of players in the Pas-de-Calais economy who have been heavily affected by the floods have encountered and will encounter, Bruno Le Maire must go to meet them this Monday afternoon. The Minister of the Economy is in fact expected in Arques then in Saint-Omer, at the bedside of "local actors and representatives of the insurance sector, in order to accelerate the care and support for disaster victims", said announced Bercy on Sunday.

“The compensation must be exemplary and our response to the economic world must be exemplary,” argued the Minister of the Economy on Sunday in an interview with the daily La Voix du Nord, insisting that “no company should close its doors. the door because it was the victim of these floods. Determined to “sound the total mobilization of State services and insurers” and this, in particular “to come to the aid of entrepreneurs and other farmers affected by this flood”, Bruno Le Maire also announced that the latter will be able to “benefit from deferral of social security contributions and partial activity schemes.

Two devices “which can be triggered for all companies which have experienced particularly significant losses, which would have difficulty recovering and need immediate support from the State”, specifies the minister to our colleagues. In addition, Bercy confirms that the natural disaster regime may well apply, both to businesses and to agricultural operations, and will concern “business losses and damage suffered by SMEs, VSEs, craftsmen, self-employed people and traders. ".

This aid will not be limited to the 244 municipalities affected by the natural disaster order. “These measures will be broader,” reassured Bruno Le Maire, expressing the hope “that no business victim of flooding will be weakened as a result of this climatic event.” Before specifying: “Consequently, beyond zoning, load deferral and partial activity schemes will be made available to all companies whose survival is threatened, which are experiencing a particular situation and which cannot to get up again.”

To enable the department to overcome future precipitation, additional pumps were installed on Sunday, “to reach the unprecedented capacity of 100,000 m3/hour”, specified the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, on X (ex-Twitter ). These new rains come at a time when Pas-de-Calais has been experiencing a slow but saving decline for three days. “We still have water in several areas” around Montreuil-sur-Mer and Saint-Omer, “but the decline is starting on all the waterways”, testified the prefecture of Pas-de-Calais on Sunday Morning. “The situation is clearly improving,” she added.