Urban riots: several elected officials regret the abandonment of the Borloo plan in 2018

There are no coincidences, only coincidences. A few hours after the tragedy that occurred in Nanterre on Tuesday June 27, the former president of the UDI Jean-Louis Borloo went to Grigny for the 20th anniversary of the ANRU (National Agency for Urban Renewal). A legacy which, added to the Borloo plan of 2005, has since given it legitimacy in terms of urban policies. And for good reason, just elected, Emmanuel Macron invested him in the fall of 2017 with a mission intended to "bring the Republic back" to the neighborhoods in the face of "identity and community withdrawal". A period of six months of gestation then begins, during which hundreds of elected officials and associations are consulted. But in the spring of 2018, the second "Borloo plan" comes into the world, stillborn.

"I'm not going to announce a city plan, a suburban plan or whatever because this strategy is as old as me... We're at the end of what this method has been able to produce", launches the president at the Élysée. on May 22, 2018, in front of a few hundred guests, who are waiting for announcements about neighborhoods in difficulty. And to continue: “Somehow, it would make no sense for two white males [himself and Borloo], not living in these neighborhoods, to exchange a report and the other saying, “we m handed over a plan, I discovered it”. It's not true, it doesn't work that way anymore." Exit Borloo and the 164 pages of his report. The young head of state wanted something new, a "new method" that corresponded to the "new world".

However, after two nights of chaos in several cities in France, references to the suburban plan carried out in 2018 by the former mayor of Valencienne are multiplying. “With and since the execution of Nahel, it is the heart of the Republic that has been reached, attacked. Emmanuel Macron must act: repeal of the 2017 law, IGPN independence, reform of police training and maintenance of order, Borloo plan for the suburbs...", former presidential candidate EELV Yannick Jadot said on Friday on his account. Twitter. For his part, the LR mayor of L'Haÿ-les-Roses Vincent Jeanbrun, while calling for a "great Marshall plan for the suburbs", recalled this morning on France info that "without being perfect, the Borloo Plan was a step forward considerable, and had plenty of concrete measures that went far beyond city policy.

A great defender of the Borloo plan in 2018, the communist mayor of Grigny Philippe Rio regrets today that the latter has remained a dead letter on the side of the executive. "We were 200 mayors to have worked on it and E. Macron said 'trash' [...] This plan was called 'For national reconciliation', and this word reconciliation resonates particularly today", mocks the city ​​councilor in an interview with Le Monde on Thursday, June 29.

Conversely, Éric Zemmour, invited this Friday morning to the microphone of Europe 1, reproached the former minister of Jacques Chirac for having made the State spend, "40 billion euros [in 2005] for rebuild these neighborhoods", which are today "looted" by "populations who do not want to acclimatize to our mores, our customs". But what exactly did the Borloo plan propose?

Submitted at the end of April 2017 to Édouard Philippe, then Prime Minister - and not to Emmanuel Macron, who was nevertheless the principal - the report which includes 19 "programs" has the merit of being ambitious: creation of a fund of 5 billion d euros including one billion for the RER, integration coaches, launch of a "leaders" academy intended for the "talents of our youth and working-class neighborhoods", or even the creation of a "territorial equity court" - a jurisdiction which would be responsible for sanctioning the inaction of the administrations -, etc. In short, a series of proposals that promises to lead to "national reconciliation", and which resonates with many mayors. Nevertheless, Emmanuel Macron repeats that he ultimately does not want a specific neighborhood policy, which would be added, according to him, to the pile of suburban plans that have produced little results.

Since then, no suburban plan seems to have been set on the agenda. During the 2022 presidential campaign, Emmanuel Macron promised a “2030 neighborhoods” plan. A project that has not yet seen the light of day and whose outlines remain unclear. In a column published in Le Monde on May 24, 2023, around thirty local elected officials, most of them from the left, rightly launched "a cry of alert to the President of the Republic (...) pending of his speech on the "2030 neighborhood commitments".

Asked about the question, following the riots caused by the death of Nahel on Tuesday June 27, the Renaissance senator from Hauts-de-Seine Xavier Iacovelli assures that "the Borloo plan has not been buried" and that "a certain number of city policy measures have been taken”. And to add: "I'm not sure that it is by burning public services that we will be able to put them back".