News Éric Piolle: “I plead for communities that are moving into adulthood”

Does it still make sense to oppose ecology and economy at the local level?

It all depends on how you define these terms. The economy in the sense of productivism, the unbridled creation of polluting goods and services, is not compatible with ecology. However, the economy can be seen as generating well-being and improving the quality of life for all. The 3 main items of household expenditure, housing, food, travel, are the 3 main levers to be activated to limit our climate impact. With each time jobs to be created to transform our problems into jobs, in thermal renovation, in organic and local agriculture, in active mobility. In addition to being the first place of socialization for the majority of people, we are increasingly seeing a search for meaning at work, which affects all generations, and particularly young people. Working to improve the daily lives of others and to prepare for tomorrow while preserving the climate. The economy must adapt to ecology and not the other way around, it must take into account the size of the issues related to it and contribute to finding solutions.

Is the smart city a solution to the climate challenge or a problem?

All technology is at the service of inspiration. Today it is too often at the service of profit and technoscientism, and not seen enough as one of the tools that implements cultural change. However, believing that all technology will respond to the challenges facing us is unrealistic and even dangerous. Over-equipping our cities with technologies, sensors and cameras could possibly solve certain specific and short-term problems, for example by making car traffic more fluid, but at the same time would pose new ones with major side effects: consumption of raw materials , dependence on technologies, general surveillance, not to mention the ethical issues that this creates. We need to move towards more sobriety. Which is totally compatible with the notions of pleasure and pride. Giving space to soft mobility, pedestrian routes, vegetation, biodiversity, etc., not only makes it possible to create cities where it is good to live and move around, but also to fight concretely against global warming. And therefore do everything possible to ensure a future for the coming generations.

What are the means of action of the municipal bloc in the face of climate change?

The municipalities and communities of municipalities have concrete means of action to change people's lives, within the framework of their SKILLS. In Grenoble, we are experimenting and are pioneers in many areas: from the greening of meals in canteens to the systematic renovation of public buildings, including the creation of "children's squares" (pedestrianized areas in front of each school). We have regained control over the management of water, electricity and heating. These are common goods. We are driving change within the Metropolis with the Chronovélos, secure cycle paths on the main traffic axes developed since 2017, the reduction of public transport prices, the increase in their frequency and the places served... The territories are agile , our position of proximity to people allows us to better explain and understand the issues. The majority of the population adheres to it, as shown by our large re-election last year. But we still remain generally not very free of our movements, with a State which imposes guardianships on us, and helps us piecemeal on a few projects. I plead for communities that are moving into adulthood, with a right to experimentation, finances guided by a Green New Deal to strengthen long-term investments. All this with a strategic State and no longer a distant tutor.

Last January the European Environment Agency published a note calling for “Growth without economic growth”. How can this translate concretely at the local level?

I think we have to put an end to this religion of growth. To begin with, the indicators used today are no longer suitable. Economic growth is calculated using GDP. With the degradation of the environment and increasing social inequalities, we realize that an increase in GDP is not synonymous with an improvement in the quality of life or well-being for many people, not to mention the pollution generated. The question that must be asked is therefore not whether the GDP is increasing, but whether the population lives properly, does it have the means to flourish in its personal and professional life, does she have time for hobbies? Etc. Yes to the growth of human well-being and biodiversity. No to growth based on the added value of Total or McDo.

Citizens' energy cooperative, Repair café, Fablab, second-hand shops, productive farms... At the local level, we are seeing more and more citizen initiatives to invent spaces for sharing, repairing, reuse. There is a lot of enthusiasm and energy from the inhabitants. With devices such as participatory budgets, since 2016 in Grenoble, the pop-up République (ephemeral shop for the social and solidarity economy) or the Machinerie, in the heart of Villeneuve, cities can support these initiatives.

Is the climate and resilience law that has just been adopted going in the right direction? What new means does it give to municipalities/inter-municipalities to combine ecological transition and economic development?

The climate and resilience law reflects the measures taken for ecology in recent years: largely insufficient. It continues to protect those responsible for the pollution. The application of the Citizen Climate Conference in labor law should have represented a turning point in the consideration of climate issues. It was a historic opportunity. Instead, we end up with a watered-down text, which allows multinationals, advertisers, SUV sellers, to perpetuate a self-destructive world, in which we no longer find ourselves. The opportunity to finally take a courageous and historic turn has presented itself. It could have been based and legitimized by the extraordinary work of the citizens' convention. It is a missed opportunity that will mark a date in the history of France.

The policy of small steps will never be up to the challenges we face. We need our public policies to be ambitious and innovative, at all levels of the territory. Because procrastination is expensive: originally, we had to reduce our GHG emissions by 3% per year starting in 2010, we must now reduce them by 7% per year. We need to gain confidence by taking action to meet the challenges rather than delaying big change.

We are gradually moving from climate skepticism to climate cynicism. Is this progress?

Several options are available to us to deal with the reality of climate change and the impact of its consequences. We can deny the problem or ignore it, without changing our habits, without seeking information and sparing ourselves any guilt linked to questioning the system on which society is based. We can also convince ourselves that solutions will emerge without us, thanks to technology for example. Or, we can be lucid about reality, get informed, overcome fear, and take action. Questioning our education, our habits. And what better cause than the preservation of all of our homes? Faced with the reality that is catching up with us, cynicism is one more way of not acting. After awareness, it is courage and hope that we need.

Does the top-bottom approach (from top to bottom) still make sense on such subjects?

To make France the pioneer nation of transitions, changes will not will not be piloted from a bunker under the Élysée, they will take off all over the country. To combine social justice and environmental justice, we must take into account the experience of everyone. From farmer to scientist, from entrepreneur to worker.

Do we need less decentralization or more decentralization in the face of climate change? What do you think would be the ideal reform?

Obviously more, much more. The change will happen in the territories, by the citizens. Guided by growing dogma, slow and disconnected from the population, plagued by lobbies for decades, the state is becoming a brake on transitions. We saw it with the citizens' convention, the Borloo plan thrown in the trash or through the multiple useless and imposed megaprojects that it defends step by step. The State must set a course and then coordinate, support the action of the territories, without restraining them. We must give back space to local communities and allow communities to invest heavily in transitions. This is the Green New Deal that I have been offering for almost 10 years now. We need a different public compatibility for the virtuous, long-term investments made by the communities and to get out of the framework of the debt ratio of the communities by the State.

Comments collected by Fabien Bottini, consultant qualified as a University Professor