Following the municipal elections, the Grand Figeac will undergo a major reshuffle on April 7. 125 officials from the region are called to sit on the future community assembly. Philippe Landrein, the new mayor of Figeac, has already declared his candidacy for the presidency of the Grand Figeac. Facing him is the outgoing president, Vincent Labarthe, now elected in the opposition in Figeac, who announces his intention to continue the work initiated and to unite for the territory. Interview.
Why did you hesitate before confirming your decision to run as a candidate for the presidency of the Grand Figeac? I wanted to take the time to reflect and consulted with my colleagues and elected officials around me. Before making my decision, I had many discussions and received a lot of support. I believe I am capable of making this collective work in its new form. It will require a lot of patience and tact. I have considered a project for the Grand Figeac that can bring new proposals because I believe that we must always rethink and not lack ambition. We are always in competition with other territories and we must not fall behind.
What will be your priorities for the upcoming term? In the proposals I will bring forward, I want more actions across all the municipalities that promote community living. I believe that there needs to be a stronger focus on housing with the establishment of a grant fund to help municipalities in this regard. We are a reference area on many subjects: economy, mobility, health, culture, and more. We are successful because we collectively support it, and this is something we must continue at all costs. I will always be there to be part of a stronger collective that must respond to the challenges of tomorrow. I consider it a major issue to have a functioning community of municipalities and I really want us to continue building at this level. I cannot allow any threat that would destabilize the cohesion of the community.
How do you envision the new team leading the Grand Figeac? It will inevitably be a renewed team with new talents coming in. It’s another election, what interests me is not politics but the territory. I am going in with a lot of ambition. We need to take a step back and have a global vision of what projects we can have that serve this territory to the maximum with its centrality and balancing poles. This is what I have always defended and will continue to do. Regarding governance, I have new proposals. I want to renew the municipal meetings as well as hold a conference for municipal officials every six months either in person or virtually. The idea is to present a review with the executive and answer questions. The second tool will be to create video capsules of a few minutes to present the skills one by one of the community of municipalities. They will be a support for municipal councilors who want to engage and understand the levers we have in the territory.
What proposals do you want to highlight? In the same way that we have carried out the core village projects, I would like us to have a housing policy with, as I mentioned, a grant fund to help municipalities carry out new projects successfully. I will also discuss other ideas: such as creating a fund dedicated to small tourist initiatives. We also need to reconsider the support for associations. I really want us to work on the issue of engineering and provide support on legal matters. We could have a pair of floating municipal secretary positions because some municipalities have difficulty recruiting. And we will launch the revision of the Local Urban Plan.
