Speech of the President of the Republic during the restitution of the foundations of overseas
MIL OSI Translation. Government of the Republic of France statements from French to English – Published on June 29, 2018
Topic : overseas
ONLY THE SPOKEN VERSION SHALL BE AUTHENTIC.
Paris – Thursday 28 June 2018
Ladies, Gentlemen, Ministers,
Ladies, Gentlemen, Elected representatives,
Ladies and Gentlemen the Prefects,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear friends,
I’m very elected you find in this room, and I want to thank Madam Commissioner for his constant presence with the president JUNCKER to also support French ambitions beyond the seas, and I am very happy to have you in this room after the meeting we were able to have yesterday with the presidents of the Executive, parliamentarians and the prefects, to have you here all together elected representatives of all these territories.
Because we are a country a little special, you have we discover Madam Commissioner, we are a country where Prime ministers have been able to a moment to dream when they were based on their memories of the island of Bourbon, and the Indian ocean
It is the opposite.
This archipelago of France, in which I deeply believe, to which I am attached, that is – and you have very well said – the very condition for success what is the ambition of the Nation and that is it in essence the exercise of these Seats. Since the beginning of the quinquennium, since a little over a year, I realized in three territories already, we launched last autumn, these Foundations that today have not found a term but a point of crystallisation and, during this first year, the whole of the territories has been taken by the government, as a whole, it never happened that a president moves three times during the first year, but that the whole of the territories to be visited
This first year has therefore been marked by this year, this collective mobilization, and I want to thank you honourable Minister for the work that has been done with all of the elected officials, with mr. Thierry BERT, all of the facilitators, teams, prefects and high commissioners, and this work with any of 26,000 of our fellow citizens who have participated in has enabled us to identify the limits of force. So I’m not here to make you a long speech which would shatter each of these points, this would be first much too tedious and this would not be the same spirit of what has been thought, the idea is not to think from here the projects on each of these points of the territory, but it is to empower the whole of the territories : their elected officials, their economic operators, social players, their representatives, their youth and power in the coming months to build concrete projects that will help to bring this strategy.
But I’ll tell you one thing, this work that has been done I know all the doubt that there may have been some time in some at the beginning – it was already made several times this kind of exercise – and I have heard the rumours, saying : “it will give nothing “, it no longer depends on us that this gives something of the proposals are lifts, we will work now to ensure that these roadmaps are established and they will be – between the prefects and high commissioners, the executive, all elected officials, all elected officials here present, and those who were not able to come – the subject of a contract that will mark the coming years of the quinquennium and will work.
I’m going to quickly browse through this odyssey of the islands of France and I would then like to come back very quickly on a few lines of force, before you pass the hours you find to discuss with the ministers on these concrete projects, and that this time, this place is much more dedicated precisely already at the practical implementation of that, towards which we are heading. The stories and the testimonials that we could have showed some strong commitments that we must have and in which we believe for all of our territories, and to switch from one to the other so quickly.
Saint-Pierre-and-Miquelon priority, I’ve heard it and I understood the solicitation on the culture dear Minister, it has not escaped the focus is on the blue economy in all its forms : fisheries, aquaculture, cruise, I had the opportunity in a recent trip to Canada to wear precisely the regional dynamics, and this plate Atlantic, we will continue work in the direction, but today we need to get out of the concrete projects that will help to build the attractiveness increased of Saint-Pierre-and-Miquelon, to develop a legitimate economic activity and to pursue precisely the set of opportunities offered by the geographical situation of Saint-Pierre.
In Wallis-and-Futuna, the State will encourage the exploitation of bioresources in order to reduce the dependence of the territory vis-à-vis the outside world and wear as this was very well presented there is a moment in the mechanisms of sustainable economic development, we know the constraints of mobility, we all know the challenges, especially the youth, but it is this strategy alone – and I will come back – grounded in a regional strategy wider, which only allows outlook.
Generally in the Pacific, the issues are clean on account of the autonomy. In New Caledonia, I exposed the last month my vision for this territory – I do not come back so not here – around the priorities of everyday life : food sovereignty, energy sovereignty, the green economy and blue and the anchor in a strategy, indo-pacific, it will be up to the Caledonians to speak in November on their future and I could live I have to say something unique on the archipelago and to read with a lot of emotion and a conviction here renewed, for sure, France would be less great and less beautiful without the New Caledonia. Edouard PHILIPPE and I are personally on the sides of the whole of the elect, the Néocalédoniens to address this period of choice and, in the aftermath of the 30th anniversary of the Agreement of Matignon, each measuring the path travelled.
I will be in Polynesia in 2019, I made the commitment – and it will – because we’ll be hosting a France – Oceania summit. The stakes for the State are threefold in this territory : it is anchored the France in the issues of this region marked by climate change, and it is without doubt one of the lands where this issue is most acute
The other huge territory, President, it is the French Guiana. I visited Guyana last year, this is where we started this Foundation, I have given my vision on the territory, and I then set the government and the prefects three priorities : first, keep commitments, it is always good policy if you want to continue, that is a priority, the first results are there, particularly for school infrastructure, road and telecommunications
And finally, it is to continue the work of rehabilitation of the economy, which goes through more competition and therefore lower prices, by the opening up of the economy – which is the case of many of our territories, it must also be lucid and I’ll come back every time we bat all and all against for dear life, but to have this awareness of a collective to say that we held for dear life, we held for dear life by a policy of over-compensation, I do not propose – and it was a campaign pledge at this point to return to it, but at some point we will have to collectively, and it will have to come from you, propose to come out because it is over-compensation of the ones who create the poverty of others. Let’s be clear ! But we also have collectively organized for dear life by a system of savings of pension in each of the jurisdictions is that there is not a true competitive bid. Is it that it is just that in Guyana it is four to five times more expensive to make a school building or such, or such a construction, it is the numbers that I had been given last October ? But what I am saying here for the French Guiana is true for many other jurisdictions. Not quite ! And so it is necessary to be able to open things up, allow our contractors to get back into a healthy competition to be able to have an economy that works better
In Guadeloupe I don couvrirais not more all subjects, but the challenges are not least, I want to raise here three or four : the first is the health, we need to pass the overhaul of the CHU, the return here also to the trust – the commissioning of the Cyclotron will be a great example – but we all know the challenges and I want to acknowledge here the commitment of health workers and you know, President, the commitment of the government for the issue to be resolved. Speaking of health this is also to speak of the tragedies of the past and of our collective responsibilities and, on the chlordecone, I’ll be clear to say that we will continue the work with clarity and determination, because we cannot accept situations in which we are.
The environment is obviously the second issue, and I want to take in the wider sense in speaking here also of two topics that I take to heart : the sargasso sea and the water. The sargasso sea : the minister of State and the minister of Overseas visited a few weeks ago on the territory and we could see the tragedies that are happening and we have started to make emergency responses – they are not satisfactory. Can we answer through the device of a natural disaster ? No ! Because of this risk, and what happened is not exceptional, but is now recurring, so we have to construct a device ad-hoc to respond to what is happening, and can give an answer to the population, but most of all, to prevent by innovative devices to fend off the algae and to avoid the consequences on the coast, the consequences for the health, for the ecosystem as a whole, for tourism, for everyday life.
On the water, where also ministers are repeatedly displaced, and it is not acceptable to have a territory of the Republic in this situation, we will proceed, therefore, to the sides of the communities to the investment needed to meet this challenge and to ensure that each home may have as soon as possible what he or she is entitled.
Lastly, it is the economic development, it will come from the tourism, agri-food value chains – and you’ll get elsewhere at the time of the appointment with several economic operators and ministers to move forward on this issue. I do not forget, of course, but this challenge is common with the territory of French guyana, the challenge of security, we have invested and we will continue to do so, our territories are among the territories are a priority for our police like our gendarmerie, and, here also, we will be reluctant to give up because security is a primary right and no territory of the Republic does not suffer a form of abandonment or desertion.
For the Martinique, the challenges are basically quite neighbors, the health care challenge is at the heart of the territory, and here also the overhaul, the adjustment of the accounts of the university hospital of Martinique is essential and will be the subject of particular care of the government – of course when I speak of environment, and sargasso I’m also talking about the Martinique – and I also hope that we can restore economic vitality and a true development and a real attractiveness demographic and economic Martinique. The challenge martinique is very close to the challenge guadeloupean, it involves developing the food sovereignty and energy, which must be at the heart of the strategy that we have in the west Indies because we have today – and it is one of the explanations of dear life – too large a dependence on food production or external production external energy and, therefore, we must respond to them by the structuring of production chains, by our ability to produce – and there are, moreover, in all of these territories the capacity to do so – I mentioned earlier the biomass in Guyana, we know the resources of geothermal energy and all that energy production can help to develop locally, I hope that through this blue book we have a policy of energy sovereignty and food in Martinique as in Guadeloupe.
The challenge from martinique, a little more particular, will be that of ageing and, on this subject, we need to be able to build the attractiveness, but also the responses – as well as many other places of the French territory – to the challenge, the trimmings, the necessary investment. I also hope that the State can accompany the revitalization desired by several communities which is the basis of this attractiveness new, I think of Fort-de-France, but also in a few other cities selected in the project ” Heart of town “.
Speaking of course of our the west Indies and the caribbean region, it is a word – and we have seen with the arrest of the youth of Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy – I went there last September, several ministerial visits, a displacement of the Prime minister, are also required and I will return, as in the rest of the region next September, it is the commitment that I had made, it will be held. The priority for these territories is, of course, the reconstruction, the revival of the tourist economy and, for Saint-Martin in particular, the recovery copy of a tourist economy that is sustainable, the ability to build on standards adapted to the twenty-first century, more secure on the climate and seismic, more sustainable, and it is also the ability to build a shared strategy with our Dutch neighbours, and that is what the support of the european Union and the european Commission are particularly important.
In Mayotte Annick GIRARDIN presented on behalf of the government an action plan with specific and targeted in may last, it is our road map for the five-year programme for the development of the territory, it bears the mobilization for the development in particular but also on a new relationship with the Union of the Comoros – in this territory we need to pass fundamental immigration, health, security. Security – and of course I’ve a particular thought for this territory that today is still at the point where we are talking about – and you know young man and your words were very touching to your island, our island – even today, it is several times a day earthquakes are less severe than those we have known, but terrorizing the entire population who are still suffered. I also condemned with great firmness, the violence that we suffer the gendarmes last Monday and I bring all my support to the wounded and their families. Senator SOIHILI has proposed an evolution of the conditions of access to French nationality, a special adaptation given the challenges, it is necessary to keep the soil right, which is one of our fundamental principles, by adapting the conditions of its exercise to the reality of this territory, this change I’ve noted is consensus on the territory, this is why I support this approach which seems to me fit and balanced. We have not finished the answers to Mayotte, it is necessary on this topic to be humble and we will have a discussion in the coming weeks and the coming months, with the Union of the Comoros, which will require everyone to take his responsibilities, but we need to on the subjects of immigration and security to provide answers firm, they are the condition of possibilities of all future strategies : educational, cultural, economic, for our territories.
At the Meeting the priorities of the State are turning towards the completion of the Road to the coast and the structuring of economic sectors, the antenna French Tech needs to be extended, the agri-food sectors can continue to give it more structure, tourism can still be consolidated, marine energies, the economy of the sea in a broad sense will be fostered with a number of concrete projects that are submitted in the roadmap and I seem to be particularly strong. These four sectors : digital, agri-food, tourism, strategy of the sea will be able to wear an insertion successful regional Meeting in the great basin regional indo-pacific and in the neighbourhood closest to the southern Indian ocean. The projects Forum welcomes the draft agri-food Urcoopa between Reunion and Madagascar – it is the example of what we need to succeed – and therefore to the Meeting that his plans for structuring sectors, encouragement of initiatives, which are already numerous and tangible successes that I would like to encourage. The energies must be mobilised for the economic development and we do not need to enclose them in a debate too political on the revision of the constitution. I said during the election campaign, I am ready to change the constitutional arrangements of the Meeting if the Natives want it, and if a political consensus is found, and I think that on this subject we must not lose energy which is essential on projects that will change the daily life of local people in the discussions that we will lose, collectively, the time. I think there is a way to be pragmatic, which allows adaptations in the preserving of balances to which each seems to hold.
So I trust in the collective intelligence and the minister will have to work to build this consensus, but I am convinced that we can find a constitutional development that will provide opportunities, freedoms they want without the hustle of the institutional balance that each of us holds. I have confidence in you.
I’m necessarily partial, and this in turn track is fast and I do touch on some of the priorities and I know the thickness of the daily, of the real and of what there is in each of the territories and by recognizing the faces of friends in this room I only have emotions known of the experiences during this year or the years that had preceded it, and I have, naturally, a frustration shared with you not to go into the privacy of each subject and therefore do not me please not for all this that I have not said.
You know, there’s a very pretty letter, it happened to me the quote once in the campaign, I’m doing this as a diversion to tell you the background of my thinking at this point in my remarks, there is a very nice letter that DIDEROT wrote to Sophie VOLLAND. He arrives home, he writes a word, it is not there, and there are almost more candles and he does not know if the pen is still dipped in the ink or even if it written on the paper. He finishes by writing, as this letter is stayed, and we came back there was a very nice passage upheaval, where DIDEROT wrote to Sophie VOLLAND ” I do not know if I write to you, if you can read me yet but where you can’t read read that I love you “. So be aware of this and I haven’t said a lot about each of you. There are inevitable silences and words that were not written but know that I love each of our territories, each, and of those who live there.
I would like to finish this odyssey have still a few words to our fellow countrymen of the ultramarins who live in france because madame the minister said there are 11 territories, at the bottom of all there is because there are millions of Ultramarins who are in Paris, in province, in the Hexagon and which are also there, that have concerns all special and I want to have a word for them. First to say that I hear the concerns, the worries on public broadcasting, there will be a discussion, a consultation on France Ô and therefore it is not to have fears, but it is also for our subjects as to all that touches the life of the Nation not to be unduly conservative. It is necessary to make evolve / move the things, is it working well today ? Is it that we think that public broadcasting gives its place to the overseas ? Is it is very content of it ? Is it working well ? Is it that there are enough people who watch France Ô ? Is it that we consider it is great ? No, I tell you frankly, this is not true, this is not true, and I can’t watch a French citizen in general and say to him, ” this is all very well, we are going to keep it, it is the best of all worlds “.
I think we can have a collective strategy which consists of, but it is a dialogue, so each will make its contribution, but what makes the information, the specificity, so the local branches must be maintained, rather it is the fold that has been made, we have listened to what has been proposed by everyone ! If it is the wish different which is retained, so some say, ” I do not want that for France Ô, I want less local “, etc, it will be necessary to hear and it will change. But the duplicate is ridiculous today, and therefore we must make a choice between what one wants the local offices with more dropout at the national level in major chains and not in the periphery, in this case, you need to say, ” it is necessary that there is more stall ultramarin on France 3, and France 2 “, this is the real debate ! But do not have a debate a little disingenuous, which is to say ” as nobody wants to do stall on the public audiovisual sector noble has created an audiovisual public national device called France O, no one is really happy but we will keep it like that because it is a system of recognition “, it is not satisfactory.
So I ask you in the dialogue there also to evolve what we’re locked in but with real warranties that we need to get in this consultation, that there is an information demanding, free, pluralistic than the one that exists today on each of the territories and that there is a recognition, a presence that is ultramarine at the top, to the best of our audiovisual public and there will be no project that will oppose this objective. But it is not necessarily in the preservation of existing, and we do not defend the cause of the overseas, in always defending the existing, I think even the opposite.
Speaking of our compatriots ultramarins it is also discuss the reform of the leave credited that the ministers will have to implement, and that we have committed, it will be effective from 2020 for those who are public servants, with a simple goal, a simple principle, leave will be less long, but now every two years because I believe that it also responds to what is desired by all of our countrymen.
It is also speak of the mission on the forces that the Prime minister has entrusted to Olivier SERVA and whose conclusions will be handed over during the summer to facilitate and secure the mobility of talent between the overseas and the Hexagon. And this is also the meaning of the action of Jean-Marc MORMECK in favour of the mobility of projects, I support it, a jury will award travel vouchers on-call projects, and we’re going to strengthen it, and put it at the heart of this strategy because he has done a remarkable job these past years and now we need to be able to deploy it fully. It will help to support this making the whole of the territories in their mobility strategy with just the Hexagon. I think this has been done by several communities including The Meeting and I hope that the State finds its place in support of these strategies, and that we may do so in the context of these initiatives.
This odyssey is over, and as I said resolutely imperfect, I would just like to finish by some of the beliefs shared with you on the priorities that we have to move beyond the specificities irreducible of our territories, but I had this odyssey to highlight how when we talk about overseas, we are not talking about a seamless whole, a whole which we should reduce everyone, but I have some beliefs which will in spite of everything guide the things. On each of the territories, you have understood, there will be roadmaps that will be built by the autumn and that will be the subject of a contract between representatives of the government and the elected representatives, and that will involve the liability of each of them and the upcoming action.
But I would like to give back some of the key priorities, the first is that for all of our territories, the priority will be the battle for the creation of jobs. All the difficulties that I have mentioned exist, there are challenges to safety and health that are more perennial in such or such a territory, it is all true, but there is a battle mother this is the one for the creation of jobs and economic activity. It requires State investment, educational investment and training and strategy that we have been driving it for a little over a year ago, education, cultural education, training throughout the life from which the whole of the territories ultramarins have a particular need to succeed in this challenge.
But, the minister said, we will also continue a major reform of aid to undertakings in favour of the employment, the creation of an economic intervention fund to support private initiatives that will mobilize 400 million euros for companies overseas, the strengthened presence of the public investment Bank to accompany the draft and this fight will be won by the entrepreneurs of SMALL and medium sized businesses. I tell you, I welcome the presence of the president ASSELIN in this room, we need those entrepreneurs in the territories ultramarins, particularly, have a vital role to play. All of our territories are territories of entrepreneurs, it is thus necessary to help our entrepreneurs take risks, create more jobs and to carry this dynamic. And create the competitive framework and the openness of the economy, it’s good for them, which is bad for an entrepreneur it is the closing of the economy and the complexity.
And so here above it is not necessary to consider that the battle for jobs will be created by the creation of public employment, public employment represents an asset in some territories. It will be won if there is a collective commitment that goes through the battle of the skills, education and training throughout life. Our investment programme in skills will mobilise € 700 million for overseas, and the State offers and also territories reinvestment of learning as the key to success for our young people and this strategy we will continue.
But it also requires an environment of competition, which is open in the trade, telecommunications, building and public works, we mobilized the Authority of the competition, we will draw all the consequences by the end of the year its proposals. The Economy minister will appoint a delegate to the competition overseas within the directorate general for competition of the ministry of the Economy, and this work will be continued unabated.
It is necessary, finally, to win the battle of employment, public authorities, the management of which is healthy, because they are the donors of major orders for the business. Several of the communities, and not least, will sign tomorrow the contract of control of expenditure, and it is also a highlight of these few days.
We will create a real mechanism for recovery giving/giving with all voluntary groups, whether it is a department and region of Réunion, région Guadeloupe, collectivity of Mayotte, in the city of Fort-de-France, I know that Guyana is in the works also, of what has been done with certain municipalities such as Kourou, the State will mobilise financial instruments to assist communities that will engage in a process of recovery.
This battle for the job, she will also be won if we manage to develop and structure everywhere, as I said rapidly, over a few territories, economic sectors. The great difficulty we have in too many territories, it is that the lines are not sufficiently structured, or because there are one or two dominant players who captured all of the market, either, because there are not enough offers, and I know the character to be unbearable for some jurisdictions to say : it creates markets, calls for projects, there are developments, and behind, it is not the business of home who come to work, and employment is not created for me.
And so to answer it, we need to develop economic sectors of priority, and it is a job that involves a public framework that we need to create, but also the commitment of all contractors. Finally, there will be no sustainable growth without better control of natural hazards, this is why a law for the prevention and protection against natural risks overseas will carry this concern, and will be presented by the summer of 2019. For me, this is an extremely important element of this strategy on the transverse plane, the battle for employment.
The second element of a whole that is essential, it is the regional base, we saw too much of our collective strategy, on ultramarine, in a face-to-face between the territories ultramarins and the hexagon, it existed, it is the Republic anywhere, but we must also look that these territories of the Republic are often immersed in regions where the economic dynamic is far superior to that of the hexagon. And we ourselves are deprived of a capacity of radiation, in regions much larger than us, our diplomacy, our action has not adequately taken account of these opportunities.
It is for this reason that I believe very deeply that we need to re-anchor and regionally at multiple scales in the great basin and the vicinity of our territories ultramarins. Two large basins are concerned, the Americas and the indo-pacific, and several neighborhoods, the Caribbean, South America, Indian Ocean, Oceania,… On each, we need to construct a strategy. This is what I started to decline with the strategy, indo-pacific, which, Meeting in the French Polynesia via Wallis and New Caledonia, allows us to have with Mayotte a real strategy on the Indian Ocean, the Pacific ocean, claim the fact that we have nearly a million and a half citizens in this region of the globe, what all the world ignores. 8.000 military, economic networks of excellence and a strategic presence unique to ensure maritime traffic, that’s the reality.
Our strategy in South America is going through a presence unique technology, of course, I think at the space centre, a capacity to bring an economic ambition from Guyana absolutely unique. Our strategy in the caribbean, we have not sufficiently scope, and so on each of these territories, I wish we could re-anchor, and I’ll do it in all of my travels, a real public policy objective, whether it is diplomatic, but also in each of the segments of activity of the government – we were talking about yesterday in terms of culture and Education – and we will continue to develop with strategies diplomatic that we will conduct from the territories.
France is today an ambition for education and culture to the world. We need to be able to also organise for these territories, so that it radiates on the regional plan. And this belief of course also by a re-design of our diplomatic strategy. So I started to do it on the indo-pacific, and I will pursue, but also a re-design of our mobility strategy
For students and entrepreneurs, the mobility essential when one is in space in the caribbean or French Guiana, it is also the mobility between these two areas or with neighbouring territories, where you can have customers, develop more rapidly its activity. When one is at the Meeting, the mobility in the Indian Ocean and East Africa is essential for the economic plan and to develop these sectors. Is it possible to continue to have projects in marine energy, in the navy, that are made, worn sometimes with our own industrial players, by Maurice or by other territories on the african continent ?
We must do it ourselves, but we must give the opportunity for the Reunion, students, entrepreneurs, community activists, to shine in this geographical area and to wear, to live this strategy. These are just a few examples, but this goal of regional involvement, I hope that he irrigates all of our projects and that we can fully wear it. And I’ve been able to see, what is within, for example, of New Caledonia, how much this anchor also was also an element of reconciliation, regardless of the sensitivities that may exist, because everyone has a heart to wear it and live it.
The third element, for me, a transversal of this strategy is that we must have and which will feed into the work of the government, it is, indeed, green growth and blue growth sustainable as you mentioned Madam Minister, with just two thoughts that I wanted to deliver to you, we are a land of unique biodiversity, 80 % of this biodiversity is ultramarine. We need to have a real strategy biodiversity, and we have a territory which is a lung of south America, Guyana, which should be at the heart of this biodiversity strategy, the thought of it, of this design, it does not have the exclusivity, all the territories, here, present, the to wear.
But I hope that on biodiversity and its capacity precisely to convince regional partners, we can anchor this strategy, especially from Guyana. And we are the second maritime power of the world, the second, the first European. And our maritime facades are three-quarters of the ultramarines, it is incredibly rich, and do we value too little. I will have the opportunity, in the coming months, to develop a strategy of the sea revisited, deep, ambitious, that will of the subjects of Defence about business, which carries a real strategy of research and innovation, which must pass by here, too, new energies to radical innovations, but we must, also, assume that the overseas territories are at the heart of this maritime strategy French, this strategy ocean rethought.
And there is a specificity – we were talking about it with some of you yesterday – all special, this is for sure, we are the european power and one of the powers in the world, which has the most islands, and it cannot be ever said in these terms. And that is what I was talking about the archipelago of France at the time.
And if we want to take all the consequences, it is necessary to think in geopolitical terms, France has a presence in the world, which is archipelagic. And this presence is a unique asset on the geopolitical plane, on the plane of the imagination of the world as it is in the making, the islands in the world have become key players on geopolitical contemporary and unique, they are actors of the maritime security, freedom of sovereignty of the seas, they are actors unique of the research of the seas, of innovation, and they are actors unique through innovation and through the traditions that there are in each of the islands, in each of the native peoples and first peoples door, and actors as sustainability and respect for nature.
And when we talk about sustainable growth, when we talk about an agenda for sustainable, this is a diplomacy of the islands of which we speak
I hope in 2020 to host a summit of the islands of the world on the French territory, but which will not necessarily be a hexagonal territory, where we will be collecting all of these islands in the world, which all address similar challenges, in terms of vulnerability, of innovation, of challenge, of mobility, of educational challenge, and this strategy is also a cross-cutting strategy that we have to carry.
Finally, it is the differentiation, the fourth principle that I wish here to claim, and to conclude. Differentiation is not an end in itself, but it may be a way to accelerate the development or take into account specific local circumstances, it is the same sense of the amendment of article 73 of the Constitution that the government has proposed, to facilitate the empowerment of communities who wish to adapt the standards that are applicable to them.
We want to simplify the call of skills by communities that wish it, and facilitate the adaptation of standards by the communities that want it. Why ? Because all of the communities of the Republic, and this is even more true for the French overseas collectivities, have very different challenges, and also true that it is necessary to preserve the unity of the Republic, we must accept the diversity of the situations, the challenges are very different in the field of migration security, to the climate, we have experienced it, on the plan of mobility, geographical constraints, the challenges are not the same also in terms of regional dynamics, I was talking about at the moment.
It is therefore good policy to allow these adaptations. And I hope that this constitutional text can thus walk and to allow everyone, on subjects which he shall choose, in the area of transport, energy, urban planning, or health, adapt – housing – to adapt the rules to meet the needs of the field, it is also a cross-cutting principle that I wish that we bear in this strategy.
Here are the four principles to my eyes, beyond this quick odyssey that we have made together, territory by territory, that I wanted to remember. And these four principles will guide the government’s action, my determination to carry out all these projects. You are now going to have meetings, meetings, work, and on each of the areas you are going to build these roadmaps, they are not made from here, they are brought from the territories by precisely this dynamism that has been sought, lived, and it will mark the beginning of a joint commitment.
And it is also a change of philosophy, it is not the government, the State alone that can solve all the problems, it is a shared responsibility, and furthermore, this is the same philosophy that I carry on the constitutional plane, as true as I believe in this archipelago of France, I believe that any policy that is designed, conceived, and lived as putting our citizens ultramarins in the minority, or of irresponsibility is doomed to failure.
Therefore, I consider that the shared responsibility is the key to the success of this strategy, we will have to define it, and to act, we started, every time that we have already fixed of the lines, the action will continue. And I propose, in 18 months, you meet again to do so here even a point precise. The workshops will be territory by territory, and we will see what is advanced and what blocks it. And we can do it together, in 18 months, an initial site meeting.
The challenges are numerous, I know the impatience that there are concerns in some jurisdictions, challenges to certain votes that we have in the other, I recalled a few of the issues, but we have a collective challenge, which is to recreate this path of confidence in the French nation, which is to allow each of our fellow citizens to see that we give him all the tools to succeed in the world happens, and that it is our shared responsibility.
And believe me, I will put all my energy in to your sides so that the results are there, but that, beyond the results and actions that we will drive, we have a philosophy, a common thought of what is our country, our nation in its specificity and its challenges, in its contemporary imaginary, as in the wounds of its past, as I have started to sketch there and then, and in each of the territories, that I started to visit, it is this, a collective imagination, an ambition shared and a work to the real, because our fellow citizens are waiting.
I count on you for this ambition, and you’ve understood what it will take to read to where I’ve not been able to say it.
Long live the Republic and vive la France !
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a translation. Please accept our apologies should the grammar and/or sentence structure is not be perfect.