France: a stack of contracts imperfectly integrating the green and digital strategies of big cities

 Quite early in the Covid crisis, on July 16th, 2020, the prime minister announced “[His] willingness to rely on territories so that the state is an actor of proximity”. His intention became a reality on October 23rd, 2020, with Circular no. 6220 on “Territorial implementation of the Recovery Plan” (Premier Ministre, 2020a), six weeks after the full presentation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP). He was reacting to the observation that major costly social and civil organisation measures had to be implemented, often urgently, by local authorities, first and foremost the largest cities (“the self-financing shock experienced by the big cities” according to France Urbaine, the major cities association).

Let us recall the local French political context at the time. Municipal elections were held in spring 2020. In the big cities, the elections were marked by the victory of candidates with strong ecological transition strategies. The mayors of Nantes, Grenoble, Paris and Lille were re-elected – the latter two thanks to a marked greening of the initial programme. New teams described as green succeeded in Lyon, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Tours, Besançon, Annecy and Poitiers.

Thus, from summer 2020, these new political teams were ready to implement their own green transition agenda, which was often more ambitious than that of the NRRP. In addition, these metropolitan strategies and associated investments anticipated substantial support from the future EU cohesion policy.