Last night, Lionnel Luca invited the residents of Villeneuve-Loubet to the Escoffier Cultural Center for the 2018 New Year’s greetings. The hall was packed to welcome the mayor and his delegation, who were applauded for an extended period.
A first warm-up round… Lionnel Luca begins 2018 as he ended it, with a speech to his voters. A responsible mayor who does not hesitate to show it loudly.
At first glance, nothing too serious and yet…
It all started with a short video presentation of the changes the city has made between 2016-2017, which was well-received once the lights came back on. The sequel proved more perilous.
The mayor began his speech by emphasizing how much he cared about his residents and their well-being, rather than a “political” role, before launching into a scathing verbal joust against state services.
According to Lionnel Luca, “the state wants us to do our work, but not with the same means” or “it gives us a small complementary grant” that doesn’t even cover half of what the work costs.”
A first attack followed by others:
The work concerning the vehicle registration service.
Villeneuve-Loubet, which became the district seat in January 2018, handles all requests from the municipality plus those of others. An absurdity for the mayor. But it’s not the only one:
Civil partnership registrations are also in the mayor of Villeneuve-Loubet’s sights since they are now the responsibility of municipalities and no longer the district courts, and this without any state assistance for managing the workload.
Work shouldered by the municipal employees, whom he strongly urged to be applauded.
He then continued his criticisms through various other examples:
In 2014, the state provided €2,200,000 in aid for the DGS. In 2018, Villeneuve-Loubet receives only €654,000. A reduction of 70%
The state also wants municipalities to contribute to the solidarity of others through the SRU (25%) social housing. An impossible mission in Villeneuve-Loubet since two-thirds of the municipality is non-constructible.
The complaints continued for several dozen minutes. Therefore, nothing interesting. For proper greetings, one will have to return on January 21st.
