Awareness and training sessions on ecological transition will be offered to all the mayors of France, announced on Tuesday the Minister of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion Christophe Béchu. “A period of training, awareness” will be organized by the agencies of the ministry, “Météo France, Ademe, the French Office for Biodiversity” in the prefectures or sub-prefectures, “near the place where each mayor exercises his function, “said Béchu on RTL.
These training courses, free for elected officials, will be launched “from the first quarter” of 2023, then specified the minister. Beyond understanding the situation on a national or global scale, they will make it possible to “look, territory by territory, at what the consequences of climate change already are and the ways in which we can take measures to mitigate them and ‘adapt to it,’ said the minister.
The training will not be compulsory for the city councilors. But such sessions have already been organized in the department of Indre, which has 241 municipalities. The training “brought together 251 elected officials”, according to Béchu. “Mayors have declined because they have already taken training, have already organized it”, but others wished to attend accompanied by a deputy.
30,000 mayors trained within 2 years, Béchu hopes
The training, lasting three hours, constitutes “the model that we are going to generalize”, added the minister, hoping that in the next two years, “30,000 mayors” will be trained. At the congress of the Association of Mayors of France, this Tuesday, the minister will also launch an internet platform called “La France des solutions”.
Some 2 billion euros “for climate-friendly actions” have been released for 2023. According to the government, the green fund will allow all municipalities “to finance building renovations, (…) protective measures against fires”.