This is the other “water battle”. Not the one the government has launched to try to alleviate the drought looming in the summer of 2023; that, deeper and less publicized, which enacts a rural revolution. Masters of municipal water for almost two centuries, the mayors must all have ceded this competence to their community of municipalities before 2026.
Several laws, between 2015 and 2019, laid down and then clarified the principle, but the operation is entering a decisive phase less than three years from the deadline. Water is a very strong symbol of rural life. Often, there is also a source in the town, it is the mayor who sets the price per cubic meter and it is he who is called when the tap runs dry. But now, the country has 35,000 municipalities (40% of all those in the European Union) and for thirty years the State has been pushing for consolidation to rationalize the scattering of towns.
“The transfer of water is the death of my municipality”judge Eric Masoyé, unlabeled mayor of Vy-lès-Rupt (Haute-Saône), 97 inhabitants. “We are in the process of transferring everything to the “comcom” [pour communautés de communes]he annoys, installed in his small office with a breathtaking view of the church. I still have water, forests and shit. We empty the substance of our municipalities. Eventually, they will die. We’ll become ghost towns by day and dormitories by night. »
His village has owned the spring since 1841, located 3.7 kilometers away in the middle of the woods. Mr. Masoyé is always there when it is necessary to search for a leak, inspect the pumps or check the water treatment. But 2023 will be a turning point. To prepare for the transfer, the community of municipalities will survey the Vy-lès-Rupt network. “We will oppose it. There will be a welcome committee for technicians”warns the mayor.
“We are strangled financially”
In this very rural department – “Vesoul is just the biggest village”, notes the senator Les Républicains Alain Joyandet -, many elected officials are going through the same pangs. Of the 18 communities of municipalities in the department, only 5 manage water. It’s not much. At the country level, it is half. That is to say the reluctance, even the regrets. Jean-Philippe Gimenez, mayor of Faymont (Haute-Saône), 264 inhabitants, has already lost “water competence” and considers himself “have”. He only has the maintenance of the streets of the village and the forest. The chosen one could endorse this lamentation heard at the other end of the department: “If we’re only here for the cemetery and the wandering dogs, what’s the point of being mayor? »
You have 78.74% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.