Gilles d’Ettore: “Faced with existential challenges, let’s go back to basics”

In a forum for Midi Libre, the mayor of Agde Gilles d’Ettore calls for the unity of the country. “It must be repeated that only the values ​​of the Republic should guide us and ensure that they are respected with authority and without concession”. In ecological matters, as well as energy and economics, the elected representative from Hérault advocates for innovation and the “decentralization of initiatives”.

Since I became involved in public life in the service of my fellow citizens, I had never felt our society so weakened and so plagued by doubts. Our republican values, so beautiful and universal, are wavering on their basis in the face of an individualist and communitarian withdrawal which is disintegrating the nation. Giving meaning to our collective requires above all political courage and clarity in the expression of our republican convictions. It is our duty to defend with unfailing determination our secularism, which constitutes the leaven of our unity, in the face of all the attacks it suffers on a daily basis because of a fundamentalist Islam which tramples on our living together and flouts all equality between men and women. Spirituality must remain intimate and cannot invade the public space under penalty of fracturing society. If tomorrow we want to live together again on this magnificent land of France, then we must, whatever our origins and our religions, reiterate together that only the values ​​of the Republic must guide us and enforce them with authority and without concession.

It is essential to decentralize the initiatives, to return to the couple prefect-mayor, guarantor of the general interest

In the same spirit, we must unite to face climate and energy challenges. Ecology cannot be confiscated by a few, it is neither right nor left, and must now be a universal concern, which leads each and every one of us to bring our stone to the building. And if our energy independence is no longer assured today, it is because our rulers did not know how to foresee or were afraid of a few active minorities who confiscated for ideological ends a subject which was supposed to bring us together.
Faced with this unprecedented situation which announces very difficult times in terms of production and prices, we have the imperative need to innovate, to rely on the know-how of our engineers, to implement effective and rapid solutions. . To do this, it is imperative to get out of the administrative shackles that suffocate our country, it is essential to simplify our procedures, to decentralize initiatives and to return to the prefect-mayor couple, guarantor of the general interest.

We don’t have time to procrastinate anymore

Finally, it is necessary to sanction more severely all those who, through abusive appeals, take advantage of justice to block the projects that our territories need. Let us remember that in 1965, the Racine mission, under General De Gaulle, took five years to create seven seaside resorts in Languedoc-Roussillon, whereas it took me seven years to obtain authorization to the only reuse of wastewater to water our green spaces. We no longer have time to procrastinate and if public power does not regain its effectiveness in facing the existential challenges that are ours today, tomorrow we will not be able to tell our children that we did not know.

Gilles d’Ettore: “Faced with existential challenges, let’s go back to basics”