Yes, the Nice Côte d’Azur Metropolis has reduced the budgets allocated to post-storm reconstruction Alex in 2023, a few months before Aline. A lot. Despite internal warnings regarding the risks this entailed.
The anger of certain residents and elected officials of Vésubie has been brewing for months, since the cessation of numerous projects carried out and promised by the Metropolis. Considered priority. It exploded on October 20, when storm Aline swept away structures left fallow.
The fault lies in the scale of this new climate catastrophe, according to Christian Estrosi, but also, and above all, in the procedures imposed by the law and the State which blocked the work. As well as the investigations opened for embezzlement of public funds by the Nice public prosecutor’s office in April. But especially not to the state of the finances of its powerful Metropolis, as opponents on the right and left denounce.
“Safety issues in the event of bad weather”
And then there are the documents. In particular this note, mentioned Thursday in the metropolitan council by Ciottiste Christelle d’Intorni, that Nice morning was also able to consult. In this internal document at the Metropolis, dated November 9, 2022, the Alex storm budget is discussed, for the period 2023-2026.
Civil servants wrote to the Director General of Services (DGS) at the time, Olivier Breuilly, alarming regarding budgetary constraints. They claim to have proposed three scenarios for these four years: a budget at 146.3 million euros, another at 123.2 million and one at 91.3 million “to only carry out operations deemed to be a priority”. The minimum subsistence level, according to them.
The DGS only grants an envelope of 50 million euros. What “would then require quite heavy political trade-offs given the volume of work deemed a priority which would not be carried outthreaten his subordinates. With security issues and the preservation of certain works carried out which would not be completely insured in the event of severe bad weather.” Before listing the projects to be carried out, including planing, and those to put aside.
The budget goes from 717 million euros to… 59 million euros
This note of November 9 has necessarily evolved. In which way? “The Metropolis has not taken any decision aimed at reducing the budget dedicated to the reconstruction of the valleys”, affirms the community. Despite his own documents. On March 11, 2022, the metropolitan council planned to spend 717.3 million euros for 2023 – 2026 (including 65 million for 2023).
In March 2023, four months following the internal memo, elected officials finally vote on a budget of… 59.5 million euros for these four years (including 27.43 million for 2023). An amount very close to that mentioned in the note. “Storm Alex’s budget is shrinking, of coursedeclared the mayor of Saint-Martin-Vésubie. But I think it’s normal since for two and a half years we have still had quite a bit of support.”
The project for a 400 million euro tunnel to connect Vésubie to Tinée before the Paganin gorges, planned for 2026, has fallen by the wayside. With what other arbitrations?
The 80 million euros “display”
Since Aline’s damage, Christian Estrosi has responded to the explosion of controversy with another figure: 80 million euros. As he did in the metropolitan council on Thursday:
“In September, before storm Aline, it was decided to create a specific allocation for the reconstruction of the Vésubie valley, with 80 million euros, to cover the work remaining to be carried out.”
This decision, dated September 29, does not, however, allocate funding. “They modified the program authorization, but not the payment appropriations, translates the elected environmentalist opposition, Jean-Christophe Picard. They changed the ceiling of what they want to spend but not the checkbook. It’s display.” At present, the budget is therefore still officially 59 million euros allocated until 2026.
A muscular context
This document is not final and is part of the exchanges that evolve between services and their hierarchy. A classic procedure, in a muscular context. In November 2022, Olivier Breuilly (who did not wish to answer our questions), then general director of services, knows very well what Christian Estrosi will recognize in January 2023 to Nice-Matin: the finances of the Métropole are at most wrong.
This former magistrate of the Court of Auditors then tightens the screw wherever he can, even if it means being seen as the whipping father internally. But he has no choice. And relations are particularly tense on the Alex construction sites with the Tinée and Vésubie services. Moreover, it was he who, a few months later, sounded the alert for “accounting irregularities”, supported by Christian Estrosi. It led to the opening of an investigation to “embezzlement of public funds” by the Nice prosecutor.
The Metropolis denies
The Metropolis maintains: the procedures blocked the work, the internal document was “stolen” and “extrapolated” (read our edition from yesterday). She maintains that the 80 million were injected before Aline and that they were the result of exchanges between Olivier Breuilly and his subordinates.
Here is part of the community’s response: “The work requested by the DGS at the time, from the directorates concerned in 2022, aimed to include the latter (sic) in an approach to prioritizing reconstruction operations, in order to define a phased work program over time, which took into account the applicable regulatory procedures (land acquisitions, lifting of protections such as classified wooded areas, for example), as much as the rate of collection of revenue from partners. And, in view of the constraints that we have already described to you and which were recalled in council on Thursday (land control via the declaration of public utility making the local town planning plan compatible), it is indeed a question of phasing the work remaining to be accomplished.”
