The president of the Hauts-de-France region is annoyed: for him, the State is not up to the situation, while the floods continue in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais.
“I say it. Now the prefect must say ‘The bullshit is over’, now we are putting in place a cleaning plan. […] Work is needed. The question is ‘Who orders them? Who pays them? When does it start?’ This is what we must do commune by commune.” Xavier Bertrand made it known this Thursday morning on RMC that he was very dissatisfied with the way in which the State was managing disasters in his Hauts- de-France. And regretted that the administration complicated the procedures, the back and forth and slowed down the reconstruction processes.
On RMC, when the journalist asked him if he himself was not responsible for the situation, he who heads the region concerned, Xavier Bertrand got angry: “But I have zero skills in terms of management of water! Give me the skills, I’m going to take responsibility! Already they tolerate me at the end of the table, because I’m bringing my strawberry! The real problem we have today , is that this competence is assumed by the State and by the unions, if they do not want to do it, I am ready to do it, I am even ready to pay. We cannot leave people like that, we is in a crisis situation. People are either dejected or revolted.”
“Preventive work must be done. We will not prevent the rain from falling but we can ensure that it drains more quickly,” he added, considering that it is not necessary to wait to clean the waterways. “To the farmers of Pas-de-Calais, we told them ‘You are going to be helped by the State’. We are now telling them ‘It will be more of a cash advance than aid!’ But we don’t care about the world. But let the ministers come here, not for a few hours, but to come and settle down for a few days and sort out the problems.”
The government spokesperson, Olivier Véran, responded on BFMTV to Xavier Bertrand, judging that the president of Hauts de France was not measuring all of the measures deployed. “That people are angry, in distress, that they are afraid, that they need to be accompanied is obvious. I tell them this morning: ‘we are at your side, not just today but over time. […] The president made commitments, they were kept. The government has released a support fund of 50 million euros.” And to insist to Xavier Bertrand: “It is a gigantic job to adapt to changes in the climate and its consequences on the territory”.