The Senate Law Commission wants to strengthen the future of the metropolises of Lyon and Aix-Marseille-Provence

After several months of an information mission devoted to the metropolises of Lyon and Aix-Marseille-Provence, the Senate’s law commission recommended, on Wednesday, December 7, several significant legislative and organic modifications, intended to improve the functioning of two communities. With regard to Lyon, the senators notably proposed the modification of the electoral calendar and the establishment of an additional prefect. For Marseille, the law commission wants a plan monitoring committee “Marseille in a big way”, as well as a redefinition of financial flows between the metropolis and the city of Marseille, in order to reinforce the centrality of the Marseille city. Senators talk about “the need for rebalancing measures specific to the city of Marseille”and plead for “an institutional reflection chosen by elected officials”.

In Lyon, the change in the dates of the elections would aim to clarify the respective roles of the communities. Created in 2015 according to a model unique in France, the metropolis of Lyon merged the urban community of Greater Lyon and the Rhône department, within the perimeter of its 59 municipalities. The metropolis has gone from the status of an inter-municipal assembly, made up of elected municipal officials, to the status of a community in its own right, with metropolitan councilors elected by direct universal suffrage, in fourteen specially drawn constituencies.

During the first election of its kind, in June 2020, the two elections were concurrent in the polling stations. The senators propose to dissociate the municipal and metropolitan elections, and to establish a metropolitan ballot of lists in a single constituency. “We think it is important to clarify the distribution between the role of the metropolis and the municipal level, with clear lists, to strengthen citizens’ sense of belonging to the different forms of democracy”, explained Françoise Gatel (Centrist Union, Ille-et-Vilaine), making public the conclusions of the senatorial mission, Wednesday.

“No turning back”

This calendar shift would require the extension of the current mandate of elected metropolitan officials for a period of around two years. These changes would require a text of law, and the opinion of the Constitutional Council. In this perspective of clarification, the Senate also proposes to distribute the authority of the State in adequacy with the redistricting of the territories. This would suppose the establishment of an additional prefect for the department of the new Rhône, based in Villefranche-sur-Saône. The current prefect of the Rhône would become prefect of the metropolis of Lyon. Finally, the Law Commission considers that part of the so-called “mobility payment” contribution from the metropolis should go to the Region, which is competent in the management of regional trains.

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