Castex abandons the town hall, the Christmas bath, high poverty in the Gard… the essential news in the region

L'essentiel de l'information en région chaque soir sur Midilibre.fr Midi Libre

Every evening at 8:30 p.m., find the 5 regional news items of the day that you shouldn't have missed.

More than 500 swimmers for the Valras Christmas swim

#HÉRAULT –Forty years, it is not yet a tradition, but still an institution. An unmissable event in any case for the 550 or so swimmers who threw themselves into the water, this Saturday in Valras, for the 40th Christmas swim of the seaside resort. Before this quick plunge into the Big Blue (water temperature 11°C, air temperature hardly better), the ramaïres of Valras had the honor of bringing the “real” Santa Claus to the beach where live DJ LyBélu led the essential warm-up, accompanied by dancers and “chears leaders”. In all, a little over a thousand people were delighted to be back before being able to warm up around New Year's Eve.

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Poverty: Gard among the highest rates in France

#REPORT –Gard is ranked seventh among the departments with the highest poverty rate, according to the recently published report on poverty in France 2024-2025. It stands at 20% of the population. Ahead of it are Réunion, Seine-Saint-Denis, Martinique, Pyrénées-Orientales, Aude and Haute-Corse. In the ranking of the 20 municipalities with the highest number of poor people, Nîmes is in 11th position. An abnormally high position since Nîmes is only the 21st most populated city in France. There are 43,238 people living below the poverty line in Nîmes (for 148,000 inhabitants). By comparison, Paris and its 2 million inhabitants have 313,350. Nîmes even has more people in poverty than… Bordeaux (38,568), the 9th largest municipality in France. The poverty threshold is 60% of the median income, or €1,064 for a single person after social benefits.

Jean Castex will no longer be mayor of Prades

#PYRÉNÉES-ORIENTALES – “A page has been turned. To those who still have doubts: I will not run again next time.”Friday in Prades, in the Pyrénées-Orientales, Jean Castex definitively turned the page on local political life, report our colleagues at France Bleu. Mayor of Prades for twelve years, re-elected in the first round in 2020 with 76% of the vote, the former Prime Minister left his post to lead the government from July 2020 to May 2022. Since November 2022, he has been president of the RATP and still a municipal councilor until 2026.

Today's figure: 50,000

#NÎMES –The annual donation campaign for women and their babies suffering from hygiene insecurity has raised more than €50,000 in the form of hygiene products or financial sums. In Nîmes, nearly 12,000 women are affected. In 2023, the City raised €40,528, which enabled the production of 3,000 feminine hygiene kits, the acquisition of 2,752 menstrual panties and the purchase of baby diapers for €3,700.

The P-O still lacking water

#DROUGHT – The situation of groundwater in Roussillon remains extremely worrying, warns the BRGM (Bureau de recherches géologiques et minières) in its latest report of the year. Water table levels remain very low in the Pyrénées-Orientales, below their 2023 level, or even historically low in some areas. The Roussillon plain and the Corbières massif are particularly affected, with levels that have not benefited from the notable recharge episodes during the fall and winter. The precipitation in recent weeks has been very insufficient to compensate for the rainfall deficits accumulated for more than three years.

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