Carole Delga a répondu, pendant près de deux heures, aux questions des lecteurs de Midi Libre. Midi Libre – MICHAEL ESDOURRUBAILH
Dans un contexte politique inédit après une année pas avare en soubresauts, la présidente de la Région Occitanie Carole Delga, invitée de la rédaction de Midi Libre, a répondu aux questions de notre panel de lecteurs.
Carole Delga answered questions from Midi Libre readers for nearly two hours. Midi Libre – MICHAEL ESDOURRUBAILH
Politics: “The left and the right can work together”
To the first question about the appointment of a new Prime Minister and the possibility that she would be designated, Carole Delga first responded with a burst of laughter. Before continuing: “It is important that there is a nomination fairly quickly. We have lost a lot of time, we must restore trust between us, internationally, with the financial markets. Because if we continue, France's first budget will soon no longer be that of National Education, but that of debt repayment.”
As for the future Prime Minister, he must come from the ranks of the left, believes the President of the Occitanie Region: “The French said no to the far right, no to Macronist policies, they gave an advantage to the left. But not a majority. On July 8, I called for a left-wing personality as Prime Minister, with the left opening up to the Republican forces to create a majority. We must respect the vote of the English.”
And why couldn't it be you, they insisted: “First of all, I did not run for office. If I were asked to? I don't think I would be on the short list of the President of the Republic! I will not shirk my responsibilities either, the country is in difficulty, we cannot be fair in our comments, we must do our part to get it back on track, it is absolutely essential.”
And on the question of forming a government of general interest, if she says “she has never believed in the right and the left at the same time”, she nevertheless believes that “the left and the right can work together. I have been President of the Regions of France for three and a half years now. There should have been an alternation, the right-wing presidents wanted me to continue to chair this association of eighteen French Regions. So on certain subjects, we can indeed find an agreement, because it is in the interest of the country. Which is above our parties.”
It remains to consider the parties displaying the most radical positions, on the right as well as on the left. Carole Delga assures us from the outset: “I do not put the extreme right and the extreme left on the same level.”
According to her, “the extreme right is not in the republican field. It is a threat. Their ideas do not respect the republican motto, liberty, equality, with their national preference. That is what the extreme right is.”
However, she does not hold back her blows against La France insoumise, even if she considers that “LFI is in the Republican field. But I have many disagreements with them. Because I do not accept that Hamas is not condemned as a terrorist organization and I do not accept that the lynching of Israeli supporters in Amsterdam can be tolerated. I am from the left that believes in the rule of law and respects it. I respect the decisions taken by the State and by the justice system.”
Budget: “There will be a 5% reduction in subsidies, at least, for certain structures”
“In the Barnier government's finance bill, you mentioned a saving of 187 million euros in the region's budget. What course will you maintain with these restrictions? budgets ?”
The question from Walter Bignon, deputy mayor of Marseillan, raised a debate currently at the heart of the concerns of the regional community. And Carole Delga confirmed this amount: “I was talking about it again this morning with all the regional presidents. We are building all our budgets on the forecasts of the Barnier 1 version of the finance bill.”
And to unveil this Tuesday the main trends of the 2025 budget for Occitanie, which was developed around three priorities: “The question of the purchasing power of our fellow citizens, so we are continuing with the cheapest return to school for high schools. We are still providing computers, textbooks, professional briefcases. And we are continuing with free school transport” assured Carole Delga.
“We also continue to support our businesses and our farmers, because agriculture and “The agri-food sector remains the region's leading source of employment” she continued. Finally, the third priority is health: “We will continue to recruit doctors” Carole Delga also indicated.
Furthermore, avenues for savings are therefore being considered: regional agencies “merged”, a “maintained” payroll, “reallocated” staff: “We will all have to make efforts for our country as citizens”.
Another saving, a high school that will not be built in Mauguio, the purchase “deferred by a year” of trains, because these are very, very budgets heavy.”
And then “there will be a 5% reduction in subsidies at least on certain structures, which have good cash flow, which have a little less projects for the year 2025”.
In this context, more than ever, the Regions of France are asking to find“a tax power that we lost in 2010 with the end of the professional tax under Sarkozy. For 95% of our revenues we depend on State subsidies and the goodwill of the government”.
And Carole Delga says she is in favor of granting new powers to the Regions. In three priority areas: “Transport, school guidance, and hospital investment. For which we would be much more responsive” .
Carole Delga answered questions from Midi Libre readers for nearly two hours. Midi Libre – MICHAEL ESDOURRUBAILH
Her future: “I will announce my decision in early 2025”
The municipal elections will take place in fifteen months. For which the name of Carole Delga is being put forward, more and more frequently, to run for mayor of Toulouse, where the center-right Jean-Luc Moudenc currently occupies the mayor's chair.
“A lot of people are asking me to run for the municipal elections in Toulouse, whether they are citizens I meet in the street or business leaders.”
But, she continues,”my decision has not been made. I will announce it at the beginning of the year. Afterwards, I will be alongside Michaël Delafosse. I will support Michaël so that he is re-elected”, she said, before returning to the possibility of her candidacy in the Ville rose.
“I am thinking about it because there is a lot of insistence, a lot of requests. There, objectively, today, I am very focused on the Region, and on my country. I hope that confidence will return to the country and I hope that, in the region, confidence will last. It requires a lot of voluntarism and that is why, as a priority, I am not thinking about municipal issues of the socialist party.”
A party for which she is also sometimes credited with ambitions, she who embodies an opposition to the current secretary general Olivier Faure, to take the leadership. A possibility that she does not seem to consider.
“I think I am useful on very operational subjects. I don't like to spend too much time talking, I really like to act. I'm not sure that my type of profile is the best at the head of a party. Of course I like the time for consultation, for exchange, but I like the time for action”, she confided, Tuesday, in front of the readers of Midi Libre.
Before specifying the contours of the left that she favors: “I have always been attached to this left that transforms people's lives, that is not in incantation. I like the left that takes on reality. The guys who like to be in red velvet armchairs with gold studs, they don't don't impress me. And, above all, I don't obey them.”
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000Transport: “the priority is rail”
The other news of the week was supposed to be the decision of the Toulouse administrative court on the possible halt of the A69 construction site, which is to link Castres to Toulouse. This has finally been postponed. “I am not commenting on a court decision,” interrupted Carole Delga, before recalling why she supports this controversial project.
“In 2010, President Sarkozy told local elected officials who were requesting the development of the national road that it would be a motorway or nothing. My predecessor (Editor's note: Martin Malvy, President of Midi-Pyrénées) said OK, I confirmed his choice. However, the Region is presented as the primary financier, but we only contribute 1.6%,” she defended.
Before recalling the stakes: “75% of the population living in this area wants this motorway, is waiting for it. Because in the Castres basin, to treat a serious cancer, you have to drive for 1.5 hours to go to Toulouse. For business leaders, for delivery people, it's the same. I also note that during the last legislative elections, the NFP candidate who campaigned against this motorway got at best 25%”, the President of the Region explained.
Asked about the relevance of carrying out new road projects, bypasses of Montpellier or Nîmes for example, Ms Delga believes “that there is still some road work to be done to allow people to get around. I am not in favour of a society where people are forced to withdraw into themselves. The exchange, the meeting is absolutely essential“. But, she qualifies, “the priority must remain the railway”.
This led to the intervention of lawyer Hélène Bras, on behalf of the association Alerte LGV Thau, who is demanding a different route than that planned for the future Montpellier – Perpignan high-speed line. “Even the mayors of the Thau basin are demanding that the project be put on hold“.
This annoyed Carole Delga: “It surprises me that mayors are saying they are opposed to a route, when they had a public inquiry in their town hall two years ago. We will now stop talking nonsense about this line. Yes, it will be mixed, passengers and freight, and that is also why we have strong technical constraints on the route. But we must realize that we have too many trucks on the roads, that we do not have enough proposals for daily trains. And then, this Montpellier – Perpignan link is the missing link to connect the European capitals. This is why even the new European Parliament, which is not really pro-rail, has still promised to provide 20% of the funding and perhaps more depending on the intermodality that we imagine with the port or the canals“, hammered home Ms. Delga.
Before threatening: “But if locally, the inhabitants, the elected representatives, do not want it, well the Region, it, will not finance”. However, Occitanie must contribute around 16% of a global budget of more than 6 Md€.
The president also assured her ambition to support the small daily TER lines, after the reopenings on the right bank of the Rhône, the Aubrac or, soon, between Alès and Bessèges. “But budgetary circumstances require us, for the time being, to suspend the Millau-Rodez or Quillan project“. Under her hat as President of the Regions of France, she also advocates “a reform of transport financing”, eyeing the “4 billion in profits from motorway companies” to “finance low-carbon mobility”.
Carole Delga answered questions from Midi Libre readers for nearly two hours. Midi Libre – MICHAEL ESDOURRUBAILH
Agriculture: “Allowing the profession to live off its products”
Two farmers, Rémi Dumas and Boris Vaudron, spoke with Carole Delga about agricultural issues. “I come from a farming background, I know how hard the job is, the injuries when you're accused of polluting…”, she said. Before going on to explain what she has done to help the region.
“It makes farmers live from their products. In terms of purchases, we ask that high school canteens buy local and organic products. It was 40% in the first term, we have a target of 75% in the second. We provide financial assistance for three years, to develop good habits, we equip machines to cook fresh products, we train cooks“.
Concrete. She also assures that Occitanie “is the only region to have created an agricultural land trust to help development projects. We buy the land, we support it, while a new farmer develops his project”.
Carole Delga also assured that her community was not slowing down grant applications. “On the contrary. Unlike the State, which imposed a blank year with the new programming time for European and regional funds, we decided on continuity, moreover by increasing the budget envelope by 20%. I had planned €28 million, there were more than €60 million in requests. It took us a few hours of arbitration and, while we processed all the files, there was a gap, but clearly, I doubled the agriculture budget despite the reduction in allocations”, she defends.
Ms Delga also assured her support for the fishing industry – “we will continue the fight so that European regulations take into account the specific nature of fishing in the Mediterranean“–, as well as for viticulture. “We have set up a sector contract, in particular for better adaptation to climate change, with the search for new cultural practices or access to irrigation”, she summarizes. She advocates a paradigm shift. “China has increased its customs barriers, the United States will do so, Europe, in this context, must move towards more protection”. Especially with the signing of the Mercosur treaty.
The regional president also spoke one-on-one with readers, here with farmer Rémi Dumas, after the meeting. Midi Libre – MICHAEL ESDOURRUBAILH
She also said…
No new high school in Mauguio. “Two high schools are currently under construction, one in Cournonterral in Hérault (opening in September 2026), the other in Auterive in Haute-Garonne (2025). For the moment, I am suspending the other projects because for the first time, we are seeing a drop in the number of high school students in the region. We are therefore working with the rectorate to assess the numbers in order to better measure the needs. We will favor temporary installations in certain establishments if necessary, but objectively, there will be many fewer classes of 35 students in the years to come with the decline in the birth rate”, announced Carole Delga.
When asked about the subject again, she therefore confirmed: “yes, we are giving up on the high school project in Mauguio”.
Always more salaried doctors. Questioned by Ariane Sultan, head of department at Montpellier University Hospital, on the essential issue of access to care, Carole Delga first took stock of the system which consists of paying doctors to install them in deficit sectors.
“In three years, we have signed a hundred employment contracts and we are going to strengthen this system, the objective of which is to promote equal access to health. We would like to double this figure, but we still need to find doctors”, summarizes the President of the Region who is even considering recruiting specialists, “dentists, gynecologists, a strong demand that comes from the field”.
if the The Region's skills are less in terms of prevention, Carole Delga says she supports actions in high schools “on food, health and sports… We are not developing enough, in France, these prevention policies which are not additional expenses but, on the contrary, which would allow savings”.
Promoting the local economy. With Olivier Coulom and Christophe Bonnet, members of the Confederation of Crafts and Small Building Companies (Capeb), Carole Delga was able to discuss the assistance provided to companies in the region. “We have supported 80,000 since the beginning of my first term”, she said. But the approach is not only financial.
“In public procurement, due to the environmental criterion, we can allow local companies to work. We also do small batches or we launch pre-information notices, six months before launching public contracts, to allow small companies to group together”.
Carole Delga also assures that she pleaded with the Head of State to launch a training reform, which would allow regional councils to promote this work with job seekers. “In Occitania, faced with demographic pressure, we need to create 24,000 jobs per year so that unemployment does not increase. The question of work, of employment, is fundamental”.
Carole Delga answered questions from Midi Libre readers for nearly two hours. Midi Libre – MICHAEL ESDOURRUBAILH
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