Urban contract of social cohesion

The urban contract of social cohesion is a device of the Politique of the French city.

The contracts of city version 2001-2006 expire on December 31st, 2006. The French government then decided to install a new contractual framework of the policy of the city in favor of the ailing districts, the urban contracts of social cohesion, whose general framework and the orientations were laid down by the Inter-ministerial committee of the cities and the urban development (CIV) of March 9th, 2006.

General principles

These new agreements, one 3 years duration renewable, will be proposed at the cities and the public corporations of inter-commune co-operation qualified on the matter. They will have to come into effect at the beginning of the year 2007.

The general philosophy of these contracts is with double relaxation. It aims, indeed, at allowing, initially, a slip of the appropriations " Policy of Ville" , which is provisional and experimental, towards the appropriations of " Right Commun" , which is the appropriations known as " normaux" what should manage to fasten the priority district in the policy of common right as well as another district of the city in the second time, this in a concern of avoiding the discriminatory practice which would consist in thinking the city without the priority districts and the priority districts without the city.

A hierarchical intervention

The DIV completes a work of priorisation of category 1 to 3 with the assistance of INSEE which will be used to him as a basis of calculation for the attribution of the budget appropriation allotted to the regional headquarters.

On their side, the cities wishing to contract, carry out a complete diagnosis of the districts which seem to them underprivileged and propose on their side a argued priorisation from 1 to 3 which will make it possible to modulate the attribution of the envelope perceived by the Regional headquarters. Then, the cities are brought to seek and analyze what was carried out in their priority districts, the various actors concerned and their contributions exact to the actions so that they can, within the framework them negotiations CUCS to determine the good deeds to perennialize in the appropriations of common right and the projects which can be tested and subsidized within the framework of the appropriations " Policy of Ville".

Data elements on the definitions of the priorities established by the government

Priority 1

The DIV attempted to fix, under the conditions described by the circular of September 15th, 2006, the exhaustive list of the districts of priority 1 on the level of the IRISES which compose them.

The indicators and criteria selected propose the report of an important unhooking of these districts taking into consideration median income of the households the component compared to their urban unit of reference. A smoothing took into account regional disparities of median income. In the second place, the choice took into account the permanence of the policies engaged on these territories; thus, the existence of an operation of Urban renovation of category 1 (strict classification ANRU), or the membership of a perimeter ZFU, places the territories concerned in priority 1. A recourse to index PRV was implemented to slice the situation of the extreme cases. Lastly, the districts of less than 1500 inhabitants were displaced.

In the spirit of the will of the French government to concentrate the action of the State on the priority districts, it was not possible to adopt all the proposals of the prefects of classification in priority 1.

Priorities 2 and 3

The list of priorities 2 was drawn up on the basis of district (ZUS, incorporated IRISES, IRISES isolated for a total from 3500 IRISES) presenting an unhooking from 30 to 50% of the median income of the households compared to the urban unit of reference and of the ZUS close to the threshold of unhookings presenting an index of high risk.

The classified districts category 3 by the DIV are the result of the complement of analysis carried out by the DIV and thus constitute only one element partial and indicative of the local choices to operate.

Consequences of hierarchisation

The priorisation of the districts from 1 to 3 is important because it conditions the distribution of the envelope perceived by the Regional headquarters. For example, the whole of the districts priority 1 profits from the appropriations policy of the city on a big part of the regional envelope. The districts priority 2 profits from a mixing between the Politique appropriations of the City and the appropriations of common right, whereas the districts priority 3 are concerned only by orientations of appropriations of common right and can profit up to 10% from the regional envelope in subsidy from operation.

It is there that it will be advisable to be very vigilant on the priorisation of the districts proposed by the cities after the opinion of the DIV. Indeed, the DIV distributes its financial allocation starting from its own studies. Thus if she considered that an area had only four districts priority 1, she will give financings for the equivalent of four districts priority 1. In conclusion, if the public decision makers decide to pass from other districts in priority 1, the envelope will remain the same one, except that it will have to be distributed between more districts. With the result that if the new distribution of the districts is not compensated in a direction as in another, we will be able very easily to encounter cases where districts of priority 1 (in strong difficulty) receive less subsidy within the framework of the CUCS, because it must share the share of the envelope " priority 1" with too many districts, that a district of priority 3 which would be alone to divide the 10% of the regional envelope reserved to the districts " priority 3"

Quantitative evaluation

At the end of June 2007, 490 CUCS were signed by the common or the Public corporations of inter-commune co-operation (EPCI).

292 were signed by the communes only, 196 by the EPCI (with or without the communes of these EPCI). 18% of them were signed by the district councils and 33% by the general advices, 26% by the social lessors and 41% by the family Allowance offices.

These new agreements relate to 2.200 districts on the whole. It is about a big change taking into consideration district targeted by the precedents contracts of city (approximately 1.500 including 751 ZUS). 364 of them take over precedent 247 contracts of city.

The CUCS profit from an global envelope for 2007, of almost 400 million euros.

Notes and references of the article

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