Photo : Vincent Lucas/CCIMP
Commerce International: In 2009, the ACCIM commissioned a study from the Brussels consultancy firm Ramboll on the role of metropolises and “team spirit” at the local and regional level. What are you hoping the study will achieve?
Jacques Pfister: “The study shows that metropolises are relevant economic areas, and that these major metropolitan groups need to work as a network in order to maximise their potential, thereby contributing to the attractiveness of our local and regional areas. The recommendations point to the fact that the economic world, and metropolitan CCIs in the first instance, have the ability to mobilise themselves and provide a body of knowledge and added value for the direct benefit of companies. The study should enable this reality, which is still largely unshared, to be made known in France and to define the major strategic priorities that our CCIs will need to be
involved in, in direct liaison with local stakeholders.”
Could France be more inspired by its European neighbours when it comes to the role played by metropolises?
J.P.: “Whilst our metropolises do have economic assets, when compared with what our European neighbours are doing there is considerable room for development. Whether with regard to management systems, financing or innovative practices, there are prime examples in Europe that we can use as a foundation whilst retaining our different identities and strengths. This is where the whole issue of the construction of French metropolises lies.”
What do you think of the proposed legislation on local government reform, which includes plans for a new status for metropolises? More specifically, do you believe areas of competence are clearly defined?
J.P.: “The Bill, the final version of which should be discussed by Parliament over the next few months, takes into account the required administrative recognition of metropolises and there is a clear will towards bringing cohesion to the various echelons of local and regional governance. It is important that the economic world, and the CCIs, are able to maintain relationship with all the decision-making echelons, in the interests of their development. The competence issue is important within this context to avoid a split between the various players in the network that works to support companies. As regards recognition of metropolises, although the Bill is still vague with regard to their real area of competence, it is important that it raises their status without renouncing the regional dimension.”
What role will Chambers need to play in these future developments?
J.P.: “Today more than in the past, CCIs have a vocation to provide a link between the attractiveness of local and regional areas and the competitiveness of companies. They are drivers and decision-makers that have a place in the current administrative system. So they will need to emerge stronger from the current reform process. The metropolitan level should be an opportunity for our Chambers to gain a stronger foothold in the relationship between local and regional ambitions and economic action. Reconciling the regional and the metropolitan is not incompatible. The reverse is true since major metropolises serve their regions and regions cannot assert themselves without major metropolises.”
The ACCIM is calling for an extension of the remit of Chambers that will be linked to metropolises as part of Chamber reform. Yet last month, Jean-François Bernardin said in this magazine that “the Bill will be put to the vote (as is, Ed.) at the end of March and that’s it!”. Do you believe the Bill can be modified before the vote?
J.P.: “We would have preferred to see CCI reform as a subset of local and regional government reform because there is strong interdependence of institutions between themselves and the economy is an essential part of local and regional policy today. Giving metropolitan CCIs missions in keeping with those of future metropolises would seem to be a sensible move if the desire is there to provide the means to work with companies and local and regional areas towards greater wealth. As it stands, the Bill does not allow this, but the metropolitan CCIs want this and are working in this direction.”
What is the CCIMP’s stance with regard to the Greater Marseilles project that has sparked so much intense politico-economic debate?
J.P.: “The CCIMP is in favour of initiatives that advance metropolitan thinking with regard to the local and regional areas involved and the Greater Marseilles initiative is one of a number of interesting proposals. We are currently in the phase of discussion and dialogue that is required to shape the metropolis of tomorrow. Marseilles-Provence lags behind in this respect when compared with other French local and regional areas. Marseilles-Provence’s successful bid to become European Capital of Culture in 2013 has opened up a space of interaction and collective awareness. The political, economic, cultural and social worlds are involved in this project. Marseilles-Provence 2013 has taken shape within an area that is regarded as significant and that could be described as “a metropolitan area”. In no way is there any competition with the regional area; quite the reverse in fact.”
A plea in favour of metropolises
In October 2009, the Brussels consultancy firm Ramboll published a report on metropolises. The report was commissioned by the Association of Metropolitan CCIs (ACCIM), which is currently made up of eight highly influential players in the Chamber world (Marseilles-Provence, Greater Lille, Paris, Nantes/Saint Nazaire, Bordeaux, Strasbourg/Lower-Rhine, Lyons and Nice). The aim of the document is to emphasise the importance of a team spirit among French metropolises so they can better serve the national economy abroad and, more generally, enhance the competitiveness of companies. Implicitly, it is also a plea in favour of the much-evoked “metropolitan dimension” that is so close to the heart of the ACCIM against the backdrop of a confusing context of reforms. On the one hand, local and regional government reform is about to redefine the role of metropolises by giving them a new status, and on the other the Chambers of Commerce reform will provide the “regional dimension” (Regional Chambers of Commerce) and the “national dimension” (Assembly of French Chambers of Commerce and Industry) with more weight. The Ramboll report successfully fulfills its mission by unstintingly highlighting, over 147 pages, the indispensable role of metropolises: these “driving forces behind the growth of their local or regional areas, fuelled by their own resources as well as by the collaboration they are able to initiate and galvanise both internationally and at the domestic level.” The principal merit of the report is the picture it paints of four European metropolises or groups of metropolises: English Core Cities Group, Barcelona, Oresund (comprising Malmö and Copenhagen) and Randstad Holland (Delta Metropolis). Without singing the praises of each case, the report attempts to derive lessons from these examples to help French metropolises and CCIs draw greater inspiration from them. The entire report can be downloaded from the Greater Lille CCI website (www.grand-lille.cci.fr).
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