 |
|
Mission Europe Urbain / Animation et appui aux projets urbains intégrés |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| The urban dimension of Cohesion Policy in France | |
|
|
|
 |
|
 | | | A community restaurant in Périgueux |
Aware of the importance of urban areas (80% of its population lives in cities) for economic, social and territorial cohesion, the European Union has studied the development of these territories and the impact of its policies since the 1990s. With programmes like URBAN, the EU has initiated actions based on a new “integrated and participatory” approach. Now the European Union is actively promoting the development of this method by encouraging national and local stakeholders to coordinate their interventions in urban territories and integrate economic, social and environmental dimensions into urban projects.
The Cohesion policy, and its dedicated funds, ERDF (European regional development fund) and ESF (European social fund), are the key instruments of this action. Their objective is to implement targeted programmes in deprived urban areas. The French national authorities have adopted the major guidelines of this urban approach. The ERDF therefore supports integrated urban strategies which benefit to deprived areas and communities. These strategies are coordinated with the national urban policy.
In practice, these priorities have resulted in paying special attention to the urban dimension in the “Regional competitiveness and employment” as well as “Convergence” operational programmes (OP), in 3 different ways.
1. “INTEGRATED URBAN PROJECTS” (IUPs) : The French government has pushed for an urban dimension to be integrated into regional OPs with a view to reintegrating deprived neighbourhoods and their residents into the overall urban dynamics, by opening the approaches undertaken within Urban contracts for social cohesion (CUCS) to new issues (environment, NICTs, economic activities, transport etc...) and extended partnerships.
A large majority of regions have thus integrated a priority or measures dedicated to the revitalisation of deprived neighbourhoods into their OPs. These funds, which are spent via regional calls for projects, currently finance 61 IUPs, in 15 mainland regions, constituting the urban dimension of the cohesion policy in mainland France. IUPs represent 7% of the
ERDF financial allocation for “Regional competitiveness and employment“ OPs, which reaches m5,6 billion, and 10% of ERDF financial allocation for the 15 regions concerned.
2. THE URBAN DIMENSION OF THE COHESION POLICY IN OVERSEAS DÉPARTEMENTS: IUPs call for project approaches have not been chosen by the regions of the Convergence objective. These regions have opted for an integration of one or several urban rehabilitation measures into their OPs. This urban dimension represent 6% of the “Convergence” ERDF financial allocation of m2,1 billion.
3. URBAN DIMENSION IN A BROAD SENSE: Beyond these targeted interventions, the urban dimension features in many priorities of the “Convergence” and “Regional competitiveness and employment” OPs: transport, services, environmental quality, economy, employment, culture etc. These projects, co-financed by the ERDF, have an impact on the growth and
development of these cities. This concerns the 26 French regions, with or without a specific urban dimension. This urban dimension represents 12% of committed ERDF funds.
The objective of this document is to describe and analyse the urban dimension implemented in the regional ERDF OPs in terms of the programming, financing, beneficiaries and themes of the projects supported. In addition to this programming analysis, this document provides contextualisations and presents examples of projects
| | | Documents on the implementation of Cohesion policy for deprived areas | | In 2009, the French gorverment has agreed on the need to create a network of stakeholders involved in the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy:
This is how the “Mission Europe Urbain” was created in February 2010, it is a national team for the coordination, promotion and support of PUIs.
You can find hereunder two guides written by the team : the first ont is a general presentation of implementation of the urban dimension in France, the second is a mid-term evaluation of its first results.
| | | | The urban dimension of Cohesion Policy in France  | | | | | The urban dimension of Cohesion policy in France - Analysis | |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
