French cities government in face of Covid-19: the spaces of autonomy

Keywords: Covid-19, cities emergency services, crisis management,
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 41

Abstract

France's response to Covid-19 has been depict as centralized. Local authorities have highly criticized the lack of concertation for major decision such as lockdowns, curfew, or to impose the vaccine. Both the decisions to impose national-wide measures, or to geographically differentiated them, have been hardly accepted by many local authorities. However, this first analysis hides the capacity of French cities to actually tackle the challenge of crisis. Our analysis focuses on the arrival of Covid-19 in France, the first lockdown and lifting of the measures during the summer 2020. This period can be assimilated to a crisis, due to the abruptness of the measures, the high uncertainty regarding the disease, and the danger of overwhelmed hospitals.

We point out that during the early stage of the “crisis”, urban government were able to promptly react both to state's decisions and uncertainty. With the help of their “risk and crisis” services, they anticipated the measures, and quickly settle exceptional emergency organization to ensure the continuity of their activities. This capacity led them to tackle some local issues raised by the pandemic and the national measures. While they were not challenging state’s sovereignty, they create their own space of crisis sovereignty. Regarding social, economic, health, or urban issues raised by the crisis, they were able to invent a all range of exceptional measures. They strongly contributed also to reframe the crisis as social, pointing out inequalities. Especially, local crisis’s services may ensure their stability and the capacities of cities to face future crisis.