Christian Bilhac, senator from Hérault: “The land explosion is preventing our young people from staying in our villages”

Le parlementaire poursuit ses tournées dans le département. JM – JM

Fin décembre, la tournée du sénateur Christian Bilhac, ancien maire de Péret, faisait étape à Mourèze où il a rencontré des élus du Clermontais. 

As in Clermontais at the end of December, you regularly meet elected officials from Hérault. Beyond current events, what subjects do you address ?

We often encounter the same subjects: concerns regarding constructability with the Zan law and its application in the territory. With the administrative burdens which weigh more and more on the management of municipalities. We also talk a lot about the evolution of mentalities, about a certain loss of values. We talked a lot about the Republic…

Subject of concern in a department subject to strong demographic pressure: housing. Will it be necessary to adapt the ZAN law, Zero Net Artificialization, on a case by case basis ?

This law, for the moment, we only see the announcement of it. Real estate, the building, is an liner which has strong inertia and continues to move forward even when the engine is stopped. Currently, we are still moving forward, we are on a roll, we are not yet feeling the effects. But the problem is that once stopped, it takes a very long time to get this liner back on track. I ask myself the question: what are we going to do in Hérault with 12,000 more inhabitants per year if we don't build anymore, we are going to put them where ? There is going to be a housing crisis. We are fighting against cabanization but, if we do nothing about housing, cabanization will develop. Then, the explosion in the price of land is preventing our young people who were born in our villages from being able to stay there tomorrow. We must put in place a housing policy that allows them to live in the villages where they grew up. It’s a societal issue.

We are here at the heart of the department. You meet the elected officials of all of Hérault that you have “cut” in 34 territories… In Saint-Pons-de-Thomières, Sète, Minerve or Lunel the problems are different…

We have problems common to all territories. Others are specific. On the Larzac plateau, people talk to me about pastoralism, the wolf, remoteness…hellip; On the coastal fringe, other problems arise, in the peri-urban areas, even other problems. But, everywhere, the leitmotif: it is the administrative burden, the difficulty in moving files forward, the normative straitjacket which paralyzes everything in the country, and not just elected officials. This straitjacket also paralyzes entrepreneurs, farmers, everyone. Pompidou denounced this in 66 and it continues…

We are at the dawn of the new year. What do you wish for 2024 as senator of Hérault ?

May what is inscribed on the pediment of our buildings: French Republic, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and I will add “secularism”, be fully restored in France. Today, the Republic must regain all its vigor, everywhere, in France. There must be no forgotten territory of the Republic. The values ​​of the Republic must be present everywhere. It’s a huge undertaking but we have to get on with it. There is nothing more precious than the Republic.

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