After 10 years of work, the Angers Conseil de développement is looking for a second wind

After ten years of debates, surveys and reports, the Conseil de développement of Angers Loire Métropole is looking for a second wind. This official organization which gathers members of the civil society is trying to enlarge and to open its ranks to new categories of members, among them : youth or minorities representatives. But it is also eager to stick to important issues for the city.


Hopefully, the Conseil de developpement which questions its members about new issues to deal (what could indicate it may not have special strategy about its part) met recently two fields : the development of Maine banks and the preservation of the economic assets (companies, qualified workers) badly damaged by the present crisis, but not only by it.


In fact, in Angers as in France as a whole, the public policy has weakened the competitiveness of the private sector in many different fields of industry. The recent threat on Technicolor, the former Thomson company who hired up to 3 000 persons thirty years ago, is the symbol of that economic impoverishment.


A few years ago, when Angers Loire Metropole launched the construction of the first tramway line, the authority decided to increase dramatically its transportation tax (in fact the increase was implemented largely before the start of the work). A few years later, it decided to increase the corporate tax before to be stopped by the courts. So the Conseil de développement could be helpful to alleviate taxes which strangle local growth, jobs, consumption and... fiscal receipts.