A few days before the elections for the governance of the Community of Communes of Haute Bigorre (CCHB), scheduled for Tuesday April 7, the outgoing president, Jacques Brune, announces his candidacy for his own succession.
It is no longer an open secret and Jacques Brune does not go out of his way to announce his candidacy for the presidency of the Community of Communes of Haute Bigorre (CCHB).
For the continuity of the work undertaken
“We are going to kill the suspense right away. I will indeed be a candidate”, he declares, and this “to ensure continuity because that is what I am attached to. And then, I am on a course where I will continue this affair”. Let us point out that if Jacques Brune is no longer mayor of Beaudéan since 2020 when he passed the baton to Yves Laffaille (re-elected on March 15), he is still part of the municipal council of his village and it is for this reason, with the approval of the municipal team in place, that he obtained his ticket to the council community. But if he approaches the municipal elections, it is from a much broader perspective, on the scale of an interco made up of 25 municipalities.
“We are coming out of a major election, the municipalities being entities in their own right, unlike the communities of municipalities which, even if we raise the tax, are EPCIs which only exist through the skills that the municipalities were good enough to leave them”, he insisted.
A Bagnérais president or not for the CCHBÂ?
Remember that Jacques Brune has been at the head of the CCHB since 2013 and the death of the founding president of the interco, Rolland Castells who was also the emblematic mayor of the town of Bagnères-de-Bigorre. A historic turning point in the life of the intercommunal community with the arrival of a president from a municipality other than the “capital” of Haute Bigorre. And this is the whole debate which animated the municipal elections in Bagnères-de-Bigorre. However, the debate is elsewhere, as Jacques Brune points out.
“There is a real debate in all the communes even if it is more transparent in Bagnères-de-Bigorre. Especially since the majority of Bagnères are candidates for the presidency of the CC which may seem legitimate. This poses no problem for me, quite the contrary. Besides, the opposite would be surprising,” he says bluntly.
Who pays for whom?
“What has exacerbated the speeches is the fact of saying that the central city maintains the rural communities. This is a point of view that must be taken forward. What matters first is the way in which we are going to build the interco with a view to appeasement. The word has been used several times and I am one of those who want to appease, as I tried during the mandate previous”, he calls for his wishes.
But if he mentions “conflicts which did not exist before”, he underlines the role of the central town. “Everyone must be proud to have Bagnères as a central town and the villages are also an asset. In addition, our CC has been preserved by the NOTre law and this is the strength of our interco. With the mayor of Bagnères, we have done so that the files move forward and that the living area does not waste time and I think that we have not lost any time,” he observes.
Two candidates declared
With two (known) candidates for the presidency of the CCHB, the competition is open but there is no question of repeating the heated fight of 2020. “An election is an election but to avoid the disappointments of the last time, we anticipated and framed things. We must also respect what happened passed in the municipal elections”, he declares.
The governance of the CCHB will be played out during the installation session of the community council. Before the big interco projects. “There is work to be done. We have talked a lot about the financial and fiscal pact but this is not limited to harmonizing taxes, the subject is much broader than that”, he underlines.
Among the issues, the outgoing president also insists on the long-awaited Unesco classification of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre. “And there is also a debate to be had on the transfer of other skills, with possibly a CIAS (Intercommunal Center for Social Action), the question of housing and the industrial center, etc.,” he lists.
Meet on Tuesday, April 7, at 6 p.m., at the Carré Py Hôtel at the community council.
