Toulouse and the Metropolis pool their communication
The City of Toulouse and the Metropolis have just announced simultaneously, on social networks, the pooling of their communication tools: accounts and websites. A logical measure for the executive, but which poses a problem of “mixing genres” for the opposition.
“As of Tuesday, November 8, 2022, the Toulouse Métropole Twitter account is shared with that of Toulouse and becomes Toulouse-Town Hall and Metropolis. Remember to update your subscriptions. It is through this message, published on Twitter, that the municipal and metropolitan majority has announced the pooling of its communication networks. A similar post also appears on community Facebook account, inviting Internet users to subscribe to the “Town Hall of Toulouse” page. “This pooling is part of the logic of the merger of the websites toulouse.fr and toulouse-metropole.fr Fr a unique Toulouse Mairie-Métropole site which will go online in November “, explains the Town Hall… or the Metropolis. So we don’t really know.
Information that has not reached everyone
And it is precisely this “gender confusion” which poses a problem for certain elected representatives of Toulouse Métropole. First, to those who do not seem to know, like Patrick Jimena, metropolitan councilor, member of the Toulouse Métropole group in common, and municipal councilor of Colomiers. He first thinks of a hoax: “It’s not possible! It would be make the inhabitants of the agglomeration believe that Toulouse decides everything for the 37 municipalities that make up the Metropolis! He believes that one community cannot communicate for another, that the two entities conduct different policies, and that it is therefore dangerous to suggest the opposite.
And there are those who had received the information but did not pay any attention to it, like Marc Péré, metropolitan councilor of the opposition group Alternative pour une Métropole Citoyenne (AMC), and mayor of the Union. As Nicolas Misiak, elected to the City of Toulouse, in charge of the modernization of the administration and the evaluation of public policies, explained to us, “ this pooling of communication tools was presented during the mayors’ dinner on March 14, 2022 “. What Marc Péré readily recognizes, present at this meeting. But this last regret that the information was given “between the pear and the cheese”. “I remember that the subject was raised quickly. I also thought that we would talk about it again in Council, not that the project had been launched, ”recalls the mayor of L’Union.
What is it exactly?
In the facts, ” the redesign of the websites was introduced at the start of Jean-Luc Moudenc’s mandate », specifies Nicolas Misiak. It was about finding a solution for reduce the famous “thousand administrative sheets”. “Today, when someone has to carry out administrative procedures, they don’t know if they should go to the Town Hall or the Metropolis site. By merging the two sites, this problem no longer arises. The user will have access to a sort of one-stop-shop “, translates the chosen one.
It is therefore with the aim of simplification of administrative procedures that the sharing of websites, and communication tools more broadly, of the Municipality of Toulouse and the Metropolis has been carried out. The idea is not to merge the two sites, but to create a new one, “Toulouse Mairie-Métropole”. More interactive and intuitive with a single entry to the 70 online services offered by Toulouse City Hall and Toulouse Métropole. In a same time, the social media accounts of two entities will also merge. From November 8it is the account of the Town hall of Toulouse which relays the information.
A border problem
If the majority argues “the“service” and non-administrative approach ” of the operation, and claims to have submitted this new tool to users through an online survey to which 1,500 inhabitants of the Metropolis responded, elected representatives of the opposition see it only as a “step at the very least cavalier “. “It’s a way for the Town Hall of Toulouse to pull the blanket. Admittedly, the Pink City is the central city of the Metropolis, but it is not alone. And it is to make little case of the 36 other municipalities which constitute the Metropolis », Analyzes Patrick Jimena.
“Through this pooling of communication tools, the majority of Jean-Luc Moudenc fuels confusion, it blurs the boundaries between the City of Toulouse and the Metropolis », Considers for his part Marc Péré. ” And by the way, who will fund this merger? The Town Hall or the Metropolis? he wonders. The elected opposition member has difficulty understanding how the functioning of a community that is the Town Hall of Toulouse can adapt to that of a public establishment for inter-municipal cooperation (EPCI) that is Toulouse Métropole. ” Is all this really legal? he continues.
One more step towards metropolisation
Yet others have already done so. Indeed, at Brest, reindeer or Strasbourg, this fusion of communication tools is effective. “It’s the trend”, observes Nicolas Misiak, “it’s just one more step towards metropolisation “. A process undertaken several years ago. From 2009, under the mandate of Pierre Cohen, the choice was made to pool numerous services such as human resources, public procurement, legal affairs, information systems, etc. This with the aim of achieve operational savings. Thus, the internal communication and the direction of the communication of the Town hall of Toulouse and the Metropolis are ensured by the same personnel.
But this “no more” crispy some elected officials of the Metropolis:
Hello,
Why merge the communication management of the 37 municipalities behind that of the municipality of Toulouse? Balma, Blagnac, Pibrac or Saint-Jory, it’s not Toulouse…
This confusion between Toulouse and Toulouse Métropole seems dangerous to me.
— Aymeric Deheurles (@AymDeheurles) October 26, 2022
” Even if the teams are the same, the communication of the two entities must be different “, explains Patrick Jimena, who points out a “major contradiction of Jean-Luc Moudenc”. “The latter regularly enjoins the opposition not to deal with Toulouse-Toulouse subjects when we are in the metropolitan council…”, remembers the elected official.
So that all the elected officials sitting in the Métropole have access to the same information and understand the process as well as possible, the executive has planned to present the new website at the next community council which will take place on December 8th. “Well, we will pay attention to it,” retorts Marc Péré, “and we will ask for a debate and a vote on the subject “. He believes that the 133 elected officials of the Metropolis, representatives of the 37 member municipalities, were able to express themselves. Corn there is no plan, it seems, to seek the opinion of elected officialsespecially since the pooling of websites and accounts on social networks will have already been achieved.