Greetings from Cécile Helle to the population: Avignon City Hall
“After two years of health crisis, we hoped for a calmer, more serene and more cheerful year 2022. This has not happened since the health crisis will have been followed by the energy and climate crises and their consequences on our cities and our daily lives.
This context of multiple uncertainties and threats, which has caused upheavals and concerns and shakes our certainties and our beliefs, will not have spared any of us. However, as is often the case in crises, it is the most fragile and the most isolated who have suffered the most violence from this world which is going badly. My thoughts at the end of the year turn first to them.
As in 2020 and 2021, in Avignon, all together, we resisted, we supported each other, we cultivated solidarity on a daily basis. So we were stronger.
With the elected officials who accompany me, we have remained united and mobilized by your side to continue to transform our beautiful city, to act for our children and our youth and to multiply the initiatives of sharing and mutual aid.
It is always difficult to summarize an entire year through a few achievements. I will nevertheless cite a few, symbolic of the human and fraternal city that we are building day by day: creation of the first town hall of St-Chamand, requalification of the garden of the Calvet Museum, revegetation of the courtyards of the Massillargues schools, Clos du Noyer and Simone Veil, Christmas fireworks, last stage of the development of the Plaine des Sports, First Games in Avignon, construction of Place Cabassole…
More than ever, I am convinced that we must push back the gloom, reject the ambient pessimism and reconnect with the paths of hope and happy prospects. This is why we will continue in 2023 to carry, strong and determined, our ambition for Avignon and our humanist conviction declined at the service of all!
We will continue to cultivate our attractiveness by taking a decisive step forward in the Avignon Confluence district, by supporting the urban renewal of working-class neighborhoods through the first housing demolition and rehabilitation operations, by completing the metamorphosis of the Jean-Louis Barrault library and the construction of the new Joly Jean school, providing a commercial office and a project center in the town centre.
In all the districts of our city, we will advance Avignon, a natural city, by granting the enchanted forest of the Pont-des-Deux-Eaux, by displaying the main boulevards and avenues of the Faubourgs, by inaugurating at Barthelasse the Maison des Îles and Nature, by beautifying Square Indochine and Parc Champfleury, by multiplying vegetable plantations for our children and for the most vulnerable among us.
Throughout the year, we invite you to experience culture by discovering the new Id’ile music festival organized in June, by meeting in parks and gardens around the Idea Box, a mobile library, by imagining the two first Maisons Folies “made in” Avignon which will open their doors wide in the Moulin Notre Dame and St Chamand districts. We will also be thrilled by welcoming the Uruguay Rugby team as part of the World Cup, by inaugurating the completely redesigned Jean Clément swimming pool, by launching the pre-Olympic year next July.
Avignon has always been in my eyes, the city of all possibilities. This is the reason why, despite the adversity of the period we are going through, in 2023, I wish to endorse Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s thought: “As for the future, it is not not to foresee it but to make it possible!” More than ever you can count on my commitment, my determination and my energy for Avignon, and for each and every one of you.
Dear Avignonnaise, dear Avignonnais,
Dear Montfavétaine, dear Montfavétaine,
I wish you and your loved ones a beautiful, sweet and serene year 2023.”
Cecile Helle
Mayor of Avignon
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