Where will the closed educational center of Indre-et-Loire be located? Since the call for projects launched by the Ministry of Justice in 2018 to accommodate these juvenile delinquents convicted by the courts, the prefecture only receives refusals. After Château-Renault last year, then Beaumont-Louestault at the beginning of September, the project did not convince the mayors of the metropolis of Tours either at the end of November.
It is finally in Bléré that a door seems to be opening. The project was also presented Monday, December 13 in city council by the sub-prefect of Loches Philippe François, the regional director of the SOS Jeunesse group Maxime Zennou, and the mayor Fabien Nebel, who collectively say they are rather optimistic.
Personally I think this is something we could be pretty proud of
At the beginning, when the State services come to pick him up to tell him about this closed educational center, Fabien Nebel is neither thrilled nor completely cooled. “I ask to inquire”, confides the chosen one. He contacted two other mayors, those of Châtillon-sur-Seine in Côte d’Or and Saverne in Bas-Rhin, two municipalities where similar structures have been installed for more than 10 years. “They tell me that they are happy with it, and that if it had to be done again, they would do the same thing again, continues the mayor of Bléré. They assure me that there is really no problem with the population because these young people must be accompanied by an adult to leave the site. ”
Fabien Nebel now sees only the positive. “Personally, I think it’s something we could be quite proud of. Because we provide these young people with another solution than prison. It is for them the means of reintegrating into society.” The Bléré project, fully detailed on the website of the prefecture of Indre-et-Loire, is calibrated for 12 places. Juvenile delinquents aged 13 to 18 would stay there for six months, renewable once. A plot of 5,000 m² is already found just behind the gendarmerie, far from the first dwellings.
Municipal council vote scheduled for March
The mayor of Bléré is also anticipating economic benefits, estimated “to nearly 2 million euros per year for the territory”, according to Philippe François, the sub-prefect of Loches. Because in the closed educational center, 26 people would work full time (educators, nurses or psychologists in particular). As many future consumers, even inhabitants. “And we must also take into account that our companies would be involved, continues Fabien Nebel. Because it will be necessary to feed all these people, I am also thinking of the laundry. This project must take us to the top. “
These arguments, the mayor will expose them to the city council, a priori in mid-March, for the vote. He ensures, by then, that he will inform his inhabitants in full transparency and that he will listen to them. If the closed educational center is adopted, it will not see the light of day until at least 2023 in Bléré. It will be fully funded by the state to the tune of 4.5 million euros.