*{ http://www.attac.org/fra/asso/doc/doc08en.htm
19 aout 2002

13 / 03

The Morsang sur Orge Symposium
MORSANG APPEAL
}

The national symposium “ When local government is confronted with liberal globalisation. Local communities as a base for citizens’ movements ”, organised on the 28th and 29th January 2000 by ATTAC and the municipality of Morsang-sur-Orge (Essonne), gave rise to a declaration in the form of an appeal to citizens and their political representatives.

The Morsang Appeal was adopted following a debate chaired by Michel Berson, president of the Conseil Général de l’Essonne, and attended by Bernard Cassen, president of the association Attac, Pierre Tartakowsky, secretary-general of Attac, and Daniel Monteux, board member of Attac.

Citizens, representatives and their local partners, local administrators, specialists in urban politics, trade unionists, association members, we all represent a specific link in the national and international chain of resistance to liberal globalisation. Liberal globalisation is no more a fatality than is the logic of financial markets dominating all other human activities. Resisting against this fatality is a civic duty.

The failure of the WTO ministerial conference at Seattle and the decisive intervention of the civil society, that is in the process of becoming a world phenomenon, has shown the emergence of international alternatives.

As citizens and workers in a town or a local community, we are confronted on various levels with the mechanisms of financial globalisation and its impact on all aspects of local life. While the opening of the world’s barriers leads to new opportunities for exchange, development and co-operation, we are witnessing increasing inequality and segregation, and an erosion of the principles of equality and solidarity.

Local competition has led to relocating companies, putting agricultural land to fallow, environment deterioration and subsequently to profound social divisions. Public services are submitted to privatisation policies and profitability rules which systematically weaken their capacity to reply to demands and improve their service quality. When employment, training, culture, health, housing are deeply undermined, civilisation is at stake.

Meanwhile three or four French multinationals have secured themselves the control of nearly the whole national market. They rely on local administration breaking down, knowledge dispersion or weakness, as well as the weakening of public services and EU directives. They have managed to progressively put themselves in a position that makes them impossible to bypass. Sectors such as water production, distribution and disposal, communications networks, household refuse, group catering, public transport, street furniture and housing, are, amongst others, increasingly caught in the trade rules imposed by companies, private sector operators and some public administrators.

The finance’s insatiable greediness for gaining “ local community markets ” must be retaliated by focused alternatives. Such alternatives are all the more necessary in that the loss of democratic choice leads to opacity, lack of control, increasing local competition, power held by an influential few and spreading corruption.

Since the French decentralisation legislation has been adopted, local authorities have however been able to keep large areas of intervention and innovation, such as a more efficient management based on democratic and solidarity choices, elected representatives’ competence, and the committed actions of field workers. Such initiatives put into practice a ‘savoir faire’ and forms of participative democracy which can inspire the whole country.

These examples of citizenship constitute bases upon which to build, and in perspective, they present new areas for reflection, intervention and action that could lead to the restoration of an authentic local democracy. With this view in mind, the French 16/06/99 Act (Town and Country Planning and Sustainable Regional Development Act) and the 12/07/99 Act (Reinforcement and Simplification of Intercommunal Co-operation Act, known as ‘Intercommunal Act’), provide a new framework leading to co-operation and solidarity between local authorities. This new legislation is a double-sided coin but, when combined with the necessary citizenship involvement, it offers the opportunity to introduce strategies for action relieved from any local competition.

For all the above reasons, local communities is a solid base for citizens and their representatives to help them to stand up against the world merchandising and develop international solidarity.

In order to pursue this reflection and debate, encourage necessary actions, and ‘think globally and act locally’, we propose five main priorities as a starting point for a possible – and urgent – rally:

 *partie=titre 1. Addressing the Need for Local Democracy *partie=nil 

In the face of economic decisions that present themselves more and more frequently as ‘faits accomplis’, we must revive local democracy, effectively fight against social and cultural inequality, fulfil citizens’ hopes and needs, by a confrontation of citizens and social and economic decision-makers that would open the way for alternative choices.

In the face of private companies which are in league with each other, we must implement a ‘local communities observatory’ which would prepare proposals ensuring common attitudes and actions. This would lead to new forms of co-operation between local communities.

The right to vote for foreigners living in France becomes a common-sense democratic requirement and a factor for the controlled development of towns and neighbourhoods.

 *partie=titre 2. Addressing the Need for Funding  *partie=nil 

The economy ‘financialisation’ allows a large part of the real wealth of large companies to escape taxation. The tax system should on the contrary place these companies in a position of civic responsibility regarding the neighbourhoods in which they operate. As a consequence public funds invested in employment must be under state control, as well as the refunding of this funds misappropriated by companies.

Public mechanisms handling the funding of local development must also be reviewed, in terms of redistribution, public loans and credits, on local, national and European levels.

 *partie=titre 3. Addressing Development Needs *partie=nil 

It is urgent that (i) public services are given the means for fully carrying out their economic function generating social solidarity, (ii) their efficiency is increased in order to answer to demands, in collaboration with sectors involved in co-operative and economic solidarity and intermediary companies, (iii) any co-operation towards job creation and the answer to new or insufficiently fulfilled demands are promoted.

The fight against social inequalities should be based on determined state policies that aim at job creation and call on the help of all economic agents – private, intermediate, co-operative and associative sectors. These policies should be supported by legislation and all necessary funding.

The merchandising of water must stop and be replaced by the management of a resource at the disposal the citizen/consumer and considered as part of the common world heritage. The same must apply for waste collection that calls for heavy investment and that comes up against profitability.

 *partie=titre 4. Addressing Cultural Needs *partie=nil 

In the face of a merchandising globalisation that gradually excludes young - and older - people, perpetuates a state of ‘infra-citizenship’ stemming from the sensation of losing control, vulnerability and a fragmented life, culture and art could hold key roles.

In addition to the fight against financial precariousness and social exclusion, municipalities should offer more cultural centres, activities and means to help stimulate cultural and artistic creation.

 *partie=titre 5. Addressing the Need for Echange and Co-Operation *partie=nil 

In the face of a globalisation that exacerbates competition, it is time to stimulate and multiply initiatives towards a new international understanding, in particular regarding countries from the southern hemisphere and eastern Europe. Rapprochement, co-operation and various exchanges are not only possible but desirable, as long as they come within the framework of a shared sustainable development, and if they aim at the reasonable and environment-friendly use of natural resources.

In this context, the major debates on the cancellation of the third world debt, financial aid for social issues on an international scale, which integrate political and material rights for the human being, namely housing, access to water, healthy environment, health care and education, constitute bases for development, co-operation and exchange. The construction of a relationship between towns upholding the project of a Tobin tax is in keeping with this undertaking of solidarity.

We, citizens, representatives and our local partners, must address these questions. This is why we call for the implementation of a large national and international debate which is resolutely focused on future action. This is our way of, as underlined in the Attac Charter, “ claiming back together the future of our world ”.