Local happiness: New goals, new stories

novembre 2024

Association Nationale des Pôles territoriaux et des Pays (ANPP - Territoires de projet)

À télécharger : vademecum-anpp-bonheur-local.pdf (520 Kio), stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.pdf (80 Kio)

While the idea of territorial equality is laudable, it does lead to the deployment and funding of the same services and facilities everywhere and uniformly, in the hope that all areas can claim to be equally well endowed. Let’s face it, this ideal is unattainable, and pursuing it has the opposite effect to that intended: areas that cannot afford the same services and facilities as their neighbours feel they are being short-changed. But are we asking the right question: do people really have the same needs everywhere in France? And, above all, if they were able to afford the services or facilities in question, would the community be happier as a result?

Happy sobriety in the service of local happiness

It’s not a question of resigning ourselves to the situation, nor of pursuing a policy of deprivation. On the contrary, it’s about drawing up a ‘positive’ inventory that will enable us to re-examine the community’s ‘real’ needs and collectively prioritise what we rely on by pointing out :

• what we have (before listing what we lack),

• what works (not just what doesn’t),

• what is important and what we collectively want to preserve,

• what we want to change, and within what limits, so that none of our shared ‘achievements’ are called into question…

The focus is no longer on being better off in terms of services or more attractive than our neighbours, but rather on taking care of the territorial capital we have. This approach invites us to think about what we can pool and share with our neighbours (whether our resources or theirs), to anticipate the risks and opportunities (external, cyclical or linked to our own decisions) likely to transform this capital, to identify ways of preserving it and making it bear fruit (with a view to sustainability and passing it on to future generations), and to plan preventive and curative action in the event of the occurrence of one of the risks (resilience) to ensure collective well-being.

Changing narratives to change perceptions of reality

Building new narratives does not mean inventing stories, but rather inviting us to change the way we look at the situation of our region and the prospects it offers, by considering that another trajectory and other choices than those we are presented with on a daily basis are possible.

However, the dominant narratives of today are still very much alive (without growth, there is no salvation; without consumption, there is no happiness, etc.) and condition our perception of the world and our behaviour. For example, the idea that ‘the territories can do nothing without the State’ is an entrenched narrative.

Changing the narrative is a prerequisite for changing behaviour, and ‘the stories we choose to tell today shape the world we will live in tomorrow ’9. So it’s not a question of distorting the reality of the situation, but of taking a step to the side to allow ourselves to glimpse other paths, other solutions.

By way of example, let’s start by choosing words that present political action as constructive and not exclusively ‘remedial’, and let’s banish formulas such as reducing inequalities, bridging the territorial divide, rebuilding the democratic pact, curbing this or that phenomenon. Wouldn’t that be the first step towards reprogramming our ways of thinking and acting with a view to prevention rather than cure?

An elected official’s view: Cécile GALLIEN, Mayor of Vorey-sur-Arzon

It’s increasingly difficult for mayors to know where their responsibility for the day-to-day lives of citizens begins and ends. The size of the municipality, the closeness we maintain with our constituents, our degree of empathy, the commitments we want to keep, the ambition we have for our territory, sometimes thwarted by the decisions of the inter-municipality, are all factors which, combined with the disagreements or anger between neighbours, and the increasingly heavy regal responsibilities imposed on us, literally put us under pressure…

Many mayors and local councillors need a real breath of fresh air if they are to avoid exhaustion and giving up. Reordering our communal priorities with a view to achieving and sharing local happiness sounds to me like a real opportunity to reclaim our place within our community of citizens so that together we can take care of what we have in common: our territory.

Reopening spaces for peaceful dialogue

To this end, I believe that the first task of local elected representatives is to reopen the political decision-making process to willing citizens, to organise forums for peaceful debate and to accept the controversy that is part of democracy. The French may often grumble, but they love politics, which, let’s not forget, is the art of directing all the activities of a society for the common good.

Taking care of our commons and considering our territory as a living being

This particular affection is undoubtedly a sign that, despite the growing individualism with which we are labelled, we remain more united than we might think and are capable of coming together to take care of our common goods, which permeate our private and public spaces and lives, starting with natural resources (water, nature, biodiversity), but also our social ties and our way of living together.

These common goods lie between individuals and the nation, and involving people in their management also seems to me to be a good way of reconsidering the territory, not as an inert support for life, but as a living being whose good health we must collectively ensure.

Crossing the screens, seeing the ‘real’ world and cultivating our sensibility

Finally, it seems to me that to be happy, we need to be able to compare and realise the quality of life we have through experience and not through a screen. Digital technology is both a marvellous and deleterious tool: screens skew reality, dehumanise relationships between individuals and generate artificial anxiety. Local happiness is swallowed up by what’s happening in the world, and a danger or event at the other end of the planet ends up being perceived by some of us as a local risk…

This ‘infobesity’ weighs heavily on our mental health and also influences the relationship between elected representatives and citizens, who demand advance information and/or an immediate response to everything… To take this necessary step back, we don’t need to travel to the other side of the planet, but to get back in touch with what characterises us: we are part of the living world and, as such, we need time to reconnect with nature, the great outdoors and our natural environment, even if it’s at the end of our street or our garden…

Elected representative’s view: Chloé RIDEL, Member of the European Parliament

It’s important to realise that individuals don’t just contribute to society by working or consuming. They also play a role in the construction, management and protection of their environment and in the preservation of common resources. These ‘common goods’ are the tangible and intangible resources (natural, cultural, social, etc.) that benefit us all and for which we are jointly responsible.

Through these shared resources, we can envisage a society where the collective takes precedence and where the shared objective is no longer just financial profit, which does not bring happiness to the greatest number of us, but only to a few. This model could take shape and be developed at a local level.

How can we break free from the usual frameworks of thought to change modes of governance?

Elected representatives, citizens and organisations need to break out of the traditional patterns of governance and think together about what constitutes the ‘commons’. This means identifying what we could share and deciding on the rules of reciprocity for managing them collectively. To do this, I have been promoting for years - with the association ‘Mieux Voter’ that I co-founded - voting systems that allow decisions to be taken by consensus, such as majority voting. We therefore need to help local authorities to take advantage of these voting methods to better involve the population and thus strengthen the collective. To do this, there are legal barriers to be broken down so that local referendum voting methods can be chosen by elected representatives.

Despite the dominant discourse based on individualism, a number of initiatives are already moving in the direction I have indicated. These include community land trusts (e.g. ‘Terre de liens’ for access to agricultural land) and citizen forestry trusts (e.g. ‘Cerf Vert’ for participatory forest management). CIGALES (Clubs d’investisseurs pour une gestion solidaire), SCOPs (Sociétés coopératives et participatives) and SCICs (Sociétés coopératives d’intérêt collectif) also show that companies can be created and prosper with motivations other than simple financial profit, by taking social and environmental values into account.

Why change course and adopt a different trajectory?

Because the society of capital and the private sector has shown that it does not meet the aspirations of the majority, such as the right to happiness for all. So we need to dream of possible alternatives, built around a positive, mobilising narrative that transforms ideas into concrete projects. This is what these initiatives are doing, by investing in areas long reserved for private ownership, such as land, savings and collective assets, and by fighting against the growing monopolisation of these resources by the private sector, as we typically see in the media sector.

The aim is to contribute to the well-being of all, by considering that money is a means to an end and not an end in itself. The priority then becomes the vehicle for collective fulfilment, over and above financial gain alone. Our current model has been too disappointing for us not to try and change it.

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