The government has put an end to the public interest group (GIP) France Tiers-Lieux, which coordinates the support policy for some 3,500 third places in the country, more than a third of which are in rural areas, combining coworking spaces, cultural wastelands or digital manufacturing workshops (fablabs).
Created in 2022, initially for three years, then extended for one year, this GIP officially ceased its activity on June 29.
The Ministry of Regional Planning tries to reassure by emphasizing that “the national and regional activities of third places will remain supported by the State”. He affirms that the National Agency for Territorial Cohesion (ANCT) “remains in contact with all stakeholders and the National Association of Third Places”.
What form of support in the future?
According to a person familiar with the matter, this disappearance nevertheless occurs “in the absence of any public communication”, “without any real continuity strategy” and “puts an end to eight years of progressive structuring of a public policy of national interest”.
“The State is simultaneously removing all the instruments which made it possible to implement support for third places and to organize it on a national scale”, assures this source, citing “dedicated credits, interministerial governance, engineering, teams with expertise and support for communities”. This while “more than 300 million euros were invested by the State”, underlined this source.
For its part, the government recalled that third places had been “strongly helped in their start-up as part of the recovery plan” and that they could “remain supported by the common law systems of the State, as well as by the communities”.
The extinction of this public interest group echoes that of the GIP Épau, whose 10 national programs supported the adaptation of territories to climate change, which will result in the dismissal of its 21 agents. For twenty years, the GIP Épau has been carrying out action research programs on themes as diverse as housing, architecture, town planning and ecological transition.
The government, on the other hand, announced on Friday the extension until the end of the municipal mandate of the “Villages of the Future” program to support municipalities with less than 3,500 inhabitants, while specifying that the new integrations will be carried out “according to the principle of one entrant for one leaver”.
