It was supposed to be the driving force behind the conversion of the Fessenheim area (Haut-Rhin), but it has become a fiasco: the Novarhena company, created at the initiative of the public authorities, dissolved itself on Friday, without having carried out a single project but having wasted half a million euros.
February 2019: two years after the presidential decision to close the country’s oldest nuclear power plant, “a territory project” is signed with great pomp in the presence of the Minister of Ecological Transition, François de Rugy, local communities and even some German authorities.
They all share a common ambition: to develop the business to make the Fessenheim area the “European benchmark for a low-carbon economy”, and to compensate for the loss of 2,000 direct and indirect jobs caused by the shutdown of the two nuclear reactors.
To achieve this, and in accordance with the decision of Sébastien Lecornu, the former Secretary of State for Ecology, a semi-public company (SEM) will be created: a private company whose capital is mostly held by public bodies.
Called Novarhena, its mission will be to “lead the planning and economic development projects” and to “concretely implement” the 40 actions presented in the territory project.
The first of these actions, and the main objective of SEM Novarhena, is the development of a new business park, called EcoRhena, which should “attract job-creating companies”, “over a potential area of 220 hectares”, along the Grand Canal d’Alsace, parallel to the Rhine.
But by 2020, the surface of the future zone is divided by four. Because of “biodiversity reservoirs” and “ecological corridors”, the perimeter dedicated to the reception of companies is reduced from 220 to 56 hectares.
At the time, local elected officials were outraged that the state was not granting any exemptions to environmental rules to promote local economic recovery.
“With the closure of the power plant, we were hoping for a benevolent look from the State to develop this area, but we have not been given any gifts,” regrets the mayor of Fessenheim, Claude Brender.
– “Nothing concrete” –
April 2021: Novarhena is finally created, with one million euros of capital, 80% of which is public money, provided by the Grand-Est Region, the Caisse des Dépôts, the Department, EDF, the Chamber of Commerce and the Mulhouse Agglomeration. The remaining 20% comes from French banks and German local authorities.
A year and a half later, Novarhena has no achievements to his credit. “Nothing concrete”, concedes Lara Million, departmental and regional councillor, propelled in spite of herself president of this company at the end of 2021.
However, Novarhena has spent almost half of its capital, i.e. 480,000 euros, on operating costs. “It’s about 70% of the salary of the general manager,” Xavier Marques, admits Lara Million.
The recruitment, for 5,500 euros net per month, of this former marketing director at Adidas, and ex-manager of Pataugas (footwear), had however made some managers tick. “He probably has some skills, but in terms of planning… Does he know what a concession is?
of development? It does not give confidence”, underlines a source close to the file.
Xavier Marques did not wish to answer questions from AFP.
Aware of the mess, Lara Million also discovered that, for 56 hectares and not 220, the local elected officials had no intention of calling on a company to develop the area. “As soon as I understood the outcome, I informed the partners, we decided to dissolve the SEM” Novarhena, she explains. To this end, an extraordinary general assembly is called for Friday.
– “Government blackmail” –
Locally, this fiasco irritates. “When the SEM was created, we already knew that there would only be about 60 hectares to develop,” points out local MP Raphaël Schellenberger (LR).
There is this blackmail by the government to say: “This is the tool for the requalification of Fessenheim, we are committed, we must do it. We have to do it. We committed to closing (the plant)? It must be closed. Did we promise to create a SEM? We have to create it. Does it make sense? That’s not the question,” he said.
The only source of satisfaction for the territory is that the EcoRhena business park will soon be completed, albeit in a reduced size. A sign of the quality of the preparatory work done by the local elected officials in conjunction with the decentralized services of the State, the environmental authorization granted by the prefect, which is essential for starting the work, was not contested by the environmental associations.
On site, the preventive excavations and the first clearing operations have begun. “I am optimistic, we have contacts with interested companies”, says Gérard Hug, president of the Pays Rhin-Brisach community of municipalities, which includes Fessenheim. “We’ve never been closer to good news.”
