He is a native of the country who could see himself taking the town hall after 25 years without alternation. Antoine Kliber32 years old, insurer in Compiègne, did not arrive Ribécourt-Dreslincourt than in 2017. But the Deux Vallées, and the Thourottois in particular, is “my home”, he explains. He inherited his eastern-sounding surname from his Polish great-grandfather and from his “grandfather born in Ribécourt-Dreslincourt when the family arrived in France in the 1920s”.
His arrival in Ribécourt-Dreslincourt “a shock”
The one who grew up in Thourotte therefore returned to the family land a few years ago after living in Attichy. And he describes it as “a shock”. “At first, my wife and I wanted to leave the town, we didn’t necessarily feel good there.” The one who has “always been interested in politics”, even if he “is not involved”, finally chose to stay. “I told myself that if I had to get involved, it would be here: it’s a good opportunity to try to change things, to change everyday life,” he believes. What marked him when he arrived in Ribécourt-Dreslincourt? “First of all, road insecurity,” he says without hesitation. This father of two children, “one boy, one girl”, noticed, in his neighborhood, “big problems with cars passing at crazy speed”. “Every morning when walking my daughter to school, it’s the same thought: “There’s going to be an accident, she’s going to get hit”.”
As a father, Antoine Kliber claims to have also been confronted “like many parents with childcare problems”. “Crèches, etc., it’s very complicated,” he assures. A situation, however, which is not exclusive to Ribécourt-Dreslincourt.
He has been attending municipal councils “for three years”
After these first observations, the thirty-year-old decided “to attend municipal councils, to take an interest, to see what is happening there”. Since 1999, a quarter of a century, the council has been led by the left and mayor Jean-Guy Létoffé. Today, Antoine Kliber would like to “give the municipality a facelift”. However, do not count on him to directly attack the incumbent mayor. “I’m not here to give him a hard time: he put energy into the city and we can’t take it away from him,” he says. “But maybe we would have done it differently or we could do it differently,” he said. “Perhaps this is the time to say “Thank you Mr. Létoffé, you have done a lot, but we want to propose another vision, it is up to the residents to say if they want it: and if they are very happy with you, in this case, no worries.”
A team start
“We”: Antoine Kliber, by declaring his desire for town hall, is already presenting himself, more than a year from the deadline, with the embryo of a team. “I started to bring people together, I have a few people around me and it happened quite easily with people who have the same desire for something new in Ribécourt-Dreslincourt,” he explains. If at this stage, he does not “give any names”, Antoine Kliber is willing to detail a few profiles: “I have the luxury of being able to select the people with whom I want to work, and I have people with interesting experiences : people who work in town planning – this is very important at the scale of a municipality –, in ecology and in particular the recycling of chemical products (three companies in the Ribécourt industrial zone are classified Seveso high threshold , Editor’s note) but not in ecological extremism,” he argues in particular. A list which includes “long-time Ribécourt residents, but also people with a fresher outlook, and above all people from all walks of life,” he promises.
From the coming weeks, the work of the declared candidate and his first running mates will consist of “listening to and meeting the residents”. “I do not want to propose ideas or projects which would have no relation to the concerns of the inhabitants: our little wishes or desires are not the most important, what we need is to already put in place the little things which can change the daily lives of the inhabitants of this city,” he believes. Antoine Kliber, however, already has the intuition that the arrival of waves of residents in the new district, the Saint-Eloi village, “is a turning point not to be missed”. “We have around 450 housing units delivered or in the process of being delivered, which means an influx of already 1,000 to 1,500 people: the previous municipality accepted this subdivision, we must now do everything possible to welcome them well, not to put them in any way. side”. Avoid doing, in short, “what is happening today with Dreslincourt which is a bit of a village apart from Ribécourt, a bit neglected”, notes the candidate.
The irremovable Jean-Guy Létoffé?
Faced with the historic Jean-Guy Létoffé, the only mayor known by the youngest voters, the young wolf Kliber knows that he will not have an easy time: “Everyone knows Mr. Létoffé obviously, and “It’s normal, but there are undoubtedly people who are fed up with the policies in place, with those who have been there for years.”
To convince, Antoine Kliber’s list will begin public meetings from March.
