The members of the Renew Europe in the European Committee of the Regions (Renew Europe CoR) at local and regional levels are at the forefront of the fight against the COVID-19 outbreak.

In their towns, cities and regions, Renew Europe CoR members are putting in place additional and extraordinary measures, on top of the implemented national measures. The Renew Europe CoR database offers more information on these measures.

To give a concrete example of this important work at local and regional levels, Renew Europe CoR recently spoke with one of its members, Vincent Chauvet, EDP and Mouvement Démocrate Mayor of Autun (France) through Skype. From the very beginning of this crisis, Vincent Chauvet has responded to the challenge at hand by taking concrete measures.

How did your citizens respond?

We had a lot of positive feedback, people felt supported by our measures, and we even had a large solidarity response as we put in place a “Citizen Reserve” where people can volunteer to for instance bring meals to needy people, and different types of help. In a few hours, we’ve had more than 150 people who subscribed to help our citizens. Besides that, just like many cities in France and Europe, we did sometimes have some trouble to have the confinement/Stay at home respected; to explain that delivery services are indispensable, that one should do grocery shopping just once per week and that one shouldn’t just go out for a walk. We have a beautiful historic town, so the temptation to have a walk is definitely there; so we need to repeat the rules and that’s something I do in my weekly Thursday evening Facebook live sessions.