Nantes

Nantes is a city of approximately 315,000 inhabitants within its city municipality boundary (Ville de Nantes)and approximately 660,000 in the wider metropolitan area (Nantes Métropole). Located within the Pays de La Loire region in West of France, Nantes sees increased levels of redevelopment and regeneration, following the demise of traditional local industries, including shipbuilding and maintenance. The growing local economy is balanced with tertiary activities (IT services, Biotechnology, Financial activities) and industry (Aeronautics, Food processing, Mechanical materials), which makes Nantes Metropole a prosperous area. As a sign of economic vitality, four competitiveness clusters directly involved in the Nantes Saint‐Nazaire metropolitan area have been certified by the French government: Atlantic Biotherapies, Civil Engineering Eco-construction, EMC2 and Images et Réseaux. Nantes Métropole has also become a major hub of higher education.

The territory offers a considerable range of training courses in many fields. A real asset for students and a pool of skills recognised for local businesses. As a land of innovation, the Nantes metropolis also has a high research potential. Nantes was awarded European Green Capital by the European Commission for its efforts to reduce air pollution and CO2 emissions, for its high-quality and well‐managed public transport system, and for its biodiversity.

Culture also plays an essantial rôle for making the city attractive from outside and pleasant to live in for the inhabitants.

In November 2014, Nantes was one of 14 French cities awarded with the ‘French Tech’ label, a label assigned to French metropolises recognised for their start‐up ecosystem. ‘French Tech’ aims to provide a strong common visual identity to French start‐ups as well as to promote entrepreneurial exchange between them.

In 2019 Nantes was designed as a «European Capital for Innovation».

A big ambition for Education:

The municipality has no juridiction over educational activities within schools nor is involved in teaching or curriculum, however they can propose activities during school time to complete the education offer for children and are also in charge of “extra- school time activities” inside schools. After 2013 the extra-school time was enlarged with this reform, and municipalities have the responsibility to organize this time with activities adapted to schools but with a general organisation at the same time. Also, when there is no juridiction or presence in curriculum for a subject/matter, then cities can propose activities in that given field.

The actions we developed with ON BOARD project will be a kind of “compost” to enrich the collaboration between stakeholders in the updating process of our local Plan (PEDT) particularly about the following topics:

→ reduction of inequalities

→ health and well-being of children

→ skills for XXI’s century