Page 65 - U4SSC Simple ways to be smart

Results

The following are examples of cities that have used these structured approaches to better
understand their crisis management processes.

• IPSN Fontenay-aux Roses analysed relevant social and behavioural aspects of communication
and identified behavioural insights to improve communication campaigns.

• Joué-les-Tours, the largest suburb of the city of Tours with 37 500 inhabitants (in 2016), examined
what the actors employed by towns and involved in the emergency management thought
about the emergency response to the crisis caused by the pollution of the city’s drinking water
in 1997.
• Toulouse, the capital of the French region of Occitanie with 479 553 inhabitants (in 2017),
used this approach to conduct a sociological survey on the impact of the explosion at the AZF
fertilizer factory in 2001 and observe in situ emergency services at the public hospital.

The benefits reported by cities include the imagining of new infrastructures to replace damaged
ones. In Toulouse, the damaged site has been replaced by a medical centre. Social networks have
densified as NGOs were created in the area most affected to help the vulnerable. These NGOs
became permanent and were still active in 2014. In municipalities, new services of crisis prevention
were created providing both better ways to deal with a crisis when it occurs, as well as implementing
prevention mechanisms. For example, at Joué-les-Tours, the sites that water is sourced from have
been diversified. A database of disaster responses has been compiled for further research and
analysis. An unexpected consequence was to infuse a spirit of prevention among the residents
about potential accidents and the need to prevent them.

Keys to success

The following have made these analyses of crisis situations effective:

• Involve both local and national offices to share information and lessons learned (in France a
disconnect between state and mayor’s offices has hampered crisis management).
• Support from the municipalities and a genuine desire to change an organizational dysfunction.

• Identifying micro-mistakes that accumulate to make the situation impossible to manage.

• This process worked in middle-sized cities but may be less effective in larger cities where city
functions have a high degree of independence and it may be more difficult to make a holistic
evaluation.

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