1913 2013
14 | Centenary of the international municipal movement · Centenaire du mouvement municipal international · Centenario del movimiento municipal internacional
This understanding was suspicious of systems, including the market economy and the authoritarian state, and believed in “here and now” revolution and changes in consciousness. Here, new ways of approaching the theoretical importance of history, culture and genuine politics were developed. All authority structures and establishment party politics - hierarchical forms, and manipulation - were questioned, and participatory, and decentralized forms were strongly favoured. In parallel to these developments, the FMCU’s Paris Congress of 1967, evaluated the previous ten years of the organisation’s efforts as follows: “Decentralization and free action of local governments in their actions; the right of citizens to move and meet freely; the permanent fight against all forms of racism, fascism, imperialism and discrimination; call for halt in the arms race.” ▲ Giorgio La Pira, mayor of Florence, Italy and FMCU-UTO
Georgia La Pira, the legendary president of FMCU underlines this approach the 1970 Leningrad Congress: “...Through the coordinated action of cities... their unifying, pacifying and liberating goals in the world... let us unite the cities to unify nations and create links through the cooperation... of the North and South, East and West...” FMCU has developed different instruments to better serve its aims. In this context, the Charter for the Mediterranean (to fight pollution and support local economies) was adopted at the 1973 FMCU Beirut Congress, which led to the creation of the Union of Mediterranean Towns (UMT) in 1976 at the Rijeka Conference. UMT’s May 1980 Istanbul Conference created the Economic Co-operation secretariat in Istanbul. In 1989 United Cities Development (Cites Unies Developpment) was created as a specialized agency for the implementation of the FMCU’s objectives.
Metropolis The mid-1980s saw another development on the scene of internal municipal movement: the creation of the World Association of Major Metropolises (Metropolis). Metropolis was initiated by M.Giraud, then president of the Regional Council for France’s Ile-de France region in 1984.The constitutive meeting, or the official creation of Metropolis, took place in Montreal in 1985. The main objective of Metropolis is given as follows: