“We must give up square meters and reduce energy expenditure in our buildings. It is virtuous for the planet, it is also for public finances,” declared the Minister of Public Accounts, Thomas Cazenave, in an interview with The gallery this Sunday, April 7. Nothing surprising in this declaration, since the executive is looking for savings after the unprecedented slippage of the deficit to 5.5% in 2023. In total, the French State owns more than 190,000 buildings and more than 30,000 land for a value estimated at around 73 billion euros.
“Last year, the results were remarkable. We sold 645 properties for a value of 280 million euros, an increase in revenue of 37%,” added the Minister Delegate.
If the amount of disposals is higher than that of 2022, it is nevertheless lower than the average for 10 years (355 million euros). The minister gave the examples of the former Nanterre architecture school, sold for 11 million euros, a holiday center in Saint-Raphaël for 9 million or even a building of the Ministry of Culture in Paris for 65 million euros. These results are, according to him, “very encouraging for the future.”
The stock of transferable goods “reaches its limits”
As noted, however, the Court of Auditors in its latest report on the State’s real estate policypublished in December 2023, “the portion of proceeds from disposals dedicated to debt reduction has been eliminated since 2017. The corresponding revenues are now pooled for the benefit of all ministries.”
Furthermore, according to this same report, “with the exhaustion of the stock of goods likely to be sold”, the logic which prevailed until then of selling goods to recover “resources to finance acquisition or renovation operations “, has “reached its limits today, “the revenue and expenditure of the CAS (special allocation account which is funded by State real estate sales and state royalties, Editor’s note), following a trend for several years on the decline.”
According to 2019 report from the state real estate departmentthe “stock of state-owned goods for sale decreased by 20%” between January 2013 and January 2019.
Reduce the surface area occupied by the administration
The Court of Auditors therefore notes that new resources could be found by reducing the occupied areas. While the ministerial ambition is to reduce 25% of the surface area occupied by the administration, Thomas Cazenave said in his interview with the gallery that “by 2032, the surface area per agent will increase from 24 square meters to 16 square meters”. “We are not only going to sell space. We are also going to leave premises currently rented”, in order to save “1 billion euros annually in maintenance expenses and rent”.
Among the other avenues mentioned by the minister, the rental of certain spaces, while according to him the “good management” of last year made it possible to “increase by 20% the gains from the rents paid by the occupants of the real estate stock. That’s 1 billion euros in revenue.”