In France, mayors are meeting near Paris from this Tuesday for their traditional Congress and if there is one subject that will come up in the discussions, it is that of the 2025 budget. To straighten out public finances , the French government is asking for an effort of five billion euros from local authorities. Town halls are therefore targeted, but also departments and regions.
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After a 2023 edition dedicated to “communities under attack”, against a backdrop of increasing attacks against elected officials, the 106th congress of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) intends to recall the importance of the municipal and intercommunal level, “pole of stability” in times of national political uncertainty. Entitled “The communes… Fortunately! », this key political meeting is particularly anticipated this year.
The communities have nothing to do with the state deficit, it’s a bit like having an easy scapegoat.
Local authorities, adjustment variable of the 2025 budget?
A contribution from “ five billion euros » is asked of them, either “ 12.5% of the overall savings effort » of 40 billion euros, but the associations of elected officials estimate the bill at 11 billion euros. But the Senate should decide in favor of reducing the contribution to two billion euros, said Sunday on France 3 the president of the centrist group in the Senate, Hervé Marseille (UDI).
At the beginning of September, the accusation of having caused the deficit to slip away from the previous tenants of Bercy had ignited the powder. Between the obligation to vote for balanced budgets and a stable debt for 30 years, the AMF had pounded the criticisms made against the communities.
Savings measures of unprecedented scale
A month later, the Court of Auditors’ proposal to reduce their workforce by 100,000 civil servants to avoid duplication and save 4.1 billion euros, then the announcement of savings measures of an unprecedented scale on a single budgetary exercise had further added fuel to the fire.
In the midst of preparing the budgets, resounding outings from angry elected officials abound: the sale of a prefecture in Le Bon coin in Haute-Marne, demonstrations in Toulouse as well as in Seine-et-Marne, banners on the Town Hall of Bordeaux, call for a “generalized resignation” in Verdun (Meuse)…
The Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, partially put out the fire on Friday by promising the departmental stratum an effort “ very significantly » reduced due to the explosion of their social spending.