Stéphane Place (correspondent in Bordeaux), edited by Gauthier Delomez / Photo credits: Philippe LOPEZ / AFP
09:00, November 1, 2024
The government is asking local authorities to find at least five billion euros in savings to complete the 2025 budget. In Gironde, such a plan worries local elected officials who fear having to make painful decisions.
Five billion euros is the effort requested by the government from local authorities as part of its finance bill for 2025. A blow that amounts to a real sledgehammer for the mayor of Bordeaux, Pierre Hurmic. “15 million euros, for example, represents what school meals cost the city. It is also the payroll of all our municipal police and our mediators,” he told Europe 1.
“80 million euros to be found in the departmental budget”
Like the environmentalist mayor, many local elected officials in the region are alarmed by this request for additional savings. At the departmental hotel, the calculations worry the president of Gironde, Jean-Luc Gleyze, just as much. “It’s 80 million euros that will have to be found in the departmental budget,” he notes.
A sum which “practically represents four new colleges that we could not build. That is 2,000 people with disabilities that we would stop funding to accommodate them”, lists the socialist president.
The dreaded painful choices
The mayor of various centers of Talence, Emmanuel Sallaberry, also denounces these drains. “2 million euros next year, 2.5 million in 2026 and 3 million in 2027,” he reports. According to the councilor, “2 million euros is one year of operation of the swimming pool, or 90% of the subsidies given to all associations by the town hall”. “I don’t know what to take away as a public service, and I have no desire to increase taxes,” supports the mayor.
In summary, from the right as well as the left, beyond political labels, local elected officials fear having to make painful choices and the impact of these savings on public procurement.
