students and professors shared on the savings imposed on local authorities

While the National Assembly rejected, this Tuesday, November 12, the “revenue” part of the 2025 finance bill, what view do law students and professors have on this text? At the faculty of Brive (Corrèze), it is the question of budget cuts imposed on local authorities that divides.

Gathered in the corridors of the Brive-la-Gaillarde law school, third-year undergraduate students are leaving a course devoted to civil liberties. The conversation that animates them, however, revolves around another subject: the finance bill for 2025, rejected at first reading, this Tuesday, November 12, by the National Assembly.

From the Bourbon Palace to Corrèze, a sticking point crystallizes the debates: the budget cuts imposed on local authorities, which should amount to five billion euros. “I believe that local authorities do not have to contribute to this effortsays Romain. But from a pragmatic point of view, we will have to make up the deficit.“This position sums up the tension of local elected officials.

The share of local authorities represents only 9% of the public debt, compared to 91% for that of the State. “The difficulty we face today is that the State shares the miserysays Marie-Christine Steckel-Assouère, lecturer in public law. As he has less money, he will help local authorities less, and as he has fewer means to help the most disadvantaged, he is at the same time asking local authorities to join in this national solidarity.“

Caught in this “scissors effect”, municipalities, departments and other regions will have to adapt. The different hypotheses herald perilous adjustments:

For the moment, elected officials are waiting for the law to be passed. Some of them have already taken the lead, like the department of Haute-Vienne, which announced it would reduce the aid allocated to associations and municipalities.

Tags France Vienne