Jean-Marie Bernard, president (LR) of the Hautes-Alpes Department, is not the type to leave his tongue in his pocket. Many remember his nationally publicized fights, notably in favor of a return to a 90 km/h limit on the roads or against wolf predation – he even offered, in 2020, a canine tail to the prefect at the time, which earned him a conviction. But yesterday, after the Prime Minister's speech on the Departments, he was not prepared to bang his fist on the table. A relief, undoubtedly equal to his concern: “I am delighted to find in him a Prime Minister who is ready to fully work with the Departments, in order to allow them to be masters of their destinieshe says, in a press release addressed to the press. I particularly applaud his statement when he said 'I do not accept that the Departments have the feeling of becoming simple operators of the State. However, this is the feeling that we can have, particularly since the Departments no longer have fiscal leverage.“
“Reverse the trend”
President Bernard is also delighted that Michel Barnier “intends to reverse the trend which means that as the State decides, departmental finances suffer“. In the hemicycle in Gap, there was a lot of talk about it a few days ago, during the budgetary orientation debate. The elected officials, who recalled the “good health“of the Department's accounts, had recorded a contribution, for 2025, to the recovery of the country's public finances to the tune of 4.6 million euros, or 2% of the community's operating revenue.
