For his big return to the Upper House as Minister of State in charge of Overseas Territories, Manuel Valls is aware that the choice of the Prime Minister, François Bayrou, “honors” and “obligates” him. As soon as he took office, the former Prime Minister asked for new arbitrations “to give the Overseas budget completely exceptional treatment in the context we are experiencing”, he underlined, Wednesday evening, before senators at the resumption of parliamentary work on the finance bill.
According to the procedure, parliamentarians no longer have the possibility of re-submitting amendments on the mission, the government tabled around ten at the beginning of the month in order to raise the Overseas budget to “3.5 billion euros in commitment authorization and 3 billion in payment appropriations, an increase of 11% and 6% compared to the initial budget,” he recalled.
At the start of the evening, parliamentarians adopted several of these new amendments. One of them provides an envelope of 80 million to rebuild public buildings in New Caledonia, destroyed after the riots last May. It is in addition to another government amendment tabled in November which provides an envelope of 120 million to rebuild schools.
Another government amendment was adopted. It provides financial aid of 100 million euros for the community of Mayotte. The LR president of the overseas delegation, Micheline Jacques, insisted on respecting fairness between the different communities. “We must help New Caledonia as we must help Mayotte but all the overseas territories are in difficulty. We are going to take 400 million from the “overseas living conditions” line. The other territories will have to be able to assume it,” she warned.
-“It allows us to respond to a certain number of emergencies”
Another government amendment providing an envelope of 100 million euros to rebuild Mayotte after the passage of Cyclone Chido was also adopted.
The environmentalist senator, Akli Mellouli said that it was not necessary to “undress Paul to dress Jacques”. “By moving lines, we are not going to solve the overseas problem as a whole. We should have been able to re-table amendments on the revenue side,” he regretted.
“It’s not a question of “undressing Paul to dress Jacques”, defended Manuel Valls before adding: “We have increased these credits. This allows us to respond to a certain number of emergencies. We will have to go even further with regard to Mayotte.”
