Resigning ministers’ remarks “cheeky”or even “irresponsible”, chiffres “fallacious” : Accused by Bercy of causing public accounts to drift due to spending deemed excessive, local authorities counter-attacked on Tuesday 3 September, calling into question “the disastrous situation” state finances.
In a letter addressed on Monday to the chairs of the finance committees of the National Assembly and the Senate, Bruno Le Maire, resigning Minister of Economy and Finance, and Thomas Cazenave, Minister Delegate for Public Accounts, considered that the “main risk” for the public accounts for the year 2024 was linked to a “extremely rapid increase in local authority spending”.
These local authority expenses alone could “degrade the 2024 accounts by 16 billion euros”which should further increase France’s public deficit, already targeted by a European procedure for excessive deficit, according to Bercy.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers Bruno Le Maire announces a new slippage in public finances
Add to your selections
“It is surprising that resigning ministers allow themselves to make judgments using completely fallacious figures”reacted to the Agence France-Presse (AFP) André Laignel, president of the Local Finance Committee, who does not understand “where do the 16 billion come from” mentioned by the ministers.
In a press release, the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) denounces the situation “disastrous state accounts” and further underlines that the debt of the communities “has been stable for 30 years and has even decreased slightly, going from 9% of GDP in 1995 to 8.9% in 2023”. “The resigning government seems to be unaware of its own misdeeds”added the France urbaine association, when Intercommunalités de France sees in the ministerial letter a desire “to divert attention from the state’s budgetary slippages”.
“Demagogic and false”
Local government spending represented 19% of public spending in 2022, compared to 40% for the State, according to INSEE. But if the State deficit reached 155.7 billion euros in 2023, up 7.3 billion euros over one year, the financing requirement of local authorities, which are obliged to vote for a balanced budget and can only resort to borrowing for investment expenditure, represented 5.5 billion, according to the Observatory of Local Public Finances (OFGL).
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers Budget: alert on local authority finances
Add to your selections
In 2023, local authorities’ operating expenses increased more than revenues, observes the OFGL, recalling the “context of marked inflation”while investment expenditure increased by 6.7%. According to the AMF, this is due in particular to the “double pressure from the measures to revalue civil servants’ salaries decided by the State and the increase in the cost of energy and current purchases”.
The powerful association also cites new expenses “that the government and parliament have placed in the hands of the communities” in the environmental, transport or early childhood fields. “Sixteen billion is a huge number. We are outraged that figures are being thrown around that are neither verified nor discussed.”sharply criticized Antoine Homé, co-president of the AMF finance committee, judging the figure “demagogic and false”. “We are in a period where this resigning government should restrain itself in its public expression, I am truly shocked”he added.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers In the midst of a political crisis, the government is considering postponing the closing of the budget until 2025
Add to your selections
Stéphane Perrin, from Régions de France, points out that the regions “have borne the costs of inflation on public transport, on energy bills in high schools as well as the increase in interest rates”. “It is frankly irresponsible to blame us for the deterioration of the nation’s finances.”he thunders. Others like Christophe Bouillon, president of the Association of Small Towns of France, point out the contradictions between “the injunction of public authorities to invest in the ecological transition and the regular criticism of spending too much”.
According to the elected official, mayor of Barentin (Seine-Maritime), the expenses are also linked to “municipal cycles”. “We generally spend two years at the beginning of the mandate writing the projects, two years launching the markets, then come two years of implementation which constitute as many investment peaks”he observes.
Newsletter
” Policy “
Every week, “Le Monde” analyzes the issues of political news for you.
Register
While France still does not have a government, Villes de France believes that the 2025 budget “is being prepared in the greatest opacity”fearing “penalizing arbitrations for the territories”including a “budget cut for the green fund”.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers Budget 2025: “It is not forbidden to dream of parties responsible enough to get out of the impasse”
Add to your selections
