64 elected officials spoke out in favor of this roadmap providing for 82 million euros in savings next year, while demonstrators expressed their concern.
The 2025 budget of Pays de la Loire was adopted on Friday by the regional council at the end of a session with tense discussions, the opposition decrying drastic cuts in culture, agriculture or sport, according to a journalist from the AFP on site. With 64 votes for, 27 votes against and 3 abstentions, the 93 elected officials and regional president Christelle Morançais (Horizons) adopted this budget at the Nantes regional hotel.
While the drop in state aid for local finances represents 40 million euros for the Pays de la Loire, Christelle Morançais announced going beyond, with 82 million euros less for the 2025 budget, causing an outcry, particularly in the world of culture. “It is a budget of savings, strong political choices for the future and refocusing on our priority skills”argued the elected official in a press release published at the end of the vote, considering that “the sense of responsibility prevailed over attacks, caricatures and lies”.
“Betrayal budget”
It is “a budget of betrayal (…) and renunciation with irreversible consequences”declared elected official Pascale Hameau (Les Écologues) during the session. “You take responsibility for shattering lives (…) you carry out what we call a social plan”added elected official Céline Véron (Place Publique). The skirmishes in the hemicycle have multiplied between elected officials, some pointing “nameless violence” with regard to Christelle Morançais, others emphasizing “contempt” and “calls for lynching”.
Outside, a few hundred people demonstrated in front of the regional hotel, chanting slogans against a budget “criminal” for the culture sector, one of the sectors most affected by budget cuts, like agriculture. There were more than 2,400 people demonstrating the day before, at the start of the budget review, and more than 3,000 at the end of November.
“Concretely, this means that within two weeks we will lose two thirds of the subsidies we receive from the region, or 30% of our annual budget”worried Jérémy Fabre, director of Maison Gracq in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, which regularly welcomes writers in residence. “We can’t cancel everything at the last minute about writing residencies, literary events. We are forced to be in deficit.” For Juliette Béranger, from Plongeoir, the National Circus Center based in Le Mans (Sarthe), the voted budget means “100,000 euros less in 2025”. “It’s an entire ecosystem that is weakened”she regretted.
At the end of the vote, only a few dozen demonstrators were still chanting their anger in front of the regional hall. Joanna Bartowiak, who works in cinema, regretted “a terrible decision that will have an impact for the entire region.” “We often talk about France which shines internationally thanks to its culture. Today, it shines a little less brightly”she assured.
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