Gérard Larcher wants the effort requested from communities to be reduced to 2 billion euros

According to the President (Les Républicains, LR) of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, the budgetary effort requested from local authorities by Michel Barnier's government with the aim of restoring public accounts is too significant. In an interview with Sunday newspaper posted online on Saturday November 16, he estimates that it must be reduced to 2 billion euros, rather than the 5 billion planned by Matignon.

« Il (…) missing 3 [milliards d’euros] compared to what the government planned. We will find them elsewhere”says Mr. Larcher in this interview published a few days after the Senate took up the examination of the State and Social Security budgets in committee. “Communities represent 70% of public investment”he argues, also affirming that they “are not guilty of the widening deficit”, “don’t mind [à l’ancien ministre de l’économie] Bruno Le Maire ».

If the head of government, Michel Barnier, “took a certain number of steps towards the departments”, “we must also look at the levy on revenues for 450 large communities, often levied on questionable criteria”assures Mr. Larcher. “The Senate Finance Committee is in the process of fundamentally reshaping these financing mechanisms to protect departments and municipalities”he specifies.

Opposed to an increase in electricity taxes

Mr. Larcher also says he is opposed “in order to preserve the purchasing power of the French”to a possible increase in electricity taxes beyond their pre-Covid level – a measure removed during the debate in the National Assembly. “The subject, it seems to me, is rather to establish fairness between the taxation of gas and electricity”in the name of restoring public finances and out of ecological concern, he explains.

Asked about another sensitive measure, that concerning the reduction in exemptions from employer contributions, rejected at the Palais-Bourbon, Mr. Larcher judges that these exemptions must indeed be better “framed” but what“we must undoubtedly maintain the reductions in the minimum wage”.

He also says he is generally in favor of the compromise solution presented Monday by the president of the Republican Right group in the National Assembly, Laurent Wauquiez, concerning the postponement of the indexation of pensions, even if the measure “deserves to be clarified with regard to the level of “small pensions””he explains.

He also takes up the proposal of the Senate Social Affairs Committee to set up a “solidarity contribution” dedicated to financing measures in favor of old age, in the form of a package of seven additional annual hours worked without remuneration by each employee.

A door open to proportional

Mr. Larcher also confirms the upcoming inclusion on the Senate agenda of a proposed law on immigration “which the former president of the law commission François-Noël Buffet had prepared and which takes up many of the amendments which had been censored by the Constitutional Council for questions of form”. “Tightening of family reunification rules, reinstatement of the offense of illegal residence and re-examination of land law, in particular. This text had been voted by the previous relative majority in the National Assembly.underlines Mr. Larcher.

On the subject of proportional representation, the hobby horse of the President (Renaissance) of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, Mr. Larcher does not completely close the door. “Proportionality cannot be done without restoring the possibility for a deputy or senator to combine his national mandate with a local executive mandate” et “we must base the vote on departmental lists”he decides.