“It is neither normal nor fair to show the municipalities as responsible for the deficit”

Invited to speak at the closing of 106^e congress of mayors of France, Thursday November 21, the Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, gave pledges to mayors angry at the “punctures” budgetary plans planned for 2025, by launching a major project on simplification, but without loosening the budgetary grip, their main demand. However, he assured that he was not “not normal or fair to show municipalities and local authorities as if they were responsible for the deficit; That’s not true.”

Recalling that he had to compose a budget in two weeks, Mr. Barnier recognized that this text was not “not perfect” and that it included “sometimes there are injustices or points to review”. Mayors and all communities protest against the 5 billion euros “savings” planned for 2025, for which they estimate the bill to be between 10 and 11 billion, and which they consider to be unsustainable levies. It is “first of all it is up to the State to assume responsibility for the current deficit”, assured Michel Barnier, without revealing how he would go about it.

In the spirit of the decentralization laws, Mr. Barnier touched a sensitive chord for the mayors, by ensuring that he wanted to reverse their feelings “to be under normative and financial supervision” of the State. Extolling the merits of the communes, an institution “profoundly modern”, “benchmark for our fellow citizens”he judged that their vocation was not to be “State subcontractors” more “more partners”. The first vice-president of the AMF, André Laignel, had previously called for “decolonize” communities “to finally open the time for local freedoms”.

“Reinforced room for maneuver”

The head of the executive responded by promising “less talkative laws, which stick to general objectives and which do not seek to regulate the details”. “We must put an end to normative inflation”insisted Michel Barnier, ensuring that the overtransposition of European directives would be “examined one by one” and that some would be “deleted”. He also announced “four important decisions (…) in the coming weeks ». A circular will be issued to ask administrations to propose as a priority laws which “set goals” et “leave local authorities room to interpret the rules”.

The role of the National Council for the Evaluation of Standards (CNEN) will also be increased to clarify the laws “well in advance of their presentation to Parliament” while the effects of the laws on communities will be integrated into their impact study. Finally, a simplification “from the stock of standards” will be carried out in matters of town planning and the environment. Wishing to give “more freedom and greater room for maneuver” to some 4,000 elected officials present, Michel Barnier announced on Wednesday that he supported a relaxation of the implementation of “zero net artificialization of soils” (ZAN); he specified the timetable in his speech on Thursday. “We will work to ensure that these new provisions are operational from the first half of 2025”he said.

The Prime Minister, however, recalled that it was not a question ” not [d’]abandon the goal » of the ZAN, but of the“adapt when necessary to achieve this objective”. The flagship measure of the bill carried by senators Jean-Baptiste Blanc (Les Républicains) and Guislain Cambier (Centrist Union) still intends to remove an intermediate objective aimed at halving the rate of artificialization during the 2021 decade -2031 compared to the previous decade.

“Good intentions”, “no answer on very concrete measures”

Another major demand from mayors fifteen months before the next municipal elections, the improvement of the conditions for exercising their mandate will be the subject of a text which will be debated in the National Assembly in February, on the basis of a proposal of Senate law which will be supplemented by points “in terms of promoting the connection with professional life, training and retraining”. Another guarantee given this time to rural municipalities, the extension of the parity list vote to municipalities with less than 1,000 inhabitants, while the Prime Minister reiterated his ” opening ” to a reflection on the prohibition of the accumulation of mandates.

In the introduction, Michel Barnier also mentioned the threats of censorship brandished by the left and the far right. “The time I have ahead of me depends on a possible coalition of opposites, if I may say so, in the National Assembly. I don't know if this will happen. I'm ready for it. I know that this is not what the French want, who today want stability, serenity”he added.

“The findings are the right ones, the stated intentions are the right ones (…), but on the very concrete measures of additional State levies (…), we did not get a response and what happens next will depend on what comes out of the discussion in the Senate”reacted the president of the AMF, David Lisnard. “The openness expressed by Michel Barnier on subjects linked to simplification or the status of elected officials does not change anything in the amount of the bill for communities, which is approaching 10 billion euros”added Sébastien Martin, president of Intercommunalités de France.

The government also relaunched, during the congress of mayors, the “Beauvau” of municipal police forces aimed at broadening the prerogatives of these police officers, unchanged for twenty-five years. This “Beauvau”, initiated by the former Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin and bringing together elected officials and unions, must result in a proposed law in 2025. Among the possible new prerogatives of municipal police officers is the possibility of establishing by trial verbal offenses for simple offences, to identify the identity of a suspect, to search the trunks of vehicles, to access more national files, or even to be equipped with drones or means of deencirclement.

In front of the mayors, the Secretary of State for Daily Security, Nicolas Daragon, himself a councilor of Valence, insisted on the importance of the principle of free administration of municipalities. “It is up to the mayors to decide what concerns staff, prerogatives or equipment” of their municipal police, he assured. “There will be no obligation. » “The State must not impose anything”insisted the minister and mayor, explaining that the objective was to provide mayors with a “toolbox” from which each elected official will be able to draw.