the damning economic assessment of Anne Hidalgo at Paris town hall

As the 2026 municipal elections approach, and while the various candidates for Paris mayor are quietly coming out of the woods, the thorny subject of managing the capital's finances is coming back to the forefront. This Tuesday, Anne Hidalgo – who has just announced to Monde his decision not to run for a third term – claims to have “accounts in balance”. The proof, according to her, is that they are “certified by an auditor and validated by rating agencies”. A week earlier, his former first deputy and former finance deputy of the capital, Emmanuel Grégoire, had also presented himself as a fervent defender of the municipal team's balance sheet and in particular its financial aspect. By ensuring without blinking that the City, “very well managed”, didn't have “no sustainability problem”. A sentence that can make you smile when you know that the city's debt has more than doubled since the arrival of Anne Hidalgo at its head in 2014, going from 4 to…