Question 5915 — local authorities

Summary

Mr. Yoann Gillet questions the Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty about the Government's desire, which he expressed in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche, to make significant savings on the community budget. To use the terms used by the Minister, the Government wishes to “scrub” the expenditure of local authorities, with the aim of reduction of the deficit and therefore of the public debt. The MP considers these statements to be contemptuous and unfair. Firstly, the Minister's statement reflects a profound misunderstanding of the functioning of local authorities: they are legally obliged to vote for balanced budgets and their capacity to take on debt is limited to strictly financing investments. Under these conditions, it appears difficult to blame communities for the surge in public debt, which essentially comes from the State itself. Secondly, wanting to cut local authorities' spending in a context of galloping inflation and exploding energy costs would undermine their already severely limited room for maneuver and would have a negative impact on their ability to invest in their territories and communities. administered, while threatening the existence of local public services. Questioning the “usefulness” of community spending amounts to implying that public money would not be used wisely at the local level. The MP protests against this type of reasoning and wishes to underline the commitment and seriousness of local elected officials, who can only be offended by the declarations of the Minister of the Economy. Finally, these declarations infringe the principle set out in article 72 paragraph 3 of the Constitution, which states that: “Under the conditions provided for by law, these communities are administered freely by elected councils and have regulatory power for the exercise of their powers”. The State's desire to control the expenditure of local authorities seems particularly worrying and opens the door to their being placed under guardianship. The MP wishes to guarantee sound management of public funds and invites the Minister to work on reducing unnecessary State expenditure and to truly fight against fraud which threatens the Nation's budgetary balance. In addition, the MP asks the Minister to clearly specify as soon as possible to the national representation and local elected officials his intentions regarding the system that he plans to “control community spending” with an obvious concern for transparency. He also asks him to discuss with all the local actors concerned (and not only with his political friends), so that the planned system adapts to local realities and not just to Bercy's cynical and very inappropriate calculations.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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