2023-05-16 00:30:10
Three deputy mayors (Europe Ecologie-Les Verts, EELV) of Grenoble, Eric Piolle, were deprived of their delegations to the municipal council, Monday, May 15. Two months ago, Anouche Agobian, Maxence Alloto and Hakim Sabri had publicly expressed their reservations following the vote for a property tax increase. They were replaced by two new deputies and a delegated municipal councilor.
In total, seven elected officials leave the majority of Mr. Piolle and will create a new group called Grenoble Démocratie Ecologie Solidarité (GDES).
This break comes after the vote, on March 13, of the city’s 2023 budget which provides for a disputed 25% increase in the property tax rate in order to raise 44 million euros to finance a “social and climate justice shield”. The seven chosen ones had expressed their « malaise » about this increase but had ultimately voted the 2023 budget “in accordance with the founding principles of belonging to a majority group”.
“Incredible symbolic violence”
Without expanding on the conflict, Eric Piolle recognized, Monday, a ” disagreement “ between the seven and the majority regarding the “means necessary to amplify the announced transitions” provided for in its program.
One of the three sanctioned deputies, Maxence Alloto, expressed his ” disappointment “ after the vote formalizing their exclusion. Eric Piolle “can’t stand contradiction, that’s what saddens us above all because the left isn’t that”he estimated.
“The 25% increase was not part of our commitments; therefore we wanted to focus the debate on this issue”underlined for his part the municipal councilor Pascal Clouaire, who is also part of the seven.
The resulting exclusion of the three deputies is, in his view, “a disproportionate measure, of incredible symbolic violence” and in “total contradiction between the measure and the discourse that is carried”. The elected officials concerned have announced a series of appeals for “excess of power”.
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