“Beneath the reproaches made to local authorities is creeping in a creeping recentralisation”

2023-08-16 05:00:04

A government that loves the France of the territories so much that it condemns it quietly? A series of weak signals attests to this Jacobin “I love you, me neither”: budgetary asphyxiation, as noted in June by the president of the Observatory of local finances and public management [André Laignel, également vice-président de l’Association des maires de France] ; active solidarity income soon conditional on around fifteen hours of activity per week, according to the “full employment” bill; financialization of social housing through partnerships with investors; sea ​​serpent of the project to create a territorial adviser, sitting at the same time on the departmental council and the regional council… Who wants to drown his dog… But what symptoms of rabies would therefore eat away at the French departments to the point of justifying drowning them?

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Remember that the ambition of simplification results in a permanent complexification of the governance of social policies denounced in March by the Court of Auditors, whether it is autonomy or integration. Let us also repeat that the withdrawal of the State de facto changes the scope of departmental competences.

The departments are all the more essential in that it is their policies which, according to the formula of public law professor Michel Borgetto, become “the heritage of those who have none”, as shown by their involvement in the creation of health centers or in the right to employment with the “Zero unemployment territories” experiment. This, which has notably enabled nearly 300 Nivernais permanently deprived of employment to find one by creating an economic and civic dynamic of proximity, seems to be discreetly buried by the government.

Are we witnessing a communication so well orchestrated that it would ignore the fact that the departments are entitled to demand compliance with a key principle of their operation, enshrined in Article 72 of the French Constitution? , i.e. free administration? It is legitimate to recall that, if our Republic is decentralized, it is not supervised. However, between the calls for projects and the additional expenses imposed without consultation, the State burdens the responsibility of the departmental councils as a deliberative assembly.

Contrary to civic aspirations

The framing of departmental public policies responds to the deprivation of their financial autonomy through the combined action of the reduction in subsidies, the progressive abolition of tax revenues and the increase in transfers of charges without compensation from the State. Could we stop weakening the democratic legitimacy of departmental action through budgetary asphyxiation? Will we soon pillory the so-called “bad managers” who are struggling to meet growing social needs?

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