Discreetly, the government has introduced an amendment to the finance bill to tighten the budgetary screw on local authorities. A “passage in force”, denounce the elected officials.
This is enough to aggravate a little more the conflictual relations between the government and the local elected officials. Discreetly, the executive has decided to introduce a mechanism aimed at tightening the budgetary screw on local authorities in the 2023 finance bill (PLF) which it intends to adopt without a vote in the National Assembly, at first reading. And this, after having activated the procedure of article 49.3 of the Constitution, Wednesday. In a press release published Thursday, the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) then castigated a “passage in force on the occasion of 49-3 and the attack on the free administration of local communities».
This mechanism, which specifically plans to limit the increase in local spending, was initially included in the public finance programming bill (PLPFP) between 2023 and 2027. Only here, this text was rejected at first reading by the National Assembly, the Macron camp having been outvoted by the oppositions. Admittedly, the government is now counting on the Senate – with a majority on the right – to try, finally, to have this text adopted, but nothing is won. Especially since the senators, who have just examined this programming law at first reading, also opposed these financial constraints for the territories. One year before the senatorial elections, the file is eminently political.
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In short, to ensure that, whatever happens, the local authorities will indeed contribute to the effort to restore the public accounts at a time when the public debt still exceeds 110% of the GDP, the government has finally decided to integrate these constraints into the 2023 finance bill. And too bad if he has to alienate the mayors.
In its text, the executive thus plans to limit the increase in the operating expenses of the territories to 3.8% in 2023 – i.e. a level which should be lower than the increase in inflation -, then 2.5% in 2024. , 1.6% in 2025 and 1.3% in 2026 and 2027. And if this overall objective is not respected by the large local authorities, the latter must undertake to rectify the situation, at the risk of being in fine financially sanctioned.
For the AMF, these measures “aggravate» in reality the «Cahors contractswhich had been concluded between elected officials and the State in 2018 and then frozen during the coronavirus crisis. These contracts were considered too restrictive for the financial management of the territories. “These are not new Cahors contracts but rather contracts of trust as initially provided for in the programming law“, we retort to Bercy.
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