The government has withdrawn from the 2023 budget the controversial “confidence pact” which was to require communities to contain their deficit next year, a measure opposed by associations of elected officials, Minister Dominique told AFP on Wednesday. Faure. “As we have said from the start, we want to make the choice of transparency with the communities, while assuming our trajectory of stability”, explained the Minister of Communities, confirming information from the daily Le Monde.
“Violent coercive measures”
For his part, the president of the influential Association of Mayors of France (AMF), David Lisnard, attributed this withdrawal to “the action of the AMF and the work we are carrying out with Matignon and Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne”. . According to the mayor LR of Cannes, the “confidence pact” included “violent coercive measures”, in particular that which imposed a “change in community spending 0.5 point lower than inflation”.
“It made no sense. It was an unacceptable challenge to the free administration of communities,” he castigated, recalling that they have a formal obligation to present balanced accounts. The “confidence pact” was first introduced by the government this summer in the budget planning law and disapproved by the opposition, before returning to the draft budget.
“Contract of trust” between the government and the communities
At the beginning of December, the Senate had rejected by a large majority this control deemed “very strict” of the finances of local authorities, denouncing “a coup or an act of” defiance “. The Minister of Public Accounts, Gabriel Attal, was then intended to be reassuring, recalling that it was a “contract of trust” between the government and the communities. “It is a question of giving credibility to our objective” of restoring public finances, he said. he declared without convincing the upper house, with a majority on the right.
Ms. Faure assured that she would continue to dialogue with the territories on the issue of public spending. “We will, of course, continue our exchanges with the associations of elected officials to maintain this balance because we are convinced that this is the only way to move forward,” she said.