The electoral promise will have held less than two years. At the end of a long debate, more winded than heated, the municipal council of Marseilles voted, Friday, April 8, an increase of 5.47% of the municipal share of the property tax. A first since the accession to power in June 2020 of the majority of the left, ecologist and citizen of the Marseille Spring which, before its election, assured in its electoral program that it would not touch this tax. This increase, which causes an overall increase of nearly 14% in the property tax, should allow the municipality to complete an overall 2022 budget of 1.835 billion euros, including 270 million in investment. It concerns more than 40% of Marseille households, which, according to INSEE, have a home. And should bring nearly fifty million euros into the coffers of the city.
After having scrapped in the hemicycle and asked the socialist mayor Benoît Payan to limit this increase in the municipal share to 2%, “at a time when the people of Marseille are suffering from a social crisis”, the group Les Républicains (LR) imposed a nominative public vote. A political coup without effect, since none of the fifty-five elected members affiliated with the majority missed the call.
In this last municipal council before the presidential and legislative elections – the next one will take place on June 24 – Benoît Payan and his deputies assumed the breach of their electoral promise and tried to justify it by unavoidable circumstances. “Nobody raises taxes with joy of heart”, pleaded the mayor of Marseille.
“False Motives”
In charge of the budget, Joël Canicave (Socialist Party) recalled the weight of an imposing debt – 1.45 billion euros – inherited from the previous mayor, Jean-Claude Gaudin (LR). Although partly renegotiated by Printemps Marseille, it imposes in 2022 the reimbursement of 190 million euros. The revaluation of the salary of civil servants with status C, decided by the State, and the announced thaw of the index point, two measures welcomed by Printemps Marseille, have an impact on the municipal payroll to the tune of 20 million euros. annual.
Finally, the elected representative predicts an explosion in the bill for fluids and energies, due to the war in Ukraine, of 12 million euros, and the disappearance, by 2023, of the intermunicipal equalization fund, balance of 14 million euros per year which will no longer be paid to Marseille due to the overall enrichment of its metropolis. “A particularly unfair measure”, according to Benoît Payan, also worried about the impact on his accounts of the effects of the 3DS law, returning to the municipalities certain skills that had hitherto been metropolitan.
You have 41.82% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.