This ultimate gesture of goodwill went completely unnoticed. It is nevertheless very symbolic. The government finally withdrew from the 2023 budget the much criticized “confidence pact”, adopted on December 17 by Parliament. This pact aimed to control the expenditure of local authorities over the five-year period, in order to make them participate in the recovery of the country’s public finances.
It is the end (provisional, perhaps) of a soap opera which has strained, all autumn, relations between the State and the communities. The government, pressed by the European Union to put its accounts in order, wanted to limit the expenses of local elected officials to 0.5 points less than inflation per year, under penalty of sanctions. The Association of Mayors of France (AMF) was hostile to it. Elected officials, who are forced to tie up balanced budgets, saw in this “pact of distrust” an obstacle to their freedom of action.
Against the backdrop of the energy crisis and the absence of an absolute majority in the National Assembly, the system had a turbulent fate. It was originally included in the public finance programming bill, presented at the end of September. But this text having been unraveled by parliamentarians, the government introduced on the sly, on November 2, the pact in the draft budget for 2023, just before the use of a 49.3. One “extremely violent blow”protested David Lisnard, president of the AMF; “a declaration of war”had denounced the socialist deputy of Puy-de-Dôme Christine Pirès Beaune.
On November 24, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, finally announced that the device would not be accompanied by sanctions. And, less than a month later, it has therefore completely fallen by the wayside. “We work hand in hand with Parliamentjustifies the Minister Delegate for Local Authorities and Rurality, Dominique Faure. We start with the idea of trust. We’ll see. » The Minister will follow the evolution of local spending and, in six months, she will take stock with the associations of elected officials.
“A balance has been found”
Unless, by then, the “trust pact” resurfaces. In ReleaseJean-René Cazeneuve, rapporteur (Renaissance) of the Finance Committee at the National Assembly, specifies that the programming bill, finally rejected by Parliament on December 15, would be discussed again “during the first semester” 2023. The president of the delegation to local authorities at the National Assembly, the Renaissance deputy for Gironde Thomas Cazenave, does not believe, however, that the pact will resurface on this occasion. “Communities have been heardhe says. There are no constraints; they are fully responsible. A balance has been found. It is important to stick to the decision that has just been made. »
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