Anger among local elected officials has been brewing since Prime Minister Michel Barnier announced he wanted to reduce local authorities’ finances by €5 billion. The mayors, meeting at a conference in Paris, tried to put pressure on the government, notably by wearing black scarves.
The departments, which are not exempt from the finance bill, are also trying to make their voices heard, such as Olivier Amrane, president (Les Républicains) of the departmental council of Ardèche and vice-president of the regional council of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. On Tuesday, November 19, in Privas, the least populated prefecture in France, the elected official posed in front of the prefecture. On the door, a sign that says “For sale, 3.5 million euros.”
The prefect of Ardèche, Sophie Elizéon, was moved in a press release: “This sale, without prior consultation, is contrary to the provisions of the law. » He deplores the signal sent by this elected official to the agents of state services in the department. With the same provocative approach, Olivier Amrane went so far as to demand 500,000 euros in rent from Emmanuel Macron. He would have sent an invoice to the Head of State for the last ten years of occupation of the department’s premises by the prefecture.
Other mobilizations in the south
For the president of the departmental council, “In this phase of the discussions on the state budget, approximately between 15 and 20 million euros would impact, overnight, the departmental budget”he said on Facebook on November 19. This while the department was seriously affected by the bad weather in mid-October: the mayor of Annonay estimated, in Franceinfo on October 19, the damage at 8 million euros for his city alone.
The councilor is not the only one protesting. A hundred elected officials demonstrated on November 7 in Toulouse; In Gard, a forty of town halls closed for three days. If the President of the Government maintains his project as it is, the presidents of the right-wing and center departments have threatened to suspend the payment of the Active Solidarity Income, which corresponds to them.
