Several gendarmerie barracks have had to suspend the payment of their rents due to liquidity problems attributed in particular to the Olympic Games and the large deployment of gendarmes in New Caledonia, the Ministry of the Interior announced on Tuesday, October 9, which ensures that the situation will be resolved in “early next year”. The total amount of unpaid rent amounts to 200 million euros, he said.
This situation is due to three reasons, according to the ministry: one “initial credit deficit”of the “expenses caused by events that occurred in New Caledonia that were not foreseen” and the “payment of security-related expenses” of the Olympic Games that “they had not been evaluated at their fair level”. Therefore, the ministry had to “make decisions” and decided “prioritize expenses related to operational activity for the coming weeks”for example, fuel. The payment of rents for September, October and November was “postponed until December”.
HE “The rents will be paid”adds the ministry, which says it is waiting to do so “The end of the management law and the opening of new credits in December” which provides for an endowment of 320 million euros. “This is just a payment deferral, everything should return to normal at the beginning of next year”.
“Rental pause”
In Elne, near Perpignan, the gendarmerie has only paid the first quarter of its annual rent, Nicolás García, communist mayor of the city of almost 10,000 inhabitants, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
A deficit of more than 100,000 euros that weighs on the city’s budget. The municipality incurred debt of three million euros for the construction of new gendarmerie premises in 2012 and, despite the outstanding debts, will have to pay the annual repayment of its loan in the amount of 151,762 euros. “A town like ours is always ric-rac. The risk is having to cut certain operating costs”García lamented, adding that the gendarmerie also owes his municipality the tax on domestic waste for three years.
In the community of municipalities of Aillantais (Yonne), the gendarmerie announced “a frost” rents from October 2024, according to its president Mahfoud Aomar. “We received an email on September 25 from the real estate department of the national gendarmerie, with the subject “Rental pause.” It’s burlesque! It is the gendarmerie or the police who evict those who do not pay the rent. And, when we have a fine from the gendarmerie, we cannot say that we are not going to pay”he told AFP.
The president of the Association of French Mayors (AMF) of the Pyrénées-Orientales and mayor of Sainte-Marie-la-Mer, Edmond Jorda, denounced a “double punishment”. “Municipalities already secure the state treasury through gendarmerie construction loans. And would it also be necessary to advance more cash to compensate for non-payment of rent? » The AMF requests that the departmental directorates of public finances advance unpaid rents, Jorda stated.
Payment deferral “it does not concern small landowners, individuals or the smallest communities”nor those from abroad, the ministry assures. “Only lessors whose cash flow is capable of supporting these delays” are worried, he added, specifying that he had asked the local authorities, in particular the zone prefects, to “react immediately when a problem arises for a fragile landlord”.
