A hundred tricolor scarves walked through the paved courtyard of the Haute-Garonne prefecture, in Toulouse, on Thursday, November 7, late in the morning. It was neither a commemoration nor a large work meeting, but rather the expression of a “a deep anger, a feeling of injustice” that the mayors and elected officials of the department feel, according to Karine Traval-Michelet, socialist mayor of Colomiers, with 40,000 inhabitants, vice president of Toulouse Métropole and member of the office of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF).
Mayors, councilors and also elected officials of the departmental council and the Occitania region came to protest. “against the measures announced in the finance bill that provides for 11 billion euros in savings [selon le calcul réalisé par l’AMF] on the community budget ». For Christophe Lubac (Génération. s), mayor of Ramonville, south of Toulouse, “The announced measures will have disastrous consequences in the territories, since the State is imposing its colossal public deficit on the communities”.
According to the elected official, These recent decisions will involve a financial effort of 480,000 euros between now and the end of his mandate, or the equivalent of between twelve and fourteen civil servant positions. In Colomiers, the impact of government measures is estimated at about 3 million euros, on a municipal budget of about 70 million euros. The cause is the fall in the overall operational allocation, the increase in contributions to the special social security scheme responsible for the old-age insurance of territorial civil servants and the increase in direct state deductions from municipal finances.
“For ten years we have lost 80% of our income”
“We are good managers, and we only ask for consideration, dialogue”adds Karine Traval-Michelet. Like around thirty mayors of the department, he had decided to close the doors of his town hall during this day of mobilization. In Léguevin, west of Toulouse, the mayor, Etienne Cardeilhac-Pugens, “Stop all urban projects by 2025. We are already tightening our belts, I don’t want to become a simple manager”he laments. A gendarmerie was going to be built in his commune, but the project was abandoned due to lack of funds. “As a result, I am forced to hire municipal police officers, in response to the demand of the population. “We won’t last long like this.”says this anonymous elected official.
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