lThe issue of budget cuts imposed on local authorities is increasingly pressing. For several years, these funding reductions have weighed heavily on the shoulders of mayors, forced to juggle increasingly limited resources while continuing to meet the needs of their citizens.
It is no longer just a question of budget management; It’s a real test of mental endurance for these local elected officials. In fact, when talking about the challenges of their mission, mayors emphasize how budget management has become one of the main stressors in their daily lives.
As communities see their resources reduced, mayors are forced to justify every expense in a climate of growing distrust in public finances. This constant pressure, combined with increasingly onerous complexity and administrative burden, becomes an “iron cage” that stifles their commitment and limits their effectiveness.
60 hour weeks
Added to this budgetary limitation are work weeks that frequently exceed 60 hours, which accentuates the latent exhaustion that ends up insidiously taking root. Rigid procedures and funding delays tied to subsidies ultimately discourage municipal initiatives, further weakening the morale of elected officials.
While budget cuts are a significant burden, they are unfortunately not the only stressor. Acts of aggression against mayors, both physical and verbal, have multiplied. Here a madman wanted to burn down the town hall, there a mayor was attacked with a knife.
Unfortunately, these physical attacks are increasing, to which are added other forms of less visible but more frequent attacks, such as verbal attacks, insults or various intimidations… These events leave the mayors prey to immense moments of anguish, the that adds discouragement. legitimate doubts about the continuation of its mission. There have never been so many resignations of mayors.
However, these painful and serious events alone cannot sum up the broad issue of mayors’ mental health. It would even be counterproductive to reduce the pathogen to nothing more than pathos. Worse still, it would be reductionist to limit mental health only to the pathogenic dimension, without taking into account the events that generate good health, what we call “salutogenic.”
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