Attack and defend, the two main activities of politicians in the field. And sometimes at the same time, as the outgoing Parisian municipal team intends to do, referred to by an article published on the Capital site claiming that Anne Hidalgo "made up " the accounts of the French capital to his advantage, and this for several years. Joined by Le Figaro , Emmanuel Grégoire, first deputy at the town hall of Paris and campaign director of Anne Hidalgo evokes " a torch-c ... " and says to think " to attack in defamation this newspaper ". At issue, several concrete statements on the accounting practices of the municipality.
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853 million euros of debt " evaporated " from accounting documents
The first controversy concerns the administrative account of the municipalities. This accounting document must state the city's debt as precisely as possible. It is doubled by a parallel version held by Bercy. It was by comparing them carefully that Capital spotted an important difference concerning the " other debt " line. For Paris, these amount to 192.63 million euros. For Bercy, they amount to 1.04 billion euros.
A difference of 853 million which corresponds to thirty years of advance rents paid by the establishments managing HLM. While the state administration spreads this income over the period, Paris thus takes the sum for cash. Concealment? Emmanuel Grégoire explodes: “ these are capitalized rents! We have been accounting for them for three years. The controversy has no place, it is all decided by the government . After verification, a derogation, described in a report from the regional chamber of accounts in 2016, was granted. But if we take into account the official version of Bercy, the official debt of the French capital drops from 5.9 to 6.7 billion euros, or 3,039 euros per Parisian.
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The Capital site then points to the incorporation of building sales in the calculation of Paris' self-financing capacity. Each year, the town hall sells approximately 200 million euros in properties. But can the sale of heritage really be considered a usual recipe? " Indeed, part of the investment income comes from real estate sales " replies Emmanuel Grégoire, who adds that regarding the calculation, " everyone agrees on this method " and in return touts the explosion of the city's heritage since 2014 (+6.4 billion, or 34 billion at the end of 2018), a logical consequence of Anne Hidalgo's investment policy. If we subtract real estate sales - decided under his mandate - from the calculation of the financing capacity, it goes from less than ten years to fourteen years *, a worrying ratio. " The rating agencies are complimentary, " retorts Emmanuel Grégoire. These rank the city “ AA ”, an unsurpassable score. The city remains solvent precisely thanks to its heritage but also thanks to its taxpayers, who are receiving very real overall tax increases.
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An attack on the sincerity of Parisian accounts
On the revenue side, the economic news site is also finally looking at transfer taxes, which with the increase in property prices bring in considerable sums, and have become the most important source of financing in the city. An addiction? The assistant to finance of Paris underlines that the biggest beneficiary is the State: “ the executive modulates each year the contribution of Paris to the equalization funds, and benefits well from the dynamism of these receipts! The puncture has also increased by 130 million euros for this year ”.
As much as the bottom line, it is the questioning of the sincerity of the accounts which completes to bring the financial assistant out of its hinges: " these serious innuendos are at the service of propaganda against us. There is no accounting arrangement. The accounting admits only one reading ”. In addition to the rating agencies, the Parisian accounts “ are under the control of the regional prefecture ”, he adds, before concluding: “ we can be attacked on our political choices, on our investment policy, but not on the sincerity of the budgets presented to Parisians ”.
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* Theoretical number of years necessary for the complete deleveraging of a municipality if it devotes all of its resources to it. The normal threshold is twelve years.
