Could the announcements made in Alsace on Friday by the Prime Minister, at the closing of the 92nd congress of the assizes of the departments of France, allay the concerns of the presidents of communities? Not really. All the more so as these meetings, celebrated in an unprecedented way in the hemicycle of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, remain fraught with budgetary questions. Above all, there is a sentence from Emmanuel Macron, written in his mission letter to Éric Woerth on decentralization, which remains in the throat of departmental elected officials.
Local authorities' finances revised upwards
They felt targeted when they read that the presidential guidelines on the "simplification of territorial organisation" were envisaged "with a view to reducing the number of decentralised strata, which are currently too numerous, and to better articulate them with each other". It was as if the head of state had suddenly awakened the ghosts of the Hollande-Valls era and the abolition of the departments.
Read alsoThe presidents of the regions call for an Act II of decentralization
However, Élisabeth Borne did not come empty-handed...
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