Catherine Lécuyer is a councilor for the 8th arrondissement of Paris (various right).
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Paris' debt reached 8.2 billion euros in 2023. It will reach 8.8 billion in 2024, 9.9 billion in 2025. It was "only" 4.18 billion in 2014. It therefore already more than doubled in less than ten years.
Since the explosion in interest rates, the duration of deleveraging and the debt burden have dangerously increased.
On the revenue side, the city underestimated, very lightly, the fall in transactions and notary fees resulting from the real estate crisis.
In 2023, the shortfall amounted to 200 million.
However, it can hardly activate the tax lever again.
It has already increased the property tax of Parisian owners by +52% in 2023. It has also increased the housing tax on second homes.
It has also increased all municipal rates (canteen, conservatory, parking, etc.), up to tripling the parking rates for SUVs.
Under these conditions, how can Anne Hidalgo find room for budgetary maneuver, without increasing the debt, without increasing the tax burden, without reducing the municipal service provided to Parisians?
She finds herself at the bottom of the budgetary wall.
She can't go back any longer.
To balance the budget and reduce the debt, it must urgently reduce spending whose usefulness is not proven.
The mayor of Paris prefers to create social housing on avenue George V and avenue des Champs-Élysées, while she could create two to three times more in cheaper neighborhoods.
Catherine Lécuyer
We must first reduce personnel costs.
This is the first item of operating expenses.
Paris has 58,000 civil servants for 2.1 million inhabitants.
It has recruited another 650 agents in 2023. Around 400 people work for town hall communications alone!
If the capital's administration rate is higher than in London or Rome, it is to compensate for the low working hours and the high rate of absenteeism of agents.
We must therefore increase working hours, fight against the scourge of absenteeism and not replace one in three retirements in certain management positions.
Subsidy expenditure must then be reduced.
They amount to more than 200 million euros each year.
The city supports thousands of associations and organizations whose purpose is often distant, sometimes even unrelated, to the needs, concerns and expectations of Parisians.
The examples are legion: 210,000 euros for a study project on the language practices of the Arameans, 50,000 euros for the issue of a local currency in Paris, 10,000 euros to train and raise awareness about the use of “Norwegian pots”. .. The system is corrupted... It's time to clean out the Augean stables!
We must also optimize social housing expenditure.
The policy pursued, that of pre-empting condominiums to transform them into social housing for electoral purposes, is a fiasco.
Moreover, costly for taxpayers: the 2024 budget allocates 550 million euros to this.
But every year, there are always more people seeking social housing and more and more degraded social housing, ever less social diversity and ever less housing available on the private rental market.
The mayor of Paris prefers to create social housing on avenue George V and avenue des Champs-Élysées, while she could create two to three times more in cheaper neighborhoods.
A gratuitous…expensive provocation!
The future mayor of Paris will have to do better, but with less, for the environment and the quality of life of Parisians.
Catherine Lécuyer
It is also necessary to reduce expenditure on major town planning and road works.
Anne Hidalgo continues to carry out work whose high cost for taxpayers is generally inversely proportional to the usefulness for Parisians: “re-enchantment” of the Champs-Élysées, transformation of the surroundings of the Eiffel Tower and the Place du Trocadéro, multiplication of “Beautify your neighborhood” operations, etc.
These works siphon off the budget dedicated to the maintenance of road assets.
The mayor invests in the accessory at the expense of the principal.
Meanwhile, potholes are popping up everywhere and public spaces are abandoned.
Better management of Parisian finances will be management that is more attentive to the property and interests of taxpayers.
It will finance the investment by further mobilizing municipal assets.
She will plan an investment program for the mandate, which the mayor has also renounced since 2020. She will no longer hesitate to delegate to the private sector what the public does poorly.
Garbage collection is emblematic.
The public service provided is not up to par while the removal tax brings in more than the removal costs.
It will therefore be necessary to extend the privatization of this household waste collection to all districts.
At the end of the mandate, an independent audit of municipal finances must be carried out.
In any case, the future mayor of Paris will have to do better, but with less, for the environment and the quality of life of Parisians.