While inflation and the outbreak of energy prices make local elected officials cautious, the executive pushes them to finance projects, by reminding them having granted dedicated credits.
by Benoît Floc’h
“We must invest.” The Minister responsible for local authorities, Dominique Faure does not miss an opportunity to repeat this message to local elected officials, during each of her trips. “The means are there,” she recalled for example on January 8, in Haute-Saône, stressing that the government “put 4 billion euros” in the 2023 budget to support the investment of local authorities in 2023. They represent 70 % of public investment. In the eyes of the executive, it is therefore the fuel of the economy. Impossible, therefore, to reach full employment if they do not invest enough, repeats the summit of the state. And what about the ecological transition, in which their role is decisive?
This subject is considered serious in the majority. To the point that the delegation to local authorities of the National Assembly devoted a morning of work on Thursday, February 2. “The period is anxiety -provoking for elected officials, notes its president, the Renaissance deputy of Gironde, Thomas Cazenave. This can lead them to show great caution in 2023. However, this is not the time to slow down. We have an investment wall ahead of us. “
The survey carried out by the Sciences Po political research center for the Association of Mayors of France, in November, showed it well: entangled in crises, the mayors are worried. Four out of ten elected officials claim that they will not accelerate their energy transition projects, on the grounds that they “do not have the means to implement them”. Deputy director of the French Observatory for Economic Conditions, Mathieu Plane recalls that “public investment, however low today compared to what we have known before 2013, is still 3 % below its end 2019 level , while private investment is almost 10 % above “.
The main associations of local elected officials alert: this year, “a historic fall” of local investment is possible. In Brittany, for example, “after the shock of the health crisis and the budgetary difficulties, we have reduced a little,” says Loïg Chesnais-Girard, socialist president of the regional council. For high schools, it went from 140 million euros per year to 110 million. “I do not have the right to be in deficit, recalls Mr. Chesnais-Girard. So, when self-financing drops, I reduce my investment a little to give me air and avoid the red zone.” The same for the ports. The Brittany region has around twenty. In Saint-Malo, it wants to electrify the quays to reduce the consumption in diesel for ferries. But, at 3 million euros per quay, only one will be equipped at the moment.
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