The economic situation at the heart of the Assises of Small Cities in France

The mayors of small towns in France denounce a budgetary asphyxiation which jeopardizes the daily life of millions of inhabitants.

Prime Minister François Bayrou, traveling to Saint-Rémy-de-Provence Friday June 13 to close the assizes of small towns of France, was able to touch the difficulties, even the distress of the mayors of the municipalities of 2,500 to 25,000 inhabitants, where 40% of the population live. They have gathered since Thursday to speak ecological transition, housing crisis, dynamism of city centers, but also to discuss their financial difficulties. Small cities must tighten the belt, in a context of declining state endowments, and are forced to give up their development projects, powerless in the face of the disappearance of public services.

Small towns are not responsible for state debt, proclaims Christophe Bouillon, president of the association of small towns of France and mayor of Barentin, 12,000 inhabitants (Seine-Maritime). According to him, these municipalities are not against participating in the effort, “But we are at the bone today, he said. You can’t do more. I had to give up rehabilitating a crèche. There are mayors who close media libraries, swimming pools “, Pesto on the edge.

The small municipalities are taken in contradictory injunctions, explains the mayor. For example, it is necessary to isolate municipal buildings to deal with climate change, but the green fund set up by the State for the ecological transition melted faster than the ice floe, denounces Christophe Bouillon. At Vigan, a commune of 4,000 inhabitants in the Cévennes, mayor Sylvie Arnal does not know if she will renovate the school as planned. “It is an old school, built in the 1880s, so it is not at all isolated. This generates very high energy bills. We obviously want to renovate, but we already know that we will not be subsidized up to 80%, as we were before”.

“We cannot be the subcontractors, those to whom we say what to do without the means to do it!”

Christophe Bouillon, mayor of Barentin

in franceinfo

And there are all these public services that disappear, such as maternity closed in 2018 in Saint-Claude, in the Jura. What the mayor of this commune of 9,000 inhabitants, Jean-Louis Millet, has still not digested. He has been elected for 19 years and since the closure, “About fifteen mothers gave birth at the side of the road or in cars, tells the mayor. The dads recovered the babies as a soap on a departmental road embankment; Moms could not arrive at the nearest maternity to be treated, it is minimum one hour of road “.

A situation “lamentable”, said Jean-Louis Millet. “We return to the Middle Ages. The demolition of public service is permanent. We have no more means, we are deprived of endowments. In two years, the cost of energy has increased by a million euros for the town hall”, Breathe this mayor who no longer knows where to find money. Jean-Louis Millet says he had trouble gathering 6,000 euros last week to finance a space for the ballot boxes in the cemetery of his town.