Cumulation of local mandates creates new political baronies

In 2014, the law ended the cumulation of a parliamentary mandate with a local executive function. But since then, elected officials exercising several local executive mandates and functions are more and more numerous.

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While the National Assembly was preparing to consider, on Friday, November 26, a proposal for an organic law of senatorial origin aimed at relaxing the law of February 14, 2014 having ended the cumulation of a parliamentary mandate with a function Executive local, one aspect of the consequences of this law has so far happened under the radars. The last departmental and regional elections held in June, after the municipal and intercommunal elections of the spring 2020, confirmed it: with the end of the cumulative parliamentary mandate-local executive function – which does not prohibit the cumulation with a simple mandate as local adviser – is that of local mandates and local executive functions that strengthened.

Thus, according to a first score made by intercommunalities of France, formerly Assembly of the Communities of France, the percentage of elected representatives exercising a regional mandate increased by 17% before the last elections at 22%, and that of the elected officials exercising a departmental mandate from 22% to 30%. No less than 5,761 Community elected officials also have a regional mandate (1,757) or a departmental term (4,004).

This cumulation of mandates also relates to the executive functions. Thus, out of the 11,667 presidents and vice-presidents of the 1,265 intercommunities and territorial institutions (EFAs), 384 exercise a regional mandate and a mandate mandate. Better, 511 presidents or intercommunality vice-presidents are also presidents or vice-presidents of their region or department. By making the opposite path, it turns out that, out of the 253 presidents and regional vice-presidents elected in 2021, 141 (55.7%) exercise a Community mandate, and among them 101 (39.9 %) are also part of the “Interco” office.

This extension of the domain of cumulations with the intercommunal executive mandates or functions reveals one of the dead corners of the law of 14 February 2014. The latter prohibits any parliamentarian from exercising a local executive function such as Mayor, Mayor of Arrondissement, Deputy Mayor, President or Vice-President of a Regional, Territorial or Departmental Council and President or Vice-President of a public institution of inter-municipal cooperation (EPCI).

It also defines the incompatibilities between local executive functions and applicable to local elected officials. A local elected representative can not hold more than two electoral mandates. Certainly, but, in the light of the Constitution, an EPCI is not a territorial collectivity and its members are not elected by direct universal suffrage, but by a system of argent in the municipal elected officials. Thus, neither the holding of a Community mandate nor the exercise of an intercommunal executive function entitle in the regime of incompatibilities, despite the increased weight and skills of intercommunities.

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/Media reports.