The capital may not return only in 2026 to a level of debt below the alert threshold. The magistrates in the Regional Chamber of Ile-de-France accounts encourage the city to management efforts.
by
In financial matters, the city of Paris moves on a stiff rope. The Regional Chamber of Accounts of Ile-de-France has just screened the finances of the first commune of Hexagon, whose budget now exceeds 10 billion euros per year. The magistrates, whose report was transmitted Thursday, January 27 to the elected officials, did not detect irregularity. Unlike the right opposition, they do not judge insince or illegal accounts. They do not dispute the punctures made on the social landlords to complete the budget, do not evoke anywhere the need to place the city under guardianship.
On the other hand, they confirm the diagnosis posed by many elected officials: for several years, Anne Hidalgo has been leading an expensive, too expensive policy in terms of the means of the city. The investment level is “too high” compared to financial capabilities. An imbalance made even more shouting through the sanitary crisis. In so far as the recovery of accounts goes in an “essential” way by “important management efforts of management expenditure”, estimates the regional chamber in its report of a hundred pages.
An indicator summarizes the magnitude of the problem: the debt of Paris. To invest heavily, beyond what his classic recipes would have allowed him, the city has chosen to borrow. “Already high” in 2014, at the beginning of Anne Hidalgo’s first term, outstanding debt increased by 40% in five years, reports the Regional Chamber of Accounts. On the eve of the pandemic, the city had a debt of 5.9 billion euros. Theoretically, it would have fallen to him 11.2 years to delete, given the level of his gross savings. A problematic duration, underlines the report: the State set for twelve years the “warning threshold” in this area for all municipalities. At the same date, Lyon could deend out in 3.5 years, Marseille in 7 years.
Recipes fell
But with the shock of COVID-19, the situation has become much critical. Suddenly, the revenues of the town hall fell, including the tourist tax, while expenditures have fallen sharply, if only with the increase in the number of beneficiaries of the active solidarity income (RSA). In two years, the debt is thus rising to 7.2 billion euros, and the theoretical duration of deleveraging has bonded to … Thirty-five years, according to the calculations of the Regional Chamber of Accounts. Paris is not bankrupt. The rating agencies have kept their confidence, accounting for a gradual recovery of the capital finances.
You have 51.23% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.