2026 Budget: "What is being proposed to local authorities is madness," warn inter-municipal authorities

The 2026 budget proposal presented in mid-July by the outgoing government is "madness," declared the president of Intercommunalités de France on Tuesday, September 23, asking the new Prime Minister to "revise his copy."

"What is being proposed is madness. Going from what we suffered last year, around 2 billion euros, to 5 billion, is (...) the flattening of any capacity to continue investing for certain communities," said Sébastien Martin during the association's back-to-school press conference.

Of the 5,3 billion in levies announced in mid-July, "the level of effort required of inter-municipal authorities is roughly double (...) that required of the average of other communities," said its vice-president Sébastien Miossec, astonished, referring to a "totally unreasonable" copy which would amount to "consuming the entire savings of a certain number of communities."

Added to this is the weight of the increase in the contribution rate of public employers to the National Retirement Fund for Local Government Employees (CNRACL), i.e. around 1,3 billion euros, which mainly affects municipalities.

Regarding the decentralization project, which the new Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu intends to re-open, Intercommunalités de France reiterated its desire to lay a foundation stone in the edifice by decentralizing the housing renovation policy in order to reduce fraud in MaPrimeRénov'.

A bill to this effect will be tabled "in the coming days," said Mr. Martin, also a DR MP for Saône-et-Loire, who also hopes that decentralization will not result in a "new senatorial attempt to unravel the intercommunal situation."

The association, which is holding its convention from October 8 to 10 in Toulouse, will make further proposals to Sébastien Lecornu, who has set a deadline of October 31.

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.