2026 Budget: A very bad budget for inter-municipal authorities

At the finance morning and New Year's ceremony organized by Intercommunalités de France on January 27 in front of 300 people, the elected officials of the association collectively expressed their disagreement with the final copy of the Government's 2026 Budget.

The elected officials speaking at round tables, as well as Sébastien Miossec, deputy chairman, and Virginie Lutrot, first vice-president in their New Year's speeches, stressed the unprecedented nature of the massive levies imposed on local authorities in the draft finance law, and in particular on inter-municipalities and industrial territories.

Sébastien Miossec, the association's deputy chairman, appealed to Françoise Gatel, Minister of Regional Planning and Decentralization, and Sébastien Martin, Minister of Industry, for "the contribution to be fair and proportionate, and not to undermine all the efforts being made to revive the country's economy." Indeed, not only are inter-municipal authorities bearing more than 50% of the burden imposed on local governments, despite representing only a quarter of their public spending, but it is industrial areas that are most affected, due to the accumulation of measures targeting them.

The elected officials nevertheless affirmed their full commitment on the eve of the municipal and inter-municipal elections and the 2026-2032 local term, and reiterated the importance of better informing the general public about how the voting process works and the role of inter-municipal cooperation in improving the daily lives of our fellow citizens. This is the objective of the information campaign led by Intercommunalités de France since mid-January.

Virginie Lutrot, First Vice-President, also outlined the major priorities for the upcoming term, foremost among them social cohesion, "because inter-municipal cooperation is now an essential link in local areas through new community-based policies: the France Services network, healthcare, early childhood services, neighborhood policies, etc.," but also "the mother of all battles, the ecological transition, because inter-municipal cooperation is the organizing authority, the operational level for ecological transitions." In this regard, she expressed her "concern about the reduced ambitions of national and European policies."

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.