At the Congress of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF), which is being held from Tuesday to Thursday in Paris, elected officials arrive with concern, many considering themselves deprived by the State of financial means and fiscal levers.
“The mayors are extremely worried about the financial outlook,” Antoine Homé, PS mayor of Wittenheim (Haut-Rhin) and vice-president of the AMF in charge of finance and taxation, told AFP.
One of the main financial blows suffered this year comes from transfer taxes for valuable consideration (DMTO), levied on real estate transactions and often called "notary fees" through misnomer.
The fall in the real estate market, seized up by the sharp rise in credit rates, is clearly drying up this windfall.
After reaching a peak at 1,21 million in August 2021, the number of transactions in the old market over 12 months began a dizzying fall. At the end of August 2023, there were 955.000 according to data published by the Superior Council of Notaries.
The prices of goods have also started to decline (in the 2nd quarter, -0,8% over three months, +0,5% over one year), further reducing the DMTO, calculated as a percentage of the purchase value ( 5,8% in most cases).
“Untenable”
First level concerned: the departments, of which around a fifth of revenue comes from the DMTOs.
In 2022, they brought them 16,6 billion euros, François Sauvadet, who chairs the Association of French Departments and the Côte-d'Or departmental council, told AFP. This year, "we will undoubtedly be below 13 billion, when at the same time our expenses (...) have increased by 2,5 billion" because of inflation, predicts the elected UDI.
"The situation will quickly become untenable", he warns, the departments being responsible for the maintenance of roads and colleges, but also for numerous medico-social expenses: payment of active solidarity income (RSA), protection of childhood, management of establishments for dependent elderly people (Ehpad)...
"We are facing an influx of unaccompanied minors (unaccompanied undocumented minors, editor's note), we have the problem of child protection with very serious crises linked to the treatment of psychiatric phenomena, the explosion of expenses in nursing homes... Today we can no longer make ends meet, pay salaries!”, he said.
To make matters worse, the departments most affected will be, he warns, those already experiencing difficulties: Ardennes, Aisne, Seine-Saint-Denis...
Reduce the sail
To cut costs, they will have to cut back on investments, as in Essonne, which reports a 20% drop in its DMTO, or 80 million euros. The LR president of the department François Durovray indicated in a press release that he would have to reduce his investments accordingly next year, while announcing "a blank year for certain systems".
“I see a lot of colleagues who are forced to cut, unfortunately, in subsidies to sports and cultural associations,” also testifies Antoine Homé, on the municipal side.
Several measures announced so far to revive housing production also weigh on communities, he denounces.
The Minister responsible for Communities, Dominique Faure, underlined in a statement to AFP that this drop in DMTO must be put "in perspective in relation to the three exceptional years which have just passed", the number of transactions having reached record levels at the end of the 2020 confinements.
“The combined efforts of the government and the departments (…) should allow the majority of departments to cushion the shock,” she continued, also recalling that in November, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne had announced to increase state support for the departments most in difficulty.
In a recent report, the Court of Auditors recommends that communities be able to put more revenue from good years in reserve to be less dependent on economic hazards.