The Marseille administrative court examined two appeals - one filed by Marseille owners, the other by an opposition elected official - requesting the cancellation of the deliberation of April 8, 2022, during which the municipal majority on the left voted an increase of some 14% in the municipal share of the 2022 property tax in Marseille.
The applicants consider in particular that before the vote the elected officials did not have sufficient information on the future budgetary orientations of the municipality, in particular concerning the increase in the property tax, to allow them to make an informed decision.
A reason retained on Wednesday by the public rapporteur, who estimated at the hearing that in the report provided to elected officials as part of the budget orientation debate, "nothing made it possible to detect an increase in the property tax decided by the municipality" .
Moreover, if the rates envisaged for the 2022 property tax have indeed been communicated to elected officials, this information alone "did not allow (them) to measure the implications of their decision, however, relating to a sensitive subject", noted the public rapporteur, requesting the annulment of this vote.
"The object of the appeal is to highlight the lies and manipulations of the municipal majority", explained to AFP Pierre Robin, the LR municipal councilor at the origin of one of the appeals, denouncing a "vote on the sly".
"We were made to pay on illegal bases", reacted for his part Jacques Gobert, lawyer for nearly 240 Marseille owners, including the Chamber of Owners and Co-owners of Bouches-du-Rhône and Var.
"The people I represent are generally modest" and because of this "absolutely considerable" and "historic" increase, some, "very close to the poverty line", could find themselves "in precariousness", he said. pleaded.
We are dealing with "a use of administrative law for political purposes", lambasted the city lawyer, Me Jorge Mendes, asking the court in advance to "modulate the effects" of his judgment in the event of a cancellation of the property tax: "We ask to have a little time to regularize".
"If there is a defect in the administrative procedure, we will rectify it" via a new vote on the 2022 budget, "but it will stop there", reacted for his part to AFP Joël Canicave, the assistant to the finances, excluding any reimbursement of the tax already collected and denouncing "small political maneuvers".
The court's deliberation should be delivered around April 5 at the earliest.