The words of Edouard Philippe, are the same ones as those pronounced by Emmanuel Macron in front of the municipal officials, in the Elysée

The 101e Congress of the mayors of France was concluded Thursday in Paris with a taste from unfinished. A few hours after Emmanuel Macron in the Elysée, the Prime Minister remained on the line fixed by the president of the Republic, without convincing the elected officials.

The day before the speech of the Prime Minister Édouard Philippe to the annual convention of the mayors in Paris, the Head of the State received under gildings of the village hall of the Elysée some 2,000 elected officials with whom it was devoted to a game of questions and answers.

“I know that your daily newspaper is not easy, that of the government is not it more”, he declared in his preliminary remarks. Vis–a–vis the challenges, “one has common responsibility, it is to be together. If one is not together, then one opens a formidable boulevard, not with populist, but with the demagogues”.

“One needs a change of method between us, it is what I wanted to initiate this evening and what one will continue together in the next months, the manner of preparing the texts at the national level and of carrying them”, he continued, a few hours after a meeting with the office of the Association of the mayors of France (MFA) which did not chew its words these last weeks against the executive.

In front of the 4,000 elected officials present, the Prime Minister affirmed the will of the Government of a dialogue of good quality. For him, the mandate of mayor honours those which exert it because it rests on a confidence expressed closest to the citizens.

Otherwise, concerning the limitation of the rise in the administrative expenditure at 1.2% per 322 communes, departments and regions – which pushed these last with the boycott of the last National conference of the territories last July – Edouard Philippe ensures “to note that this objective very correctly seems to function”. As at the time of the last conference of the cities organized by the metropolises of Urban France, it has in same time promised to be “with the listening of the questions of reprocessing”.

In addition, following the example of Emmanuel Macron, the Prime Minister committed himself re–examining the operation of the total equipment of operation (DGF) what caused the applause of the room:
“Let us hear the remarks. The fact is that the 42 criteria are so complex that they offer an incomprehensible result. It belongs to you to make proposals.”

In an official statement published a little earlier in the course of the day, the MFA had asked Emmanuel Macron and the government to begin in “a true negotiation” with the communes to restore confidence between the State and the elected officials.

“We wish the installation of a work method with a precise timetable which allows the State and the MFA to commit itself in a sincere negotiation in order to restoring confidence”, association had indicated. “There is urgency to join again the dialogue in a true negotiation”.
During the exchange with the mayors, Emmanuel Macron said himself “completely ready to open the building site of the reform of the rules of the DGF”, “favorable to entrust to the elected officials the management of the territorial public function” and “to improve with the margin the law Our (new territorial organization of the Republic)”.

“That does not want to say to retrogress, but (…) one can improve of the things”, he underlined. As for the suppression of the tax of dwelling by 2020, “the commitment was held”, he added, without giving more precise details on the compensation of the suppression of this tax, traditional source of receipts for the communes.

Edouard Philippe did not express himself on other proposals of the MFA: development of an annual finance law of the communities, the creation of funds of smoothing financed by the State in favour as of communes whose equipments decreased as well as the adjustment of the contribution of the communal block to the reduction of the national debt in proportion to its share in the debt.

For Edouard Philippe, the mayors have as a savage will to make live and develop the territories of France. The method of the Government is the bend–hand. The objective is to give to each territory the possibility of developing, at its rhythm, its measurement, according to its ambitions, of its weaknesses, its needs.

On the suppression of the tax of dwelling, the objective is simple: to make so that as of the next summer, [the mayors know] how will die out the tax of dwelling and how we will compensate for it”, he affirmed.

He announced “that to spring 2019, the Government will present the principles of this “extinction–compensation”. And in the neighbourhoods of the mid-April, the Council of Ministers will examine a government bill devoted to the reform of the local tax system.

The Prime Minister was not in conquered ground, and had little good news well to attract the sympathy of the municipal officials present
carry from Versailles.

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Gabriel MIHAI

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