Anne Hidalgo counterattacks. Overwhelmed by the opposition about the property tax, which she is accused of having increased, the mayor of Paris has decided to justify herself, and even to go to court. She declared on Wednesday that she wanted to “initiate litigation against the State” before the French and European courts to denounce the policy of budgetary allocation of the State to local authorities.
“Today in the relationship between the State, associations and local authorities, there is a problem. The State has removed endowments, suffocates, strangles the local authorities which support public services of necessity” she commented on LCI. “I decided in Paris to initiate a dispute with the State [qui] does not respect, including its constitutional obligations”, she insists, affirming that she wants to “go before the courts, including European ones, to restore the law” and seize “the constitutional council”.
The property tax should bring in 656 million
As specified the documents of the General Directorate of Local Authorities, the City of Paris has not received a penny from the State for the overall operating grant paid to local authorities (DGF), for two years in a row (2022 and 2023). The reason ? Because the State has decided for a few years to reduce the wing of the endowments, to reduce the public deficit. In 2015, the State paid 900 million euros in operating grants to Paris, according to The Parisian.
“Between 2011 and 2018, the DGF recorded a drop of 34.7% or 14.4 billion euros before stabilizing at 26.9 billion euros from 2018”, specifies an online Senate report, about all municipalities. “Many unilateral decisions by the State affect, directly or indirectly, the ‘power to act’ of local authorities”, accuses the report.
Fixed at 20.5% in 2023 in Paris, the property tax must bring 656 million euros to the budget of the town hall (around 8 billion), according to Anne Hidalgo.