Benoît Payan has been Mayor of Marseille since December 2020 – Alain Robert / Sipa
The vote on the first budget drawn up by the new left-wing municipality at the head of the city of Marseille gave rise to a heated debate on Friday, during a city council organized by videoconference, the fight against Covid-19 requires.
Refusing to proceed with “an austerity cure”, the mayor of Marseille, Benoît Payan, at the head of the majority of the Marseillais Spring, a large left-wing alliance, defended a main budget of 1.5 billion euros built without tax increases.
“Wacky figures” versus “one man show”
Refusing “the lessons” and “the wacky figures” of the opposition, which “confuses additions and subtractions”, Benoît Payan accused the former LR majority of having “voted ten tax increases in twenty-five years”: “We wanted to put an end to this legendary budgetary slackness, (…) the sum of special interests no longer makes the general interest”, he insisted, pointing out a 25 million euro increase in the budget. of the city’s investments compared to 2020, despite the city’s “catastrophic” financial situation.
Pierre Robin, on behalf of the opposition LR, denounced him “the one man show” of the mayor of Marseille, “with great blows of caricatures and lies”. Accusing him of having endorsed “the cloak of a super-liar”, the Marseille elected official estimated that this budget was in fact “a budget for the burial of the electoral promises of the Marseillais Spring”, fearing that the tax increases would be only postponed “in 2022, after the elections”.