This Tuesday will open the traditional congress of mayors and presidents of intercommunality of France. They will be together until November 23 in Paris, against a backdrop of rising violence and a feeling of "republican fatigue", where the government prefers to highlight the work done to improve their daily lives.

Emmanuel Macron, who was originally scheduled to attend the show on Wednesday, had to cancel his visit due to a G20 summit by videoconference. In the evening, he will receive a thousand mayors at the Elysée Palace. In Le Parisien, the president of the AMF and LR mayor of Cannes, David Lisnard, recalled on Sunday that this was the "congress of mayors, not the Elysée". Some fifteen ministers and the Prime Minister are nevertheless expected to attend.

Assaults expected to increase by 15% in 2023

"Municipalities attacked, Republic threatened": the theme of the 105th congress of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) resonates with the series of attacks that marked the year 2023, from the arson attack at the home of the mayor of Saint-Brevin to the car-ramming attack that targeted that of the mayor of L'Haÿ-les-Roses during the riots. According to the Interior Ministry, assaults on elected officials are expected to increase by 15% in 2023 after a 32% increase last year.

Without establishing a direct link between cause and effect, a Cevipof survey published on Sunday and to which nearly 8,000 mayors responded warns of an "exceptionally high" number of resignations of elected officials since 2020, a sign of a feeling of "impediment" and "powerlessness" of elected officials.

In addition to increasingly tense relations with their constituents, mayors complain of creeping recentralisation by the state and an overabundance of standards that complicate local action. But on the executive side, the feeling of a job well done dominates. "The government has not looked away from any of the complicated issues," said the office of Local Government Minister Dominique Faure.

A financial tug-of-war with the state

Against violence, the government is thus highlighting its "fight plan" launched in July, with its 3,400 referents "attacks on elected officials", as well as the Senate bill that aligns the criminal penalties in the event of an attack on an elected official with those relating to acts targeting public officials.

On the financial front, the AMF is constantly warning about the cuts in funding and the lack of compensation to the "nearest euro" for lost revenues. Questioned on Monday by several media outlets, Dominique Faure said that the 2024 Finance Bill (PLF) was "very good for local authorities". "We are giving back 220 million in addition to the 320 million" in the overall operating budget, increases that are "unprecedented" for thirteen years, even if "this does not cover inflation," she said. The AMF estimates that mayors will lose €7 billion in the next draft bill.

  • Politics
  • Mayor
  • Video
  • Local authorities
  • Local authorities
  • AMF
  • Violence