L’immense pavilion 5 of the Paris Expo at the Porte de Versailles has taken on the appearance of a vast buzzing hive. The crowd is rushing. The 105e Congress of mayors and intercommunity presidents is full: 60,000 accredited, 10,000 registered elected officials (there were 6,000 last year). 39 debates will take place on the energy transition, local finances, food policy, rural/urban balance, insurance, schools, and above all, of course, security for elected officials on the front line facing the fractures of society, and themselves increasingly physically exposed – this year’s generic theme is “Communities under attack, Republic under threat”.
For three days – until Thursday November 23 – fifteen ministers follow one another: this is a record. Too bad if President Macron, like last year, will not be present – he preferred, as in 2022, to receive 1,000 elected officials for the presidency. “It’s the congress of mayors, not that of the Élysée”, repeats the president of the association of mayors of France (AMF), inviting power, David Lisnard, emphasizing: “The executive will be present like never before. »
Uninhibited by Jouyet
The mayor (LR) of Cannes, who is gaining momentum in the public debate, building his proposal brick by brick – he inaugurated the Parisian headquarters of his New Energy movement at the start of the school year with fanfare – celebrates “the gathering of real France , France on the move”. A sign of attraction, a bookstore area will welcome – for the first time – François Hollande, Alain Juppé, Édouard Philippe, Laurent Fabius for the signing of their works. “This is where it happens,” said a Lisnard mounted on springs with a greedy smile. Who pleads to “cut the Gordian knot which leads to too much administration killing public service”. “France has the world record for compulsory deductions and public spending,” fumes the leader of the councilors, who, liberal, puts forward “a proposal to liberate local authorities to put an end to recentralization”. A tax system that places municipalities “on a drip” of public money – “It’s not us who asked to be dependent on state grants!” » –, an organization which puts them in a position of “tutelization” in the choice of public spending… Haro on the deep State! “I didn’t really believe in this concept,” slips David Lisnard, “the book by Jean-Pierre Jouyet, who has occupied all the prestigious positions at the top of the State, and particularly points out the consanguinity of the elites, completely uninhibited me. »
And the local elected official, who continues to rise to the right and gradually establishes in the minds of a possible duel with Laurent Wauquiez with a view to the presidential election of 2027, castigates “the suppression of the accumulation of mandates which leads to antagonisms between the local and the National “. The president of the AMF does not let go of his obsession with over-bureaucratization which hampers energies. “The mayor of Nantua showed me a letter from the administration prohibiting him from putting a swan on the town’s lake. I have plenty of examples like this; I could write a Black Book of Absurdistan. » And Lisnard to rely on the matter, as in others, to Pompidou, to whom he devotes a cult and who said, in substance: when you take a measure you must have the ability to apply it to yourself -even… The head of mayors is deployed in all directions. He who successfully called for a minute of silence in front of town halls in France during the urban riots of the summer, decided during this congress to pay tribute to Samuel Paty – in the presence of his sister – and Dominique Bernard , “assassinated quite simply because they taught critical reason”, as well as the French hostages of Hamas or the Christian victims, he emphasizes, in Armenia.