The fifth largest city in France must tighten its belt. It was Christian Estrosi himself who announced it this Monday in the columns of Nice morning : only “60 to 70%” of the projects scheduled for delivery during his third term, considered “priority”, will finally be carried out by 2026. The others “will be postponed between 2027 and 2029”. The health of municipal finances and the Nice metropolis, burdened according to him by “the pandemic”, “the tragedy of storm Alex” and “new expenses” linked to the “inflationary and energy crisis”, imposes to slow down. Because it is no longer a question of borrowing. Often attacked on the subject, the city councilor (Horizons) has himself recognized it: “We are approaching” the debt ceiling of the city and the metropolis.
Statements that have given food for thought to his opponents. “It is an admission of his failures, of his faults. It’s a cicada that didn’t see winter coming. Nice is almost bankrupt ”, mocked Eric Ciotti, on the radio France Bleu azur, comparing the situation of the city to that of Paris. “We are in full Anne Hidalgo-ization”, launched the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes, boss of the party Les Républicains.
The jump in metropolitan debt
In fact, and according to the municipality’s 2022 budget guidelines report (ROB), the “stock of loans” was to reach 534.8 million euros at the end of the year (i.e. 20 million more than in 2021). But it is especially on the side of the metropolis that the debt has reached peaks: it stood at nearly 1.56 billion euros on January 1, 2022, according to the last ROB of the intermunicipal community.
Between 2014 and 2018, it increased by 42.1%, according to a study by the Montaigne Institute, published just before the 2020 municipal elections. », and in particular to the construction of lines 2 and 3 of the tramway. That year, the fifth largest city in France came first among the most indebted cities with more than 150,000 inhabitants.
An increase in taxation to be expected?
“By digging deeper into the debt, Christian Estrosi has put our town in danger, he has weakened it”, also reacted Philippe Vardon (Reconquest!), municipal and metropolitan councilor, who fears a tax increase.
Asked by Nice morning, the mayor did not totally rule it out. He simply assured that it would not happen if and only “if the measures [qu’il] expects from the government are there”. Something to worry about. “Five years ago, his mismanagement had already led Christian Estrosi to create a new tax with the creation of the metropolitan tax [sur le foncier bâti]. This warning will therefore not have been sufficient. Continuing to accumulate delusional or useless projects, continuing to indebt the city and, therefore, the people of Nice, now Christian Estrosi is now imploring the support of the State and plans to increase taxes, ”reacted Philippe Vardon again.
Cultural venues will have to wait
Requested by 20 Minutesthe town hall of Nice did not follow up, preferring “to stay on the interview [accordée à Nice-Matin] at this stage, before the forthcoming budgetary orientation debate”. What is certain, as Christian Estrosi specified in the regional daily, is that “the upgrading of cultural facilities”, including the opera, the Chéret Museum, the 109, the Marble Palace and the Museum of natural history, is one of the postponed projects. Initially scheduled for 2025, it would only be scheduled for 2027. Just in time if Nice were chosen as European Capital of Culture in 2028.
The mayor also explained that at the end of his mandate, the future line 5 of the tram “will have arrived at the Garigliano bridge, at the gates of Ariane and Saint-André-de-la-Roche”. While the calendar communicated at the beginning of 2022 made it arrive on that date to the Ariane-Nord. ” It means that [le quartier de l’Est niçois, classé « zone de sécurité prioritaire »] will (perhaps) only be served in 2028 and will consequently lose two years of service”, also lamented the former elected PS Patrick German.
