For green people, Toulouse vampirizes the investments of the Metropolis to the detriment of other municipalities
Through Guillaume Laurens
Published on
“Incompetence”. This was the watchword of the environmentalist opposition group to the Metropolis, when it came to painting on Wednesday, October 13, 2021 a very dark picture of the “Worrying record” the “seven years of Jean-Luc Moudenc” at the reins of the Pink City (i.e. since he took over the Capitol on the left in 2014, editor’s note), and its “lack of vision” on the future of Toulouse and its territory.
Jean-Luc Moudenc is “not up to” the requirements
“It is not up to the requirements”, hammered Isabelle Hardy, the co-president of the Green and Citizen Metropolis Group for Solidarity Territories (MECTS), recalling once again “the cancellation by the Administrative Tribunal of the structuring documents” that are the PDU and the PLUIH. While the metropolitan council will floor Thursday, October 14 on the 2022 budget orientation debate, environmentalists lingered for a long time on ” rushing ahead “ community finances.
Everything for Toulouse, nothing for the outskirts?
In terms of financial management, Isabelle Hardy particularly regrets that the city-center monopolizes almost the entire investment budget for its major projects, at the expense, according to her, of other municipalities. Evoking the city’s multi-year investment plan (PPIM), the chosen one advanced: “90% of consecrated persons are devoted to the city of Toulouse, while there is only 60% of the population ”.
“There is reason to wonder about territorial distribution metropolitan investments, while the Equipment City has a certain number of investments in the Metropolis ”, adds Michèle Bleuse.
“That the mayors ask themselves”, launches Michèle Bleuse
“The main lines of this PPIM, those devoted to major projects, are all in Toulouse”, replaces the elected, who lists: “The Théâtre du Capitole, the Grand Matabiau, the Atlanta technocentre, the Toulouse Aerospace project in Montaudran, or the Grand Parc Garonne on the Ile du Ramier… ”Michèle Bleuse regrets that the Pink City is swallowing up“ most ”of these credits. “The metropolitan council is only a registration chamber”, still taxes the ecologist, convinced that other municipalities are being fooled.
“We are not elected to the Metropolis to represent the City of Toulouse, but the inhabitants of the whole territory. Or, Toulouse concentrates all the investments. That the mayors who signed the pact of allegiance (allusion to the 36 of the 37 mayors who signed the “governance pact” of the Metropolis, editor’s note) are wondering “.
While its chief magistrate Albert Sanchez joined the said governance pact this summer, Thomas Karmann, elected EELV in Cugnaux, considers that this turnaround is “symptomatic of the practices of local barony by Jean-Luc Moudenc. His policy is to force the mayors to go in his direction … “
“A method of vassalization”
“Beyond knowing where the investments are going, it is the lack of vision that concerns us”, adds Antoine Maurice. “Of course there are investments based in Toulouse that benefit the entire Metropolis”, tempers the leader of the Greens in the Pink City, “but we are constantly sailing at the discretion of the mayor- president, small arrangements between friends ”. Evoking the banishment of Philippe Perrin, he depicts “a vassalization method : as soon as you do not agree, you are excluded from your majority ”.
Is the City getting rid of its debt to the Metropolis?
According to Michèle Bleuse, with her PPIM which provides for more than 2 billion euros of investment on the mandate, including 700 million for the road network, Toulouse will further widen the debt of the Metropolis, to take care of that of the Town Hall.
“Jean-Luc Moudenc has no qualms about indebting the Metropolis, but he is indebting the City of Toulouse …”
Debt increased… before taxes?
Between its main budget and its ancillary budgets, the Metropolis posted according to environmentalists a debt of 1.145 billion euros at the end of 2020. According to projections, this would climb to “1.174 billion at the end of 2021. But we must also add the debt of satellites (mainly Tisséo), which was already at 2.255 billion at the end of 2020 ″. The sum of all that, “it’s huge,” worries Michèle Bleuse, even before the arrival of the third metro line.
She denounces “fiscal and financial sleight of hand” between the Metropolis and its satellites to drown the figures, and summarizes this management of the Moudenc team “To denied realities, inconsistencies and risky bets”. The ecologist is convinced that communities will not be able to repay these debts without having to increase the prices of public services, and to “A rise in taxes for individuals and businesses ”.
The “decline” of public transport
While bicycle policy in their eyes in Toulouse a little too patina, environmentalists are also alarmed “by the status quo, if not hindsight, of the projects of public transport “ in the Pink City: “The urban cable car is delayed, the tram will be stopped for three years (the section between Jean-Maga and the airport will not be served before the new Aeroport Express line comes into service in 2026, editor’s note).
About the 3e line metro, “we still do not see the funding.” For Isabelle Hardy, the observation is relentless: “Only a public service delegation, which is akin to privatization, allow the project to come to fruition. It’s suicidal, while a Toulouse RER could be funded immediately, “storms the elected, who calls for” to preserve the governance “.
There remains the financing of the Bordeaux-Toulouse LGV, for which the Metropolis will in turn commit on Thursday. The opposition has made its accounts, and estimates that it will cost “13 million euros per year, over 40 years” to the community. “But again, what will she sacrifice to finance the LGV? “
Two wishes for the environmental group
The elected representatives of the MECTS group, who will vote in favor of the metropolitan housing pact, while expressing reservations to “ask the metropolis to have a more comprehensive reflection on this subject”, will also submit two wishes on Thursday. The first for “a climate emergency plan”, in order to formulate “concrete proposals on questions of mobility and energy. The second for” a bicycle loan service for young people on social criteria “. Idea, explains Thomas Karmann, it is “to offer a long-term loan of locally reconditioned bicycles, to allow young people to integrate into working life”.
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