Several gendarmerie barracks have had to suspend the payment of their rents due to cash flow problems attributed in particular to the Olympics and the large deployment of gendarmes in New Caledonia, we learned on Tuesday from the Ministry of the Interior, which ensures that the situation will be resolved in “early next year”.
The total amount of unpaid rent at this stage is 200 million euros, it was specified.
This situation, revealed by France Bleu, is due to three reasons, according to the ministry: one “initial credit shortfall”of the “expenses incurred due to events in New Caledonia which had not been anticipated” and the “payment of security-related expenses” of the Olympic Games which “had not been evaluated at their fair level”.
The ministry therefore had to “make choices” and decided to “prioritize expenses related to operational activity for the coming weeks”for example fuel. The payment of rents for September, October and November was “postponed to December”.
THE “rents will be paid”adds the ministry, which says it is waiting to do this “the end of management law and the opening of new credits in December” which provides for an envelope of 320 million euros. “This is only a payment deferral, everything should be back to normal at the beginning of next year”.
In Elne, near Perpignan, the gendarmerie has only paid the first quarter of its annual rent, said AFP Nicolas Garcia, communist mayor of the town of nearly 10,000 inhabitants.
A shortfall of more than 100,000 euros which weighs on the city’s budget. The municipality fell into debt to the tune of three million euros for the construction of new gendarmerie premises in 2012 and will, despite unpaid debts, have to pay the annual repayment of its loan to the tune of 151,762 euros.
“A town like ours is always ric-rac. The risk is to have to cut back on certain operating costs”regretted Mr. Garcia, adding that the gendarmerie also owed its municipality the household waste tax for the last three years.
In the community of communes of Aillantais (Yonne), the gendarmerie announced “an ice” rents from October 2024, according to its president Mahfoud Aomar.
“We received an email dated September 25 from the Real Estate Affairs of the National Gendarmerie, with the subject + Rent pause +. It’s burlesque! It is the gendarmerie or the police who evict those who do not pay their rent. And, when we have a fine from the gendarmerie, we cannot say that we are not going to pay”he told AFP.
President of the Association of French Mayors of the Pyrénées-Orientales and mayor of Sainte-Marie-la-Mer, Edmond Jorda denounced a “double punishment”.
“The municipalities already ensure the State treasury by carrying the construction loans of the gendarmerie. And we would also have to advance more cash to compensate for the non-payment of rent? ».
The AMF requests that unpaid rents be advanced by the departmental public finance directorates, said Mr. Jorda.
Payment deferral “does not concern +small+ landlords, individuals and smaller communities”nor those overseas, assures the ministry. “Only lessors whose cash flow is able to support these delays” are concerned, he added, specifying that he had asked the local authorities, in particular the zone prefects, to “react immediately as soon as a problem arises for a fragile lessor”.