On September 25, Jean-Marc Vasse received an email from the Real Estate Affairs of the national gendarmerie. A message intended to warn the mayor of Terres-de-Caux, in Seine-Maritime, that the rents for the third and fourth quarters would not be paid. “My blood only did one thing,” the elected official told 20 Minutes. It must be said that for this new town of around 4,200 inhabitants, this represents the tidy sum of 95,000 euros. Money which is used to reimburse the construction of the barracks erected in 2017 to replace the old one, 45 years old, which was “obsolete”.
At the time, the community paid 4,737,000 euros to finance the construction work. “We received a little help from the State, to the tune of 1.2 million. But the rest we borrowed,” continues Jean-Marc Vasse. The State signed a nine-year lease and pays Terres-de-Caux rent of 190,000 euros each year. So it is an understatement to say that the announcement of the suspension of payments was received coldly by the mayor of the new town. “We have a budget dedicated to the gendarmerie, and we have a little cash flow. But for other municipalities, it can be more complicated,” he adds.
A slate of 200 million euros
Because the mayor of Terres-de-Caux is not the only one to find himself in this situation. As revealed by France Bleu, many municipalities are facing unpaid rent from the national gendarmerie. To find out the reason, 20 Minutes questioned the Ministry of the Interior, which did not respond to our requests. Place Beauvau nevertheless informed AFP that its cash flow problems are due to “expenses incurred due to events in New Caledonia which had not been anticipated”, and to “payments of expenses linked to security” of the Olympic Games which “had not been evaluated at their fair level”.
The total amount of unpaid rent at this stage is 200 million euros. “There are municipalities in which the gendarmerie barracks have been paid for a long time. For them, the rents paid represent an operating income and are used for schools or to clean the streets,” observes Edmond Jorda, the mayor of Sainte-Marie-la-Mer and president of the Association of Mayors of France of the Pyrénées-Orientales. . He cites the example of Cabestany, 10,000 inhabitants, for which this represents 270,000 euros per year. And for Latour-de-France, a village of a thousand souls, it’s 40,000 euros per year. “It’s still significant. And we realized at the same time that certain municipalities had a year of unpaid rent arrears! »
“A measure taken unilaterally”
The decision was taken by the former Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin. The services of his successor, Bruno Retailleau, assured AFP that these “rents will be paid”. For this, the Ministry of the Interior is awaiting “the end of management law and the opening of new appropriations in December” which provides an envelope of 320 million euros. “This is only a payment deferral, everything should be back to normal at the start of next year,” promises Place Beauvau, adding that this payment deferral “does not concern “small” lessors , individuals and smaller communities”, nor those overseas. “Only lessors whose cash flow is able to support these delays. »
Edmond Jorda was especially struck by the “brutality” of the method used. “We are elected officials with a sense of responsibility. We know very well that there can be difficult times and we are capable of showing solidarity with the State. What shocked us, what stunned us, was that this was a measure taken unilaterally. Have you ever seen a tenant decide overnight that they will not pay their rent for the next three months? It’s not happening,” underlines the elected official 20 Minutes. “We should have sat around the table, discussed the difficulties that we can understand, and found solutions together. It’s unfortunate. This is not how we understand relations between the State and communities. And we could have avoided a crisis. »
