This is a key fiscal legacy of Emmanuel Macron’s mandate. So no question of touching it. On Sunday, Minister Catherine Vautrin assured in an interview with Parisian that there would be “no return to the housing tax” within the framework of the 2025 Budget, despite the request of certain local elected officials. “There will be no new tax, but we must think about possible participation in living in the city or village,” specifies the Minister of Partnership with the Territories and Decentralization.
The number three in the government says she is “ready to resume work relating to taxation which had been started by elected officials” of the Local Finance Committee to meet the needs of mayors. Discussions could open “early 2025”. But there is no question of creating a new tax. “France already has a high rate of compulsory deductions and we will ensure that it does not increase,” warns the minister.
A slimming cure for the State
The proposal from the Association of Mayors of France, chaired by LR David Lisnard, to create a “citizen contribution to public service”, therefore does not seem “ridiculous” to him. Even if the form is still vague, Catherine Vautrin above all wants to “make everyone aware of the importance of the cost”.
This reflection on the financing of municipalities comes in a tense context for the government, which must find savings to make in its 2025 Budget. “The French debt is so expensive that it has become the second budget of the nation”, recalls the minister. She herself intends to be “exemplary” at the head of her ministry, promising to “return positions” and remove duplication in the agencies that depend on her ministry.
“Play the game to the fullest” before the fall of the government
Number of advisors, travel, everything will be closely scrutinized to ensure the state budget is slimmed down. At the same time, Catherine Vautrin supervises the deployment of France Services, a network of structures hosting several public services, counting on 2,800 labeled establishments by the end of 2024. “Across the country, the French are twenty minutes from ‘a France Services house. »
Between this objective at the end of 2024 and the discussions planned for “early 2025”, Catherine Vautrin’s agenda may seem very short-term. The government, which is based on a fragile alliance between LR and Ensemble, may not resist the debates on the Budget. Aware that “it could stop at any moment”, as last June, Catherine Vautrin nevertheless intends to “play the match to the fullest” without defeatism.