French minister threatens to take control of Paris budget after mayor ‘bankrupts’ city

Emmanuel Macron’s government has threatened to take control of Paris’ budget after Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist mayor, ran up debts of €7.7 billion (£6.7 billion).

Clément Beaune, Emmanuel Macron's transport minister, told le Journal du Dimanche that placing Paris “under trusteeship” could “not be ruled out” given the parlous state of Parisian finances.

Paris’ debt, which was zero in 2000, has doubled since Ms Hidalgo, 63, first became mayor in 2014.

“It’s very serious,” Mr Beaune insisted, while adding: “I wouldn't wish for (guardianship) as it would be an extremely negative last resort and I’m attached to freedom, autonomy of local authorities and responsibility in politics.”

Paris’ Left-wing mayor, who crashed out of this year’s presidential race with just 1.7 per cent of the vote (winning only 23,000 votes in Paris), has faced fierce opposition criticism for presiding over a massive rise in debt. This month empty Parisian coffers forced her to break a campaign promise by slapping a 50 per cent property tax hike on residents to avoid bankruptcy.

‘Calamitous financial management’

Gabriel Attal, Mr Macron’s public accounts minister, went even further in denouncing her “calamitous financial management” by last week likening city hall's social housing loan system that left a billion-euro hole in its finances to a “Ponzi scheme”.

“The state cannot plug all the management problems of Paris town hall,” he said. “There are more civil servants in Paris than in the European Commission,” he added, pointing out that the figure now surpassed the 50,000-mark.

Blasting the attack as “lies that cast aspersions on (the city’s) honour and its credibility”, Ms Hidalgo announced last week that she was suing the minister for slander over the Ponzi scheme remark.

While her supporters insist she has multiplied bike lanes and pedestrianised swathes of the city, critics say endless road works have brought chronic gridlock to the capital while vast amounts of taxpayers’ money has been wasted on questionable projects, which have often been inexplicably binned or changed, such as the Velib’ bike rental scheme, at huge cost.

Meanwhile, say the detractors, Paris has become dirtier and uglier and more dangerous under her watch, which they say helps explain why the city has lost 60,000 residents in the past five years.

Political observers say the frontal attacks on Ms Hidalgo from the two Macron ministers suggest both nurture ambitions to run for Paris mayor in 2026.