The city of Paris’ revenues have fallen by 300 million euros by the end of 2023. The supplementary budget provides for another 100 million euros less.
The crisis in the real estate market has caused the Paris city hall’s revenues, already reduced by nearly 300 million at the end of 2023, to melt by 100 million euros more, indicated the deputy for finance. Included in the supplementary budget that will be submitted to the Paris Council from Monday, this new drop in operating revenues is linked to the continuation of the “crisis in the real estate sector, which has very strong consequences for all departments in France”, Paul Simondon stressed during a press briefing.
In the fall of 2023, the city’s transfer rights for consideration (DMTO), otherwise known as “notary fees”, had already fallen by 295 million, to 1.45 billion euros, out of a total of around 6 billion in tax revenue. For MoDem MP Maud Gatel, the executive of PS mayor Anne Hidalgo had before that “refused, in the supplementary budget (2023), to revise its forecasts, suggesting a problem of insincerity”.
“We weren’t pessimistic enough”
This new drop of 100 million “was obviously foreseeable in December”, added LR senator Marie-Claire Carrère-Gée, stressing that the left-wing executive, with 86 million euros of additional operating expenses, “is widening” the gap between income and expenses by almost “200 million”.
The city can still count on 385 million euros in gross savings, Paul Simondon stressed. “The opposition is playing its role when it says that we have not been pessimistic enough,” he commented, saying that he is adapting his budget “to reality.” Among the 86 million in new spending, “nothing” concerns the Olympic Games, he specified. The repairs to the Sully bridge, damaged in January by a barge, for example, cost 6 million euros, he indicated.
The operating budget of France’s largest community amounts to 10.1 billion euros, in expenditure and revenue.