In an interview published by Nice-Matin, the President of the General Council emphatically stated that “solidarity will be the priority of the General Council in 2012” and illustrated his point by adding that the budget allocated to the four social missions of the Department will exceed 500 million euros for the first time.
This sounds like an admission and puts this pompous statement in its proper place because if the amount reaches these figures, it is not due to a proactive policy of the General Council, but because of the transfer of responsibilities that the State has multiplied under the right without accompanying them with the corresponding financial resources, as we have been denouncing for several years.
This is particularly true for disabilities, where expenses have increased by €8 million since 2010, while the State’s contribution has stagnated. The same goes for the RSA, where the deficits between the expenses incurred by the Department and the State’s compensation keep widening, amounting to €14 million in the 2012 Budget. This surely leads him to this outburst of demagoguery about “social fraud” without any relation to the figures it represents.
Then, regarding the elderly, not a word is said about what remains the major problem in the Alpes-Maritimes, a very strong predominance of the for-profit private sector, contrary to the national average, which creates a growing gap between the median income of those over 60 – €1,240 – and the exorbitant prices charged in these private establishments.
And though there is much talk about security (as opposed to safety), because of the elections, there is also silence on access to housing, one of the major problems in our department where over
70% of the population is eligible for social rental housing.
Nothing about the decrease in the Department’s revenues and the loss of fiscal autonomy imposed by the State when, in 2009, it allowed us to decide on nearly a third of our revenues, whereas today we control only 16% of them.
But how can Eric CIOTTI, deputy and President of the General Council, shed crocodile tears over the soaring unemployment, the result of the policy he supports at the national level and applies at the departmental level, when the Department’s investments have fallen by nearly €180 million since 2008, with all the impacts on the local economic fabric, notably all the SMEs/SMIs, and the consequences in terms of maintaining activity and employment? Since 2008, minus €8 million on roads, minus €23.5 million for colleges.
This is why the self-congratulatory speech of the President of the General Council seems as misplaced as it is indecent in these difficult times for the majority of our fellow citizens. It is true that the approach of election deadlines, which are shaping up to be difficult for the right, encourages all political deceptions, but we want to hope that the political debate will nevertheless be able to maintain its caliber in its content to address the true fundamental questions that concern the French: employment, health, housing, education, purchasing power, security, so many failures of the outgoing President fervently supported by Eric CIOTTI.
More than ever, for 2012 to be synonymous with a real change of direction and policy, proposals and policies must focus on humanity, first and foremost!
Noël ALBIN – Francis TUJAGUE – Jacques VICTOR
Communist General Councillors of the Alpes-Maritimes
