Bercy estimates that his administrations could do without around a quarter of the areas currently in use… Hence the “ambitious reform of state properties” unveiled last month by Thomas Cazenave, the minister responsible for the recovery of public finances.
Objectives: to sell buildings in order to reduce the public deficit and reduce the impact of public organizations on real estate.
The government wants to drastically reduce the administrative costs of real estate-iStock-OceanProd.jpg
Sell real estate to get the nation out of debt
The government must accelerate the reduction of its public deficit. Matignon has announced that he aims to create at least 12 billion euros in additional savings for the 2025 budget.
One of the means to achieve this will be to carry out “property sales”, Thomas Cazenave said. The real estate assets of the state and public bodies could thus achieve a reduction in some buildings.
Today, worth 73 billion euros, it includes more than 191,000 buildings and 30,000 plots of land, representing at least 99 million square meters, according to Bercy.
If in these spaces there are mainly hospitals, prisons, courts, stadiums and even museums, almost half of the spaces are used for housing and offices… It is in these offices, occupied by administrative activities, that Bercy wants to make a decision.
Already between 2018 and 2022, the state unloaded various real estate assets, but managed to reduce the total area of its assets by only 5%.
In a cross-examination with Thomas Cazenave published on November 19 in La Tribune on Sunday, Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy and Public Accounts, said that the state was going to “relaunch the asset transfer plan to help reduce the debt on the nation’s accounts”.
More sobriety for less real estate impact
If teleworking, which has increased significantly due to the health crisis, could be used by companies to save money, why shouldn’t the state do the same?
This is the reasoning used by Thomas Cazenave: “We need to reduce the area occupied by administration by 25%. ( ) It is a real lever for sobriety, especially given the new forms of work.
The ratio of area per public official is 24 square meters today, which is much more than the private sector. We want to reduce it to 16 square meters”; he explained as follows. And specify that “there will be no immunity. All ministers will be concerned.”
Who will manage the real estate policy of the state?
The General Directorate for Public Finance (DGFiP) has established a body “in the service of expertise and strategy in the field of state real estate” … It is the DIE (Directorate for State Real Estate).
Its mission is described on its website: “Definition and implementation of real estate policy of the state and its operators, management of state policy in the field of real estate, development of legislation and state regulations, as well as implementation of state management and evaluation missions.