Paris (AFP)

Emmanuel Macron is expected Tuesday afternoon for the solemn opening of the congress of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF) in a peaceful atmosphere, despite disagreements between elected officials and the executive and the very strong expectations of mayors.

For three days, this last big meeting of the communities before the municipal elections of March brings together some 12,000 elected and combative participants, Porte de Versailles in Paris. Previously, a day will be devoted Monday to the Overseas.

The mayors will give a very respectful welcome to the head of state ensures the president of the AMF François Baroin (LR), which however recalls persistent disagreements on how "the state deals with local authorities".

Change of atmosphere ! A year ago, Emmanuel Macron had dried up the congress in a climate of permanent tension between the executive and local elected representatives since the beginning of the five-year period.

Since then, the mayors have mobilized during the "big debate" to find a way out of the crisis of "yellow vests" and the executive has worked to strengthen ties. A seduction operation that accelerated on the approach of the municipal.

Sign of renewed confidence: at four months of the vote, mayors are more than 28% not want to represent in 2020, against about one in two a year ago, according to a survey of Cevipof (Sciences Po ) broadcast a few days before the congress. That is, substantially the same proportion as during the municipal elections of 2014.

Emmanuel Macron's speech will focus on "major issues" to "renew the republican pact between the president and mayors" and the head of state will take the time to "exchange with elected officials," said the presidency.

He will receive 1,500 of them the next day at the Elysee and the invitations were managed by the AMF, she says. Thursday, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe will close the congress.

- Change of tone -

"We all have the duty to succeed in this congress", summarizes Sebastien Lecornu, Minister in charge of Territorial Communities: "After what the country has known, nobody would understand that it is not a moment in which one works efficiently and serenely. -being we do not agree on certain topics, but it does not matter ".

Disagreements include the local taxation, the compensation for the abolition of the housing tax or the management of the competence "water and sanitation" by the intercommunalities.

"If the tone has changed, the background remains the same," complained for his part André Laignel (PS), vice president of the AMF, according to which the executive does not meet the expectations of elected officials.

The intervention of the Head of State in opening should feed the three days of debates, in which will participate several members of the government. The complicated relations between municipalities and intercommunalities, the protection of mayors victims of violence, the hospital network or the ecological transition will be discussed during twenty round tables.

Another "big topic", according to François Baroin: Emmanuel Macron will be eagerly awaited on his intentions in terms of decentralization, before a new step announced for 2020. The elected officials claim a major evolution in the relations between the State and the communities and dread simple adjustments.

On the eve of the congress, the Assembly will start on Monday the first reading of the draft law "Commitment and proximity" to facilitate the lives of mayors. A text emblematic of this act 2 of the quinquennium that the executive wants closer to realities on the ground.

The bill is aimed in particular at the elected representatives of small municipalities, that is to say the overwhelming majority of them, 90% of the 35,000 municipalities with less than 3,500 inhabitants.

Goverments and associations of elected officials of small and medium towns launched a "cry of alarm" Emmanuel Macron, Sunday in the JDD, to claim "more human, material and logistical means" face the "recrudescence" of incivilities and delinquency.

This 102nd Congress of the AMF will also be the one of the balance sheet of the term of office (2014-2020), marked in particular by the decrease of the financial means of the communities and the law NOTRe of 2015 modifying the size of the intermunicipalities.

© 2019 AFP