Marseille (AFP)

The time of the accounts sounds for Jean-Claude Gaudin: mayor (LR) of Marseilles since a quarter of century, it puts on Monday in debate in the municipal council a vitriolic report of the regional room of the accounts on its management of the second city of La France.

A little more than three months of municipal elections, the baron of the right Marseille, who will not run again, will have to play in defense, on the most disputed aspects of a record darkened by the death of eight inhabitants in the collapse of two substandard buildings on November 5, 2018.

The report of the Regional Chamber of Accounts (CRC), which the AFP was able to consult, quails its management of the city: dilapidated schools, degraded public finances, sometimes illegal management of staff or erratic real estate policy.

The mayor and his majority, however, have no intention of making mea culpa and intend to lead the counter-attack with a target financial magistrates: "We will be, the mayor first, especially offensive and we can not wait to judge the judge" said Thursday to the press the Republican leader at the town hall, Yves Moraine.

There are in this report "very serious errors, a rare analysis poverty and ethical failings on which we will ask explanations to the magistrates," insisted the elected, lawyer training. "I hope they will get up early and have their ears wide open, even if they are half-closed, they will hear us: we will speak loudly!"

On the merits, the majority criticizes the CRC for criticism that would be unfounded on the state of disrepair of schools - a file on which the state had to take control in 2016. "In my life, I did not never seen magistrates support an argument on news articles.It is no longer the CRC is the + CDC +, the coffee trade, "Moraine said ironically, citing a passage in the report in which the chamber supports actually his criticism by quoting a newspaper.

- "He's going to cast" -

Conversely, the opposition should find electoral fuel in the hundreds of pages written by the magistrates, in a city "40 years behind", according to the leader of the socialists Benoît Payan: Marseille is "bombarded by the Regional Chamber of Accounts (in this report) salted, seasoned and violent "fruit of a work" serious and abundant ".

The report refers to cases under judicial investigation, such as staff costs, and the highly contested decisions of the mayor, including "contracts passed in total ignorance of the rules of public control", but also raises of new hares, especially on "real estate scandals", he notes.

As for Jean-Claude Gaudin, 80, this city council, one of his very last, does not mark the time of "goodbye", predicts the elected socialist. On the contrary, "he will castagner".

The debates, where speaking time will be for once not limited, will provide a forum for contenders for mayor.

This will be by proxy for candidates such as the ecologist Sébastien Barles or the MP LREM Saïd Ahamada, who do not sit on the council, or directly for Senator and elected municipal RN Stéphane Ravier, who explains to AFP want to speak for "a great moment of truth after so many years of lies".

The exercise looks much more difficult for two other candidates, who are competing for the nomination of the Republicans: the president of the metropolis Martine Vassal and Senator Bruno Gilles. Both members of the municipal majority for over 15 years, they find themselves in a position of balancing, seeking to stand out of the legacy of Jean-Claude Gaudin, without irreparably anger with the patriarch of the local right.

© 2019 AFP