Willy-nilly, Anne Hidalgo must communicate on her expense reports. The mayor of Paris seemed reluctant: journalist Stefan de Vries has been demanding access to his expenses, in particular concerning the organization of the 2024 Olympics, for five years. Faced with the refusal – or lack of response – from the town hall, the journalist seized the Council of State, which therefore agreed with him, reports Le Figaro, Thursday March 9.
The journalist had initially made the request directly to the municipality, arguing the 1978 law which obliges the administrations to communicate the expense reports to whoever requests it. On February 8, the Council of State agreed with him. The socialist mayor’s team had one month to provide the requested information. The day after the delay, no news. Stefan de Vries has therefore put the City of Paris on notice.
“I do not understand why civil servants paid by the taxpayer can act like this, and hope to evade their obligations of transparency until the end”, was surprised the independent journalist, quoted by the daily. Because before arriving at the current procedures, Stefan de Vries went through the cabinet of Anne Hidalgo, then had seized the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents (Cada). For his subjects, the journalist has already successfully seized the Cada on several occasions. This time he had remained with his beak in the water.
“Anne Hidalgo told Cada that this request violated the privacy of her firm and that of those invited at the taxpayer’s expense, which was later challenged by the courts. She wanted to go to the end of all possible remedies: you feel despised in these cases, when you are a small journalist with few means, when opposite they have all their time, they have lawyers…” , he tells our colleagues from the daily newspaper.
Finally, Stefan de Vries will be received at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris. His last requests annoyed: “It’s a bit cavalier to put the mayor of Paris on notice right away”, we react on the side of the town hall, which explains its slowness following the decision of the Council of State . This is “because of the difficulty in gathering all these documents”, especially “during school holidays”, reports the daily.
Following the publication of @PaulSugy’s article this morning, the town hall sent me an email (the 1st in 5 years!) indeed in which she ‘invites me to a meeting’ in 2 weeks in the flesh and in bone. Ergo: the deadline is not respected.
The journalist should therefore finally be received in two weeks.