A new report by the Court of Auditors has eviscerated the Paris city management over the French capital’s financial straits.
Six months ahead of the municipal elections, the regional chamber of accounts of Île-de-France warned that the financial situation was “critical”, pointing to increased spending, soaring debt and insufficient revenues.
In the report, published yesterday and seen by news outlet Les Echos, the regional auditors concluded that the financial situation of the city of Paris had moved from “fragile” to “degraded” and added that “recovery measures are necessary”.
Expenses rose by 13 per cent but revenues lagged behind, increasing 11.6 per cent.
The total debt for Paris now exceeds €9 billion, more than doubling since the arrival of Hidalgo in 2014.
The report found “structural weakness in management savings”.
While the city invested €1.6 billion annually between 2021 and 2024, gross savings “have remained insufficient and too volatile to cover these investments”, it said.
A large part of these investments were in favour of social housing and the “ecological transition”.
In the report, the auditors state that the financial situation has deteriorated to such an extent that it “no longer allows the City to finance its investments other than by resorting to borrowing, which today exceeds prudential ratios”, as it deepens the debt spiral.
Gross savings, a vital indicator of the city’s ability to self-finance, plummeted by 64.6 per cent in the past year, dropping from €760 million to €268.7 million.
The report highlights that personnel costs (excluding reimbursements) have risen sharply over the past two years in a city with more than 50,000 employees. It recommended tighter control over management expenses.
The auditors benchmarked Paris against other European capitals, revealing stark differences: Paris employs one city agent per 39 inhabitants, compared to one per 107 in London and one per 95 in Rome. If Paris matched London’s staffing ratio, it could potentially save up to €1.8 billion annually, they said.
As early as 2022, auditors had cautioned that Paris’s debt could soar to nearly €9 billion by 2026. Yet, the city’s management has since surpassed even that grim forecast.
According to the analysis, the 51.8 per cent property tax hike introduced by Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo in 2023 — intended to boost savings — has been offset by a decline in real estate transfer taxes and rising expenditures.
Paris’ debt repayment capacity, a measure of financial health, now exceeds 15 years, far surpassing the legal alert threshold of 12 years. This places the city among the most indebted in France.
Hidalgo, who announced she would not to run for a third term, said she had “balanced accounts”, stressing they were “certified by an auditor and validated by the rating agencies”.
She said certain assertions were “unbalanced, contrary to the practices of the chamber and which could give rise to a partisan instrumentalisation of the report”.
Hidalgo criticised the report, citing “several significant factual errors that distort its conclusions.” She also questioned the timing of its release, calling the presentation schedule “unusual”.
Former first deputy and former deputy for finance of the capital Emmanuel Grégoire had previously claimed that the city was “very well managed”, and had “no sustainability problem”.
David Alphand, a Paris councillor of the Centre-right Les Républicains, said: “If the Parisian right had authored this report, critics might dismiss it as biased. But it was signed by the magistrates of the Court of Auditors, and it confirms what we’ve been warning about: a real financial crisis — a debt spiral that’s now undeniable.”
Centrist politician Pierre-Yves Bournazel, who is running for mayor in the elections, pointed out that by 2026, Paris will be €10 billion in debt and have to pay €225 million per year on interest costs alone.
“If Paris were a member state, the European Commission would have accused it of excessive debt and would have sanctioned it a long time ago,” he added.
The report comes as Hidalgo is embroiled in a controversy over her own expenses. The association for Citizen Transparency was able to retrieve part of the Paris Mayor’s expenses report and found she used taxpayer money to pay for luxury brand clothing.
Hidalgo was reimbursed for €6,320 worth of Dior dresses in 2024, a Burberry coat costing €3,067 in 2023, a Dior blouse worth €1,120 in 2021 and a Burberry Jacket costing €1,087 in 2020. In 2022, she bought an Eric Bompard poncho for €340, according to the association.
In total, she spent €84,200 on clothes and €210,000 on travel. Of the 79 reimbursed trips she made, none received authorisation by the municipal council, according to journalist Gilles Verdez.
Reacting the expenses, Citizen Transparency started a campaign in Paris on September 20, putting up posters about where the taxpayer money went all across the capital, showing the actual receipts on X.
Hidalgo said she was the victim of a smear campaign and filed a complaint for slanderous denunciation. The Paris mayor is demanding €210,000, almost enough to pay for the wardrobe she allegedly bought with public money.
The amount demanded is the sum of 140 illegal posters and the fine of €1,500 per infringement.
Citizen Transparency said Hidalgo is aiming to silence it and has set up a fundraising campaign to defend itself.
La mairie de Paris nous menace d'une amende de 200.000 euros pour avoir affiché les notes de frais d'Anne Hidalgo sur les murs de la ville !
Oui vous avez bien lu… 200.000 euros ! De quoi rembourser les dépenses hallucinantes de la Maire et faire taire à tout jamais… pic.twitter.com/ZCAPXquZpL— Transparence Citoyenne (@TransparenceCit) September 24, 2025
